Atlanta Through the Archives

Racial Zone Map

Summary

Classified residential areas as white, colored, or undetermined race districts. The plan includes explicit language of enforced zoning segregation in its description, argued with an appeal to public peace: “the above race zoning is essential in the interest of the public peace, order and security and will promote the welfare and prosperity of both the white and colored race… without encroaching on the areas now occupied by the other.”

Racial components of the plan were struck down as unconstitutional by the Georgia Supreme Court in the 1924 case Bowen v. City of Atlanta.

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SOURCES:

Map Image: Kenan Research Center. (2017). 1922 Tentative zone plan, Atlanta, Ga., City Planning Commission. Atlanta History Center Digital Resources. Retrieved April 15, 2022, from https://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/digital/collection/p17222coll5/id/117

Accompanying Document: Whitten, R. (1922). The Atlanta Zone Plan : Report outlining a tentative zone plan for Atlanta. Retrieved April 15, 2022, from https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=osu.32435003851870&view=1up&seq=3&skin=2021

Bowen v. City of Atlanta: Gilbert. (n.d.). Bowen v. City of Atlanta, 159 Ga. 145 (1924). Caselaw Access Project. Retrieved April 15, 2022, from https://cite.case.law/ga/159/145/