Sorrow of a City: The (After)Life of the Atlanta Child Murders

Session Submission Type: Non-Paper Session: Dialogue Format

Abstract

Taking its title and most of its cues from Maurice J. Hobson’s influential monograph The Legend of the Black Mecca: Politics and Class in the Making of Modern Atlanta (2017), this roundtable session features Atlanta based scholars, archivists, and curators to consider the (after)life of the Atlanta Child Murders through its archival memory and the expressive culture it influenced. Recalling the two-year period between 1979-1981 when at least 28 mostly poor black boys were found dead and discarded in the city’s outdoors, the roundtable explores the intra-racial class and political tensions of this period and examines its current role in shaping contemporary storytelling about black American experience.

Participants: Dr. Maurice Hobson, Assistant Professor, Georgia State University, Tiffany Atwater Lee, Public Services Archivist-Robert Woodruff Library, Dr. Calinda Lee, Atlanta History Center, Holly Smith, Archivist, Spelman College; Dr. Maurita Poole, Curator, Clark Atlanta University

Sub Unit

• American Studies Association Annual Meeting

Chair

• Michelle S Hite, Spelman College

Panelists

• Maurice J Hobson, Georgia State University

• Holly Smith, Spelman College

• Tiffany Atwater Lee, Robert Woodruff Library

• Calinda Lee, Atlanta History Center

• Maurita Poole, Clark Atlanta University Art Museum