Summerhill was one of the first African American Neighborhoods in the South after the Civil War. Summerhill has been at the heart of police brutality protests.The neighborhood flourished in the early 20th century as a working-class community anchored by Georgia State Capitol workers and nearby industries like the Atlanta Crackers baseball team’s Ponce de Leon Park. Its demographics shifted dramatically after the 1911 racial zoning ordinance and subsequent white flight, becoming a predominantly African American neighborhood by the 1930s. Summerhill suffered significant decline after the 1960s construction of Interstate 20 and Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, which displaced hundreds of homes and businesses. In 1996, when the Olympic Games came to Atlanta Summerhill was bulldozed by the Centennial Olympic Stadium which infuriated residents and displaced many populations of Black Americans. Today, Summerhill balances its legacy as one of Atlanta’s oldest Black communities with new mixed-income housing and commercial projects around the former stadium site.
The Boyd Lewis was a prominent Atlanta Journal Constitution Journalist in the 1960s and 80s. The Atlanta History Center has created a collection of his families photographs.
