Photograph by Audra Melton
Growing up in Reynoldstown during the 1960s, Pamela Mayo could always count on her neighbors to give her a ride to school or share a cup of sugar. On Fridays, she would bring a plate of her mother’s fried fish to her next-door neighbor, who would share her one-of-a-kind homemade buttermilk biscuits and maple syrup. “Man, I miss those days,” Mayo says. “Neighbors were like family.”
Founded in 1870, Reynoldstown emerged as one of Atlanta’s first Black neighborhoods after the Civil War and emancipation. Formerly enslaved people settled along train tracks, where men found jobs as railroad workers and laborers. Meanwhile, women worked in domestic service in nearby White neighborhoods. Building new lives in a region still riven by racial animosity and violent segregation, emancipated Black Georgians established a community of their own with cafes, barber shops, and other businesses.
In the decades since, Reynoldstown—which is on the National Register of Historic Places—has changed and changed again. After the “White flight” that began in the 1950s sent White Atlantans flocking to the suburbs in droves, historians say the city largely abandoned the Black communities left behind in neighborhoods like Reynoldstown. At the same time, according to reporting by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, racist redlining practices made it harder for Black Atlantans to secure homeowner loans and siphoned the economic vitality out of the neighborhood. But by the early 2000s, a wave of gentrification had engulfed Reynoldstown, with wealthier, mostly White homeowners snapping up houses and raising property values.
Today, the average Reynoldstown home value exceeds half a million dollars, making it harder for legacy Black residents to pay their rising property taxes and stay in their homes. But the sense of community pride that Reynoldstown cultivated all those decades ago lives on today, through the dedication of steadfast residents like Mayo. “I think it’s a good community,” Mayo says. “It’s just a different community feel from what it used to be.”
Stepping into the shoes of a long line of neighborhood activists, Mayo served as president of the Reynoldstown Civic Improvement League during the early 2000s. She volunteered at the neighborhood’s Wheelbarrow Festival and organized neighborhood cleanups. Then, in 2018, Mayo and five other women formed Neighbor in Need Reynoldstown, a committee that assists low-income seniors with free professional home repairs. Modeled after a nonprofit that serves communities in East Lake, Kirkwood, and Edgewood, Neighbor in Need creates a support system by connecting new and longtime residents. The organization is funded primarily by community members and their friends, along with support from the Reynoldstown Civic Improvement League and City Council funds secured by council member Liliana Bakhtiari, who represents Reynoldstown.
Most in the organization agree that Mayo, who has some of the longest-standing relationships in the neighborhood and serves as project manager, is the glue of the committee. But to make all the work possible, Mayo credits her close partnership with Lindy Settevendemie, chair of Neighbor in Need. Settevendemie and her husband purchased their home in Reynoldstown in 2014 for less than $270,000. As a self-described gentrifier, she tries not to fall into the White-savior narrative and instead emphasizes the importance of supporting legacy residents as they choose whether to stay or sell. “This work is about connection, to resources and to people,” Settevendemie says. “And it’s just the right thing to do.”
Photograph by Audra Melton
Diane, a retired driver for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, moved into the neighborhood as a young bride. (As with other residents who have used Neighbor in Need, we’re using only her first name.)
She enjoys the convenient location of her century-old home on Wylie Street, with the grocery store and other businesses nearby. But when her bathroom fell into disrepair, her home felt less welcoming. “You ever felt like something needed to be done, but you just couldn’t figure out how it was gonna get done?” Diane says. She stopped hosting guests and tried to ignore the issue, until her neighbor told her about Neighbor in Need. Just a few weeks after she’d filled out the paperwork, a contractor arrived to repair the sink and toilet and to install grab bars. With her bathroom repaired, Diane resumed inviting church friends to her home.
Hamin, a Vietnam veteran, worried that any passerby could kick in his rotting wooden doors and invade his home. Mayo brought over the application papers, and shortly after, Hamin’s neighbor Rob Del Bueno installed solid-core doors in both entrances.
Neighbor in Need, which spent close to $38,000 on its projects in 2023, helps over a dozen Reynoldstown residents each year. For the homebody living in the 1945 bungalow, the organization repaired a leaking roof and upgraded the HVAC system. For a resident on Cleveland Street, it was a wheelchair ramp, so she could check her mail and travel to her physical therapy exercises. During the pandemic, Neighbor in Need delivered groceries to homebound residents. When a water outage this past summer cut off supply at Mercy Housing’s Reynoldstown Senior Residences building, Neighbor in Need delivered cases of bottled water.
Pressures on Reynoldstown’s long-term residents continue to mount, however, and seniors living on a fixed income feel this squeeze most keenly. Homeowners are hounded by phone calls and pamphlets from property investors, urging them to sell. Diane holds out a flyer she’s received in the mail: “Cash Deal, Close Quickly, Pay No Commissions.” Diane has never considered selling an option. “Where else I’m going to go?” she demands of a persistent caller before hanging up.
Reynoldstown’s history tells a wider story about America, race, and the nature of home. The author Joseph F. Thompson once labeled it a “forgettable place,” but for lifelong residents who have witnessed their beloved neighborhood transition again and again, Reynoldstown—named for prominent Black resident Madison Reynolds, whose two-story brick store is still standing on Wylie Street—has always been a place where community could flourish.
After World War II, historians found that returning White soldiers cashed in on their GI Bill benefits and purchased homes in the suburbs, while racist policies blocked Black veterans from accessing those same benefits, compounding the effect of White flight. By the time Mayo started kindergarten in 1960, Reynoldstown was an almost all-Black community. In the kind of racist disinvestment suffered by majority-Black neighborhoods all over the country, federal policies marked Reynoldstown a bad bet for mortgage lending, and the city neglected to invest in infrastructure such as streetlights and police patrols.
Struggling to secure mortgage and equity loans to buy and repair homes, extended families lived together. Neighbors relied on one another. If a tree fell or a roof needed repair, men on the street would rally to address it. Still, redlining took a toll, and over the years, many homes fell into disrepair.
Things began to change when a neighborhood visionary launched a mission to “bring the neighborhood back where it used to be.” Young T. Hughley Jr., who grew up in the Carver Homes project, moved to Reynoldstown with his family during his freshman year at Morehouse College. In 1987, determined to help his community thrive, he founded the Reynoldstown Revitalization Corporation, later renamed Resources for Residents and Communities.
Hughley secured loans and grants to repair seniors’ homes and built starter homes to usher new blood into the neighborhood. During his tenure, he oversaw the construction and renovation of 500 housing units. By facelifting the neighborhood, he hoped to attract “urban pioneers” of all races who wanted to belong to an inclusive community. As young professionals moved into Reynoldstown, Hughley tried to minimize the effects of gentrification by encouraging new residents to learn about the neighborhood’s origins and form connections with legacy residents.
Hughley both succeeded and failed in that mission: Despite his best efforts, the neighborhood’s metamorphosis displaced many families. Today, with a median home value of close to $600,000, Reynoldstown is a working-class neighborhood no longer. But Hughley, who went on to study at Harvard Kennedy School, believes that his organization helped preserve aspects of Reynoldstown’s pregentrification culture. “I would love to see more Black folk, but at the same time, I’m happy to see it’s a thriving community,” Hughley says.
As inflation and property values rise, can grassroots organizations such as Resources for Residents and Communities and Neighbor in Need really help to halt displacement? How can a community support its most vulnerable members and counter the generations-long impact of redlining and discrimination?
Settevendemie, the committee chair of Neighbor in Need, recognizes that gentrification has no simple solution. Repairing sinks and roofs does not fix the system, she says. Still, their grassroots work can make a world of difference on an individual level, and the impact grows as more neighbors get involved.
“When I’m feeling down about all of that, I think, We’re doing something in our little way that we can,” says Settevendemie. “What we’re doing is not nothing: It enriches everyone’s quality of life by fostering relationships between neighbors.”
This article appears in our October 2024 issue.
