Across The Lines

Atlanta

I got the overnight bus up from New Orelans and after a reviving diner breakfast and morning nap I headed down to the Sweet Auburn district. My guidebook tells me a century ago it was the "beating heart of black America" and was still a middle class neighbourhood when Martin Luther King was born there in 1929. These days there's no sign of any of that, it's a depressingly dilapidated hovel full of tramps and boarded up shops. The only part of the area with any real activity this afternoon was the church opposite the memorial to Dr King, dozens of people wearing their Sunday Best were coming out as I walked by which tells you something about where the power still lies in areas like this.

The memorial itself is a simple crypt in the middle of a pool with an eternal flame nearby. During the time I spent in the neighbourhood I didn't see any other white people. It appears the dreams King spoke of so eloquently in the 1960s are as far away from becoming reality as they were then.