- Collection:
- Planning Atlanta - A New City in the Making, 1930s-1990s
- Title:
- Curtis Lee Lester oral history interview, 2014 December 17
- Creator:
- Lester, Curtis Lee
- Contributor to Resource:
- Muhammad, Nafeesa
- Publisher:
- Georgia State University Library
- Date of Original:
- 2014-12-17
- Subject:
- Urban renewal
Community development, Urban
Social problems - Location:
- United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Atlanta, 33.749, -84.38798
- Medium:
- transcripts
digital audio formats - Type:
- Text
Sound - Format:
- application/pdf
audio/mpeg - Description:
- Reverend Curtis Lee Lester of Greater Bethany Baptist Church was born in 1945 in Perry, Georgia but has lived in Vine City for about forty-five years. He has five siblings living in Florida and is the only one in Atlanta. Lester has been married almost fifty years and has four children. Although his parents did not complete high school, he possesses advanced degrees which include a Doctorate of Ministry in the area of theology, a B.A. in economics, and an M.A. in theology.
According to Lester, most of the residents from the 1950s and 60s have passed on and their children were not able to maintain or keep their parents' properties. Apartment complexes, houses, jobs, and the like have declined. Lester has seen houses burned down and vacant neighborhood streets. He also mentions an "invisible wall" between the intelligentsia and neighboring communities like Vine City. But that relationship has improved as local colleges have become more involved community activities. Though he agrees that it is a start, Lester admits that the neighborhood is rife with drugs and crime. To Lester, "Vine City is in a state of blight."
Locations: Fulton County (Ga.) -- Atlanta (Ga.) -- Vine City - Metadata URL:
- http://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/PlanATL/id/2816
- IIIF manifest:
- https://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/iiif/2/PlanATL:2816/manifest.json
- Language:
- eng
- Additional Rights Information:
- Copyright to this item is owned by Georgia State University Library. Georgia State University Library has made this item available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. For more information see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
- Extent:
- Audio: 00:19:49, Transcript: 20 pages
- Holding Institution:
- Georgia State University. Special Collections
- Rights:
-
