African American Heritage Pathway
Athens has a new walking tour focused on local African American history. Didi Dunphy, program and staff supervisor at the Lyndon House Arts Center, helped launch it in January 2023. The Lyndon House Arts Center also includes the Ware-Lyndon House Museum, where the walking tour begins. The house was built in the 1840s and is named for Dr. Edward Ware, whose family enslaved others, and Dr. Edward Lyndon. Dunphy worked with interns to uncover the stories of some of those enslaved people and the Black domestic servants employed by the Lyndons, which are now on display at the house museum.
From the Ware-Lyndon House, people on the tour walk through what was once the Lickskillet neighborhood and an area known as the Bottoms. The federal urban renewal program of the 1960s and 1970s demolished them, along with Linnentown and other areas, destroying the communities that lived there. The First African Methodist Episcopal Church, at the corner of Hull and Dougherty streets, was built in 1916 but was previously Pierce Chapel, started in 1865, which housed the first school for Black people in Athens.
The walking tour concludes at the Hot Corner, where West Washington and North Hull streets meet. In the early 20th century, it was the center of Black commerce and entertainment in Athens and includes the famous Morton Theater, built in 1910, which is the oldest standing Black-owned theater in the United States.
If you’re looking to learn more about local Black history, why not try the walking tour?
