Fresh Loaf

The site for Atlanta’s planned Civil Rights Cola Museum, um, we mean the Center for Civil and Human Rights, was unveiled Monday next door to the World of Coke in a ceremony long on corporate plugs and short on civil rights figures.

Broadcaster and activist Xernona Clayton was in the front row of observers, along with the widow of the late Ralph David Abernathy Jr. and such familiar businessmen as developer Herman Russell and life-insurance magnate Jesse Hill. But no John Lewis. No Joseph Lowery. No member of the King family.

Mayor Shirley Franklin says Lowery asked her to undertake a formal site review after Coke offered in 2006 to donate 1.2 acres alongside its soft-drink shrine. Last year, an advisory panel appointed by the mayor recommended the Coke site be chosen, but there was no public announcement of the final site selection before this week.

Although Auburn Avenue, in the heart of the Martin Luther King Jr. Historic District, was an obvious alternative, no specific land there was ever identified.

“If you look at other possible sites,” Franklin says, “You don’t get the number of visitors as this centrally located place, which is in the middle of the activity center for downtown.”

Franklin estimated that, aided by its proximity to the World of Coke and the Georgia Aquarium, the $125 million center could draw 800,000 visitors in its first year.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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On Wednesday, we posted a piece revealing that the site for the proposed Center for Civil and Human Rights had apparently been finalized without any public announcement. We found out about it when we heard through the grapevine about a site dedication ceremony scheduled for Monday at the corner of Ivan Allen Boulevard and Centennial Olympic Park Drive, next to the World of Coca-Cola.

Yesterday, we got a call from Doug Shipman, executive director of the Center for Civil and Human Rights Partnership, the city-sponsored group responsible with raising private funding for the museum. Shipman explained that he would like Monday’s ceremony to be a big public kick-off for museum support.

Certainly, we wish the effort well. But when dealing with major civic projects – especially one with the cultural significance of a civil rights center in the hometown of Martin Luther King Jr. – there must be public awareness and buy-in at every step in the process.

Last month, the City Council approved $40 million in funding for the center through the Westside TAD, which narrowed down the options for where the center could be located. But the decision to accept Coca-Cola’s offer of a 2.5-acre lot next to its soft-drink attraction still warranted a public announcement.

Ground-breakings and ribbon-cuttings are supposed to be photo-ops. The big decisions that lead up to the ceremonies are the real news.

The irony in all of this is that it’s almost noon on Friday and we still haven’t seen a press release concerning Monday’s ceremony. Even the Partnership’s website offers no clue that this event will take place. Why is this so hush-hush?

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Atlanta’s much ballyhooed Center for Civil and Human Rights will take an important step toward becoming a reality – a site dedication ceremony – this coming Monday.

Didn’t know a site had been selected? You’re not alone.

Neither City Hall, which helped start the ball rolling for the museum; nor the Atlanta Development Authority, which will issue bonds to help pay for it; nor the Center for Civil and Human Rights Partnership, the city-sponsored group charged with raising private funding, has ever announced that a site had been formally selected.

“I guess you could say that’s what’s happening on Monday,” says A.J. Robinson, president of Central Atlanta Progress, who headed up a panel of business leaders that helped determine the cost and mission of the proposed center in late 2006.

To call the site selection a below-the-radar decision is like saying Paris Hilton doesn’t mind having her picture taken. City Councilman Kwanza Hall, who represents the area, says he didn’t know about the dedication event until just this past Monday. Other council folk we asked hadn’t heard a thing.

So when was this decision made – and, more to the point, who made it?

(more…)

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