S. Finley Street from Baxter Street to Cloverhurst Avenue has been renamed Linnentown Lane in honor of the former neighborhood that once stood at this location. Both former residents of the neighborhood and elected officials spoke during the unveiling ceremony today that featured live music and cake.
Hattie Thomas Whitehead, a former resident of Linnentown and the chair of the Athens Justice and Memory Project, seemed overjoyed upon seeing her old neighborhood recognized in such a public way, but she also noted the years of activism it’s taken to get to this point. According to Historic Athens, it’s been four years almost to the day since they held the first public forum about Linnentown in September 2019. Whitehead has been active, working on getting public recognition for her former neighborhood since then.
“It’s about time,” Whitehead said during the unveiling ceremony.
Mayor Kelly Girtz thanked Whitehead for trusting that the local government would support former Linnentown residents in good faith as they advocated for recognition and redress. According to Girtz, “she had every reason not to trust us, given her life experience.”
The University of Georgia was also deeply involved in the razing of Linnentown back in the 1960s. Unlike the Athens-Clarke County Government, UGA has fought recognition of Linnentown at every step, going so far as to prevent historical markers and an art installation from going up on their property. The Board of Regents even claimed ownership over the public right-of-way on Finley Street to block the art installation, which was a mosaic created in collaboration with UGA students and community members.
The Linnentown mosaic was displayed for one day outside Memorial Hall as part of a UGA class project.
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