Despite challenges, Georgia’s Black architects make their mark on Atlanta

Screenshot 2025 02 24 At 9.52.47 am

By Nedra Rhone  

One Sunday in May 1917, on the first day of services at the newly built First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Athens, the congregation celebrated with a processional and mortgage burning.

They had raised more than $7,000 to build the brick Victorian-style structure, which included a bell tower, hammer beam roof and stained-glass windows.