Two vacant Vine City houses that once doubled as living rooms and organizing hubs for Atlanta’s civil rights movement are set for a major revival, thanks to a new $2.3 million funding package. The homes belonged to Grace Towns Hamilton and her father, George Alexander Towns, both early Black political thinkers whose address on University Place quietly carried outsized influence.
Preserve Black Atlanta is leading the restoration effort, backed by roughly $1 million from the National Park Service and $1.3 million from the Westside Tax Allocation District, according to Invest Atlanta. The plan is to renovate the properties into cultural and educational sites with managed public access.
Historic figures and local roots
Grace Towns Hamilton broke political ground in Georgia, becoming the first African American woman elected to the Georgia General Assembly in the mid-1960s and representing Vine City for nearly twenty years, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia. Her father, George Alexander Towns, taught at Atlanta University, and local reporting notes that his home hosted visiting civil rights leaders and strategy sessions.
What officials say and next steps
Fulton County Commissioner Dana Barrett told fellow commissioners that the goal is to repair the homes and open them to the public as historic landmarks. Preserve Black Atlanta’s founder has described the properties as places where Black organizers once “organized and strategized.” Officials say they are in the process of securing permits and expect the restoration work to take about two years, as reported by WABE.
Part of a larger preservation push
The Vine City effort is one of several restoration projects backed by TAD funding. Invest Atlanta reports that more than $34 million in TAD grants have been approved for preservation work citywide. Supporters pitch the spending as a way to protect historic sites while attracting investment, although critics have questioned how Westside TAD money is deployed and how to balance preservation with concerns about displacement. The AJC has covered those debates.
The Towns family homes stand across from the Herndon Home Museum on University Place. Project leaders say the plan calls for stabilizing the structures and getting them ready for public programming and educational visits. Preserve Black Atlanta and Invest Atlanta are set to oversee the work and guide the properties toward public access once permitting and contracting are complete. Community groups say the restored sites will help present a more complete account of Atlanta’s civil rights story, and SaportaReport notes, along with Herndon Home listings, the close-knit cluster of Vine City landmarks on that stretch of University Place.
