Advocates are calling for the city of Atlanta, as well as companies that benefited from the former brick company, to preserve the site.
Earlier this year, organizers managed to stop construction of a fuel transfer station, but the land is still privately owned.
City Councilman Dustin Hillis represents the area. He says Atlanta passed up multiple opportunities to purchase the land over the years.
“At the end of the day, I want to see a memorial park, and in the land that is not in the floodplain, there’s a chance to look at an eyes on the park-type housing development that contains affordable housing, things like that,” Hillis said.
Joel Hurt: a 19th-century businessman who abused the convict leasing system
From slavery to convict leasing, one Atlanta businessman blurred the lines between the two. Photo Courtesy of GSU Library Archives
Joel Hurt, an Atlanta Businessman of the late 1800s to the early 1900s and co-founder of Suntrust Bank, is credited with building the Atlanta we see today. He is the man behind The Hurt Building on 33 Hurt Plaza, featured in the Golden Globe-nominated series “Lovecraft Country,” the Equitable Building and the Inman Park neighborhood’s development.
However, people do not say much about how Joel Hurt contracted labor from prisons to create materials for his buildings.