Neighborhoods - Dixie Hills

You don’t have to look hard to find the sense of history in this neighborhood. At the wishbone intersection of Morehouse Drive, Spellman Street, and Morris Brown Avenue in Northwest Atlanta stands the steepled sanctuary of the 82-year-old congregation known as Dixie Hills First Baptist Church. During the long hot summer of 1967, when more than 100 race riots broke out around the country, Dixie Hills joined the rebellion for three nights after Kwame Turé (then Stokely Carmichael) addressed a protest over a youngster’s shooting by a black policeman. Today the former working-class neighborhood’s old brick homes and weathered wooden ones may look a little worse for the wear, but Dixie Hills also boasts one of Atlanta’s rare hidden gems in the 56-acre Anderson Park, which received many upgrades as a direct result of the ’67 riot. — Rodney Carmichael