p. 15 | A Visit to Atlanta, Ga by William C. White

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 8, 1909

A Visit to Atlanta, Ga.

By William C. White

At the request of Elder W. A. Westworth, I visited Atlanta, Ga., on my way to Washington, D. C. Atlanta is a beautiful city of about one hundred fifty thousand people, and is called the queen city of the South.

This city is a good railway center, and was chosen years ago as the best place in the South for a branch office of the Review and Herald Publishing Association. A strong church grew up in Atlanta, and a commodious meeting-house was built on the south side of the city, not far from the book depository.

When the Southern Publishing Association was located in Nashville, the book business formerly conducted at Atlanta was transferred to Nashville, and our church in Atlanta was weakened by removals.

During the prosperous days of the book business at Atlanta, a large house had been built on South Boulevard and Bryan streets, which served as a depository and a home for the manager and his family. After the removal of the book business to Nashville, this building stood idle for a time, and then, in response to earnest appeals from Elder George I. Butler, it was given by the Review and Herald to the Southern Union Conference, to be used as a sanitarium.

The location was excellent, the lot was large, and the building was in good shape to be utilized for sanitarium purposes. Then nearly three years was lost for lack of capital and wise management in getting the work started. But last year the leading brethren in Georgia and the neighboring States took hold in good earnest to put this sanitarium in working order, and now it is well equipped and as busy as a beehive.

My arrival in Atlanta was early in the morning of Wednesday, January 13. Elder G. W. Wells met me at the train, and took me to his house for breakfast. Then he kept me busy all day visiting places of interest.

At the sanitarium we were welcomed by Dr. J. H. Neall, the medical superintendent, who showed us the equipment of the institution, and explained its advantages. Then we looked at the vacant part of the lot, where the brethren were thinking of erecting a two-story cottage to be used, until needed by the sanitarium, as a book depository and headquarters of the Southern Union Conference.

At the recent councils in Nashville it had been arranged that the Southern Publishing Association should locate a branch office in Atlanta, and so, after many years, the book depository for Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas is destined to come back to its old home. It is the ambition of the book men in this union conference to create as much business for the Atlanta depository as it had formerly, when supplying more than double the territory.

At the meeting-house we found the Georgia canvassers assembling for a week's united study of their work.

We also visited the church-school, which occupies a good-sized and well-equipped room in the church basement.

Crossing from the southeastern to the southwestern part of the city, we visited the offices of the Southeastern Union Conference and of the Georgia Conference, and then walked a few blocks to the place on Green's Ferry Avenue where a property, recently purchased, was being prepared for a meeting-house, church-school, and parsonage for the colored brethren.

The Mission School

Before speaking of the new place being prepared as a church and school building for the colored brethren, let us describe the mission school as we found it.

Searching in a long row of ordinary-looking tenement-houses, we located the school by the sound of the children's voices. Entering, we were made welcome by the teachers. The house consists of two good-sized rooms and a little kitchen. The two main rooms were well filled with home-made school desks, except one corner, where stood the teachers' trunks, and their beds on the trunks. Somewhere between thirty and forty children are daily taught in these two rooms. I stood in the doorway, and told stories to the children in both rooms; and as I talked to the children, I read in the surroundings the story of the sacrifices and economies of these two teachers, who, like scores of others, were striving to enlighten the children of their race. The head teacher was working for six dollars a week, and the assistant for four dollars and a half. This small salary obliges them to exercise the strictest economy, and therefore they were living in the schoolrooms.

The New Location

For a year or more the Georgia Conference and the Southern Missionary Society have been planning together to secure a lot and build a good meeting-house and schoolhouse for our colored people. In October, Elder W. A. Westworth found an opportunity to purchase, in an excellent locality, a large lot and a substantial building for less than half its real value.

For about twelve hundred fifty dollars he secured a lot sixty-two by one hundred twenty feet, facing Green's Ferry Avenue, with alleys at the side and back. On the lot was a building thirty-four by forty-eight feet, once used as a soldiers' barracks. This has been remodeled, and now looks as if built for a church. The front part is finished and furnished as a church auditorium, and back of this is a schoolroom fifteen by thirty-four feet. Back of this our brethren have added a two-story building for another and larger schoolroom and a parsonage, the lower floor being the schoolroom, and the second floor being divided into three rooms for the minister's family. The buildings were dedicated on Sabbath, February 6.

But our brethren are not satisfied. The wife of the pastor, Elder W. H. Sebastian, is a trained nurse. In Atlanta there are hundreds who need the help that could be given them in a hydropathic dispensary, with good treatment-rooms; therefore it is planned to erect upon this

lot a two-story cottage, about sixteen by forty feet, to serve as a mission home and treatment-rooms, with accommodations for a few house patients.

The location of this place is ideal as a center for medical missionary and evangelistic work. It is situated near three large educational institutions for colored people. Within ten minutes' walk are the Atlanta University, Spelman Seminary, and a large Baptist college.

We rejoice to see the work reviving in Atlanta, and in other parts of Georgia. Surely it must make steady progress to keep pace with the advancement in the sister conferences.

W. C. WHITE.