Cascade Heights

Cascade Heights is an affluent predominantly African-American neighborhood in southwest Atlanta. In the early 1960's the area was a predominatly white neighborhood. During the integration movement however, a practice called blockbusting occurred. Property in the neighborhood was purchased, and multiple families of African-Americans would move in, lowering the property values. Realtors stirred up the racial tension by calling residents of the area, scaring them about lowered property values, and offering to list their property. Sunday afternoons became a traffic jam of cars full of African-Americans shopping for homes. In 1962 Mayor Ivan Allen, urged by whites in southwest Atlanta (in particular, one of his high-level employees who lived right off Peyton Road), authorized the construction of a concrete barrier that closed Cascade Heights from the Peyton Road access for black home seekers from nearby Gordon Road. The incident, later known as the Peyton Road affair, drew national attention and caused newspapers around the country to question Atlanta's motto, "the City Too Busy to Hate." The "Atlanta wall," as some newspapers called it, was ruled unconstitutional by the courts and was torn down. This event is also credited in part for helping to spur the creation of Collier Heights, which became the first affluent community in the nation built by and for African-Americans.

After that incident, by the late 60's the neighborhood transitioned into an affluent predominantly African-American neighborhood located on the southwest side of Atlanta, Georgia. It is adjacent to the Historic Collier Heights neighborhood, another affluent predominately African American community in the Northwest side of Atlanta, along with West End. For the past decade, Atlanta’s Cascade community has been expanding westward with new subdivisions and shopping centers. It resembles any other upper-middle-class suburb, with the exception being that nearly all of its residents are African-American.Notable residents of Cascade Heights include: current Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin, baseball legend Hank Aaron, former UN Ambassador and mayor of Atlanta Andrew Young, and past national president of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity and founding member of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Ozell Sutton, and Dr. Howard W. Grant,current Executive Director/Administrator of the Atlanta Board of Education