Fighting for the Future of Atlanta’s Chattahoochee Brick Site

It is safe to say that few people know these Atlanta watershed neighborhoods better than Donna Stephens. Donna grew up in a family that valued environmental responsibility and has lived most of her life within one mile of the former Chattahoochee Brick Company site. Donna shared, “Honestly, when I was a little girl (and this is really going to date me), the Smokey the Bear commercials and the U.S. Forest Service’s ‘Give a hoot, don’t pollute’ Woodsy Owl campaign really had an effect on me. My parents never allowed me or my sisters to litter, and I can remember being very concerned about what would happen when the landfills filled up. When I started working at Proctor Creek Stewardship Council, that sense of environmental concern really reemerged. I started to pay attention to everything from E. coli in the water to where the barges take the trash and how much smoke is in the air.”

Donna’s awareness of the former Chattahoochee Brick Company site extends beyond just living nearby. The 77-acre property sits on the banks of the Chattahoochee River at the confluence of Proctor Creek, where she has a long history of working with neighborhoods to address stormwater flooding. But it wasn’t until she watched the documentary “Slavery by Another Name” that she realized the cultural and historical significance of this place so close to home.

The convict lease labor system is an important historical injustice that is not widely known. Important buildings in Atlanta, and around the country, are built with bricks made by Black men forced to labor against their will in the convict lease labor system at Chattahoochee Brick Company. “Saying ‘our ancestors built America’ seems like such a simple statement, but the magnitude of that sentence is phenomenal,” reflected Donna.

The fuel depot and rail terminal development proposed by Lincoln Terminal Company would have perpetuated the long history of industrial use along the river and would have destroyed any chance to memorialize the brick workers who lost their lives onsite under the convict lease labor system. “This is a heavily industrialized area and the people who currently live here are already under siege when it comes to quality of life, air, water, ground pollution, chronic disease… you name it,” Donna said. “I could not see another potentially beautiful greenspace destroyed, especially with the historical and cultural elements that are involved.”

Donna refused to allow the story of the Chattahoochee Brick workers continue to go unseen in a country still reckoning with racism and its consequences in daily life. She started a campaign to save the site and was joined by neighborhoods and community members who eventually convinced the city to fight this development. After working with so many established organizations, Donna founded her own nonprofit and named it the Chattahoochee Brick Company Descendants Coalition. In the summer of 2016, Donna was featured in Chattahoochee River Keeper’s publication RiverCHAT. The article features a memorable photo of her in front of bricks onsite and captures her goal to protect the site.

In 2020, it became clear that the Lincoln Terminal development was not going to go forward, which provided a window of opportunity for The Conservation Fund to step in and negotiate for the preservation and conservation of the property. In recognition of its historic importance, the site was designated by the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation as one of their 2022 Places in Peril, making the top 10 sites of endangered historic places in need of preservation. The Fund purchased the property in June 2022 and transferred the property to the City of Atlanta in August 2022. Plans for the future greenspace will be decided in collaboration with the community, and may include environmental and ecological components such as new trail connections, a nature center and public river access, as well as an interpretive center, memorial site and healing garden to honor the site’s cultural and historical significance.

Passionate community champions like Donna create the space for us to do the most important conservation work in the country, and we are privileged to help make their vision a reality. Looking back on this journey, Donna admits it was a rollercoaster ride, but if she could send one message to herself at the beginning of the project she would like to tell herself that it will all be worth it. “I’d tell myself that we made it! There were always people who said, ‘You can’t… that’s too big a battle… you might as well forget about it.’ But I would like to tell myself back then — and anyone doing similar work today — that if there’s something you really want, don’t give up. Keep going. Do whatever small thing you can do today because nothing happens overnight.”