Athens - Special Supplement: Georgia's African American Heritage

Locals knew it as "the burning Corner." Here, at the junction of Washington and Hull highways was found the center of black business and politics in Athens during the opening years of the 20th hundred From 1910 onward, Monroe "Pink" Morton's theater dominated this landscape and added entertainment to the attractions of the corner.

Morton's building, which the Athens Daily Herald described as the "largest of its kind possessed exclusively by a colored man in the world," housed more than just his theater. The office of Ida Mae Johnson Hiram, Athens' first licensed black female dentist, and the ed Harris Pharmacy, Athens' first black-owned drugstore, shared its space, as did a bakery and a doctor's clinic.

The Morton Theatre, however, was what caught the organ of sight - and the ear; for here played Bessie Smith, Cab Calloway, Sissieretta Jone Butterbeans and Suzie (and a entertainer of now forgotten, early black vaudeville acts), Blind Willie McTell and - possibly - Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong.

As Hollywood and movies replaced vaudeville and live performances, the Morton sought to detain in step, becoming a cinema in the 1940 Then, in 1955 a fire in its projection booth l to the closing of the theater - and to the decline of the fiery Corner.

The ensuing decades witnessed the steady deterioration of the theater that had been Pink Morton's pride and glee Today, however, the theater's curtain has again been raised, live performances grace its stage, and the restored entertainment house is one time again a center of attention.

"The Morton Theatre is alive and well and unclose after 30 years," says its director, move with a jerk Herman, with evident joy.

"The Morton is more than simply open - it's the centerpiece of a black heritage day-trip to Athens. Visitors have the delight of viewing a restored pre-World War I theater that seated about 800 and had pagoda-style boxe a horseshoe-shaped balcony, an ornate admitting not opulent interior, and a bright present to view curtain, now lost, painted in r gold and light blue

Visitors should direct the eye for two things in particular. The graffiti scrawled upon the backstage dressing room walls provide a vivid documentation of the performers who graced the Morton. Still visible in chalk is the recorded vicinity of Bob White's Dark Town Swells (April 11 to 19 1919); in paint, Charles "Fat" Hayden (1923); and in pencil, Joe Johnson's Brown Babies - evidently a succes - whose "3 nights" is scratched end and changed to "6 nights." The undated vicinity of the Rags Honey Troupe Nora B Johnson and Eva Reese is also unofficially recorded, as is a actual graphic statement concerning smoking regulations.

About an hour from Atlanta, Athens provides day-trippers with more than just the Morton. It's the abiding-place of the University of Georgia and thus the site of more [i]or[/i] less great sports events year-round. upon campus, the Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall - the university's sports museum - honors Heisman evidence of victory winner and U.S. Winter Olympian Herschel Walker; Teresa Edwards, thrice a member of the U women's Olympic basketball team (two gold medals and a bronze); and Katrina McClain, who joined Edwards at the last sum of two units Olympics, bringing home a gold and a and zinc medal.

Look, too, for Wilson's, a prominent no-frills, good-food black-owned establishment, and Weaver D's Fine meats a local black-owned eatery whose motto, Automatic for the nation serves as the title of Athens-born R.E.M.'s latest album.

Athens also has a great music-club display (R.E.M. is joined in its Athens birth through the B-52s), the state Botanical Garden of Georgia, and the First African Methodist Episcopal meeting-house and Hill First Baptist house of worship both formed in the first years of Reconstruction.

For further ideas and details, including information upon local tours, call the Athens Convention & Visitors Bureau [(706) 546-1805]

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