After state and nonprofit officials told Summerhill residents in July that they are remaining firm in their decision to move the Olympic cauldron out of the southwest Atlanta neighborhood, Mayor Andre Dickens is now adding his voice to the conversation.
In a letter to Jeff Cravens, the president of Atlanta Legacy ’96, which is the nonprofit group pushing to move the cauldron to Centennial Olympic Park, Dickens wrote that the relocation plan doesn’t reflect the “collaborative approach” community members deserve.
“Thirty years ago, Summerhill, Peoplestown and Mechanicsville served as the world’s living room as Atlanta hosted the 1996 Olympics,” Dickens wrote to Cravens. “These historic communities bore the brunt of a rapidly changing landscape, new infrastructure and in some cases gentrification that created mass displacement.”
“The cauldron should remain in the neighborhood it has called home for the past 30 years — just as thousands of residents have,” the mayor wrote.
Earlier this summer, Georgia State University released a statement officially announcing the cauldron’s move. The plans were developed in collaboration with Billy Payne, the former head of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, and former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, as both helped bring the global event to the city.
“We are very excited about the prominent location where the Olympic Cauldron will be displayed in Centennial Olympic Park, combining the elements of the most iconic moment of the Centennial Games with its greatest physical legacy,” Payne said in June.
Since then, Summerhill residents have organized to push back against the decision with rallies and a petition. They say the artifact, which once held the flames of the 1996 Olympic Games torch, is a core part of the neighborhood’s history. It’s also a symbol of the unfulfilled promises of economic revitalization that did not come to fruition and ultimately caused displacement of some Summerhill residents.
The letter comes a few weeks after neighborhood leaders met with representatives from the Georgia World Congress Center Authority, the state Board of Regents, Georgia State University, and Atlanta ’96 Legacy.
John Helton, president of the Organized Neighbors of Summerhill, told Capital B Atlanta that at the meeting, officials said they had “no intent on changing course.”
“We’re overall just very disappointed at the outcome, and we are just trying to figure out what our next move is right now,” Helton said.
Dickens ended his letter saying that the city “stands ready to ensure that the cauldron and the surrounding public space appropriately honor Atlanta’s Olympic legacy and the communities that have cared for it for the past three decades.”
The Atlanta City Council previously weighed in on the conflict passing a resolution in June that urged state officials to keep the artifact in Summerhill.
In a statement, the Georgia World Congress Center Authority said it is committed to fulfilling its role as a “thoughtful steward of Atlanta’s Olympic legacy.”
“GWCCA’s role has been to thoughtfully respond to Atlanta Legacy ’96’s request to receive the Olympic cauldron and serve as its caretaker on behalf of the organization,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “We have approached that responsibility with great respect for all those who made the Centennial Olympic Games possible.”
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