SMYRNA, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia city is a big step closer to removing a replica of a well-known restaurant that served Southern staples and lured celebrities but also used racist imagery to evoke the pre-Civil War South.
A task force in the Atlanta suburb of Smyrna recommended last week that Aunt Fanny’s Cabin be put up for demolition unless a group comes forward to remove it from city property, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Only the cabin’s fireplace and chimney should be preserved as a monument to Fanny Williams, the restaurant’s namesake, the task force said.
The recommendation now goes to Smyrna’s City Council, which could make a final decision next month.
The now-defunct restaurant became a popular dining destination starting in the mid-1900s. Its guests included sports icons Jack Dempsey and Ty Cobb and Hollywood star Doris Day. Former President Jimmy Carter stopped at the cabin during his campaigns.
But it also embraced an “Old South” décor and theme that was adopted by other restaurants, the AJC has previously reported.
TRENDING STORIES:
- “#5 will never be forgotten:” Roswell quarterback Robbie Roper has died, family says
- Man accused of killing rapper in I-85 shooting arrested at Atlanta airport
- Falcons legend Warrick Dunn surprises Henry County mother of 3 with her first home
According to news reports, Black youths hired as servers wore wooden menu boards around their necks and danced on table tops, and the walls had framed advertisements for slaves. Williams sat on the front porch in a faded dress and headwrap telling customers about her days as a slave, though she never was a slave, according to the AJC.
A statement posted last week on the City of Smyrna’s website blasted “the caricature and overt indignity of the theme of the establishment that was Aunt Fanny’s Cabin.”
“We wish to honor Fanny Williams and not the racist theme and myths of the former establishment and others like it, popular and profitable in post WWII Atlanta,” the statement said. “Though sometimes viewed in more glowing terms by an almost exclusively white patronage with fond memories of ‘great food’ and a ‘family atmosphere,’ these establishments are symbols and sentiments of a time that does not represent or honor the dignity of all, and certainly does not represent our community.”
The statement said Williams — a civil rights activist who helped raise money for a Black hospital — was exploited in the restaurant’s “social and marketing myths.”
The restaurant closed in 1992, and most of the structure was later stripped away or torn down. But Smyrna bought the front porch and a room near the entrance and added them to a replica of the cabin that was built at the city’s welcome center.
The site was recently shut down over structural problems, and repairing it could cost $550,000, according to the AJC.
RELATED NEWS:
©2021 Cox Media Group
