A commemorative service is planned at the St. Paul AME Church, 821 3rd St., at 10 a.m.
After the service, there will be a march from the church for the unveiling of the street sign for Eva Mamie Lane, replacing the former Venable St. name. After the unveiling, a ceremony will be held to ring the Freedom Bell on the city's Main St.
The Shermantown community asked the city to issue this resolution in support of the renaming:
WHEREAS, Part II of the Stone Mountain Code of ordinance confers on the City Council the authority to name city streets; and
WHEREAS, Chapter 25, Article I, Section 25-2, provides that the city council may initiate action to change a street name; and
WHEREAS,
The city of Stone Mountain supports unity and the fair treatment of
citizens and has installed a Freedom Bell to ring forth a constant call
for tolerance; and
WHEREAS,
In 1963, during his powerful and world-famous "I Have A Dream" speech,
Dr. King urged the nation to end racial discrimination and to "let
freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia" and throughout the nation;
and
WHEREAS, Within its
city limits, the city of Stone Mountain has a street in the
African-American neighborhood of Shermantown named after the family of
James Venable, who organized and was the Imperial Wizard of the National
Knights of the Klan; and
WHEREAS,
The Ku Klux Klan faction marched through the Shermantown neighborhood
and held rallies from the 1960s through the 1980s; promoting racial
hatred and intolerance and inciting fear in the community; and
WHEREAS,
longtime Shermantown community member Eva Jewell Greene was a founder
of the Partnership for Community Action in 1966, and served as its
director and community organizer for three decades; and Eva Jewell
Greene was the founder of the Stone Mountain Negro Civic League and
served as its president for more than two decades; and
WHEREAS,
her daughter, Mamie Ella Lane, was the founder of the House of Bethel
Church in 1963, which had an outreach ministry that offered Tuesday
intercessory prayer in the community and clothed, fed and educated
community children, and she uplifted people through her humanitarian and
uplifting works; and
WHEREAS,
the two women were co-founders in 1974 of the Georgia Citizens
Coalition on Hunger, a statewide coalition of concerned citizens; and
both women were engaged in outreach to provide humanitarian and public
services to the residents of Shermantown; and
WHEREAS, Property owners and residents on Venable St. have expressed a desire to change the street name;
NOW
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that Venable Street in Stone Mountain shall
hereinafter be called Eva Mamie Lane and that the three (3) street signs
bearing the name Venable Street shall be removed and replaced with
signs identifying the street as Eva Mamie Lane.
