Episode 3: Business as Usual

During the decade that followed the landmark civil rights legislation of the 1960s, there was a steep drop in the number of Black-owned businesses on Hot Corner. In what has become a sort of standard story that people tell about Black business districts in the South, this shift often gets presented as a side effect of civil rights victories. But when Aleck and Broderick look into the history of the large historic buildings that anchored Hot Corner, they find out that there’s more to it than that. In the 1970s, when most downtown Athens businesses were struggling, Hot Corner was on its own – with one big exception.