The Great Speckled Bird DEC. 13, 1971

Vol. 4 #50 pg. 4

Community Center

Looking back, perhaps 1969 was the high point of Atlanta's freak community. Maybe not. Probably for most the high point always seemed to be just around the corner before it finally vanished altogether.

Anyway lots happened in 1969. In the Spring, large numbers of freaks came to Atlanta from across the South and the nation. The 1st Atlanta Pop Festival was staged in mid-summer and later in the year the first Allman Brothers album was released. A freak presence was firmly established in Piedmont Park, although early in the fall the police tried to re-establish control in the famous "Park police riot." That particular police freak-out turned a lot of love children into street freaks and gave the City of Atlanta a considerable amount of bad national PR,

Now two years later, the city has regained at least partial control of the Park, the streets of the Tenth Street area seem to have fewer freaks than they did in '69, and of course heroin has arrived in a big way. It's all over-, the mass media say, peace and love have been corrupted by drugs. Longhairs, they seem to say, have either become respectable, hard working, law abiding religious folk who happen to have long hair, or else they've become wasted junkies. The choice is up to us, we are told, turn to Jesus.

Is that the choice? Why do they tell us that it's all over? Part of it is that they have realized that freaks were indeed dangerous, if not actually seditious. So as in the case of black ghetto rebellions, campus unrest, and prison riots, the "Big lie" is brought out. It's one of those "white lies." They don't tell you that there are no more ghetto, campus, or prison rebellions; they just don't report them when they happen. Instead they tell us about black capitalism, students for Muskie, and Ellis MacDougall. The bad "bad news" is reported only when it's so big it can't be ignored (Attica) or when it's in our front yard (riots in Rome, Ga.).

Another part of the picture is that things have indeed changed in the freak community. Gone are a number of illusions- that there was a close-knit freak community; that the authorities would be nice if you smiled enough; that dope, in and of itself, was revolutionary.

One way to try to see what happened in the last two years is to look at some of the alternative institutions the freak community produced. Take the Community Crisis Center for example. It is still on the Strip .at 1013 Peachtree Street. Every month it receives something like 1,000 calls on its "hotline" phone (892-1358)—from abortion information to a mother who found grass in her daughter's dresser. Every week over 100 people are treated at the free clinic held three nights a week, and each day dozens of folks get help with housing or job problems and counseling with personal problems.

The community center opened in December, 1969, in a house on Jumper near Tenth. It began as a result of a strange coalition of community residents and the Community Council of Metro Atlanta, a private human relations organization. Earlier in the year Mayor Sam Massell had asked the council to do a study of the problems of the Tenth Street area. The study found problems similar to those of any ghetto—police harassment, lack of jobs and housing. Ah anonymous business source came up with some money to be used in the Tenth Street area, so the Community Council asked the community residents if they wanted it. After a series of meetings in which a community organization, the Midtown Alliance, was formed, the community center was planned, then opened: It was the Atlanta way. A problem arises. Behind the scenes the liberal business rulers find a way to solve the crisis. Another feather in Atlanta's image cap.

To its credit, the Community Council, although it at First controlled the money, did not impose any direct strings on the community center. But from the beginning the center was caught in a number of paradoxes or contradictions that made its work less effective than many had hoped.

The staff of the community center and members of the Midtown Alliance hoped that the center would serve as a focal point for the establishment of a "real community" in the area. Meetings could be held in the center-just like the town meetings of old New England. The community could "get together" and solve its own problems. But while the city's liberal power structure supported the "positive" programs of the center, the city supported and intensified the large-scale police harassment of the area, harassment which destroyed any possibility of an above-ground community.

Then there was the question of the center's definition. Was it a center of community activity which could be used, for example, as a place to organize opposition to the police, or was it a social-work-type service center helping shape "misfits" back into the American business mould? Although the staff considered itself part of the community and saw its role as both providing a place for the community to get together and helping people with their problems, the staff was constantly pushed one way or the other.

The assumption of the business organizations and many of the professional social work agencies was that the center's role was to help hippies straighten themselves out. When the TV cameras, constantly on the scene in those days, came around the center it was hard for the staff to avoid repeating those assumptions to insure continued financial support. That in turn separated the center from many in the community who saw the alternative community as something qualitatively different from straight America.

Another paradox was the way the center was run. While everyone was talking about "new relation- ships" and such, the center had a director who had the power to hire and fire, give orders, etc. That's the way most social work agencies are run and that's the way the professionals urged that the center be run. Often the staff was dissatisfied, feeling cut off from decision making. A series of staff revolts ensued, which meant that at times the center was, for all practical purposes, out of business for days at a time.

Things have changed now. There is no more director's position. Decisions arc made collectively. The staff spends most of its time working together. It is a difficult process, but it has begun.

Staff members describe the center as an "alternative" to traditional social work. They stress that the center is accessible to people, that they try to avoid playing games or roles, that they are "not afraid to get into people." Traditional social work programs attempt to channel "clients" into roles, usually the American business role. The center, on the other hand, tries to support people and help them overcome the anxiety of a particular crisis, show them alternatives that arc open to them, than assist them in doing what they want to do.

There are other changes too. The freak community has for the most part been very bad in the way women are treated and objectified. The women of the community center have started a women's group which meets every Tuesday night. It has brought about a real change in the way the men and women of the staff have worked together and the meetings are now open to any women who might be interested.

There are other changes. While a great many of the people the center works with are still transient in one way or another, the center is now working in various ways with more permanent community residents. That community has now spread all over Metropolitan Atlanta, and that's reflected in the calls the center gets. The staff defines the community as a question of identification, a "state of mind." The center staff is conscious of the need to reach out to non-freak people and sees that as already beginning to happen.

But wouldn't you know it? Now that the center is getting its act together, the money is running out. The center has been funded by the Metropolitan Atlanta Council on Alcohol and Drugs (MACAD). But MACAD is running out of money this month. Some funds are expected from the state drug programs but they will not come before July, leaving a period of at least seven months without any money.

The staff seems determined to keep the center going even if it means drastically cutting salaries and other expenses. That will probably happen anyway, but unless people contribute to the center it may go under altogether. There are other ways you can help. It needs supplies and equipment for the medical clinic. Several doctors have moved out of town and replacements are needed. There's a free store which distributes clothes and other free items., It of course needs restocking constantly.

Beyond that, go by the center and see for yourself how it's doing. Talk to the staff and see how you can help.

Is the community center an answer? No. But it is an alternative to Jesus or smack. It has come through a difficult period and built a strong foundation for itself. It and groups like the Bird face questions of direction, what role they can and should play in helping to bring about change, now that the times have changed. But some things are clearer. Here, as in the rest of the world, it has become apparent (if it were ever in doubt) that there are two kinds of people -those who exploit and oppress and those who are oppressed and exploited. Change will come when the oppressed get together and make it happen. A community center can be a part of that, bringing people together and helping them with services the government will not provide—if it sees itself as part of the movement for change.

—gene guerrero____