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Old 12-13-2021, 03:11 PM
 
10,370 posts, read 11,411,941 times
Reputation: 7749

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Smyrna city leaders are currently deciding whether to preserve or demolish the historic but controversial “Aunt Fanny’s Cabin” restaurant site along Atlanta Road in Downtown Smyrna.

Before it closed in 1992, “Aunt Fanny’s Cabin” at one point was one of the most famous and most popular family-owned restaurants in the Southeastern United States, attracting people from around the world (including many A-list celebrities of yesteryear) with its famous Southern cooking.

The restaurant, which was opened by wealthy heirless Isoline Campbell as an antique mart and tea shop just days before the infamous Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, was named for Fanny Williams, a black woman who was a longtime servant of the affluent Campbell family that were some of Smyrna’s first settlers.

Fanny Williams was a beloved figure in the Atlanta metropolitan community of the pre-Civil Rights/late-Jim Crow era for her work as a pioneering civil rights activist who spoke out passionately against Cobb County’s Ku Klux Klan and her efforts to help raise money to build the state’s first all-Black hospital in Marietta.

The controversy surrounds the restaurant’s use of antebellum imagery and derogatory, demeaning and offensive depictions of black people to entertain dinner guests after the Campbell family sold the restaurant to different owners in 1954.

‘Old South’ ghosts haunt preservation of Aunt Fanny’s Cabin (Miami Herald/Associated Press/Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

This metro city wrestles with future of ‘Old South’ restaurant (WSB-TV Atlanta/Associated Press)
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Old 12-14-2021, 09:57 AM
 
Location: west cobb slob
269 posts, read 163,651 times
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Happened to look at it the other day as part of a survey of buildings around the city. Looked like someone started some interior structural work on it but stopped and it's basically just been mothballed next to the city museum while they decide what to do with it.


I think if it is preserved, it needs to be done so not as a celebration of of its heritage, but a somber reminder of the harmful way we used to depict black people.
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Old 12-16-2021, 07:11 AM
 
Location: west cobb slob
269 posts, read 163,651 times
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Panel votes to demolish Aunt Fanny’s Cabin, famed ‘Old South’ restaurant in Smyrna
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Old 12-16-2021, 08:10 AM
 
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The old Smyrna probably would have been surprised and maybe even shocked at such a decision.

But such a decision does not at all seem to be surprising in the new/present-day Smyrna, which is a progressive and forward-looking place.
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Old 12-16-2021, 11:35 AM
 
32,009 posts, read 36,673,317 times
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That place was an embarrassment to 21st century Atlanta.
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Old 12-16-2021, 02:41 PM
 
10,370 posts, read 11,411,941 times
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Here’s some much more detailed and in depth background on Aunt Fanny’s Cabin and many of the primary figures that surrounded the restaurant and its notoriety:

Famous in its day: Aunt Fanny’s Cabin

Aunt Fanny's Cabin (ca. 1891, 1941) Smyrna, Georgia
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Old 12-18-2021, 02:43 PM
 
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We were running this morning in Smyrna and all my friends agreed - Smyrna is ready to let go and move forward. I remember when they first moved the building and at that time myself and my neighbors were caught up in the nostalgia and remembering when the restaurant was popular. But sentimental feelings die down and clearer heads prevail and you eventually come to the right decision.
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Old 03-23-2022, 02:52 AM
 
10,370 posts, read 11,411,941 times
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Default Aunt Fanny’s Cabin to be preserved but moved out of Smyrna

Smyrna City leaders have decided to give Aunt Fanny’s Cabin to a group that plans to move it out of the city.

The Smyrna City Council voted Monday night to sell Aunt Fanny’s Cabin to Ashley Farms who will move the historic cabin with the dark and controversial past to Carroll County.

Aunt Fanny's Cabin will be moving (FOX 5 Atlanta)
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Old 03-23-2022, 05:02 AM
 
Location: SWATS
489 posts, read 284,091 times
Reputation: 760
Quote:
Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll View Post
Smyrna City leaders have decided to give Aunt Fanny’s Cabin to a group that plans to move it out of the city.

The Smyrna City Council voted Monday night to sell Aunt Fanny’s Cabin to Ashley Farms who will move the historic cabin with the dark and controversial past to Carroll County.

Aunt Fanny's Cabin will be moving (FOX 5 Atlanta)
Lol! This is ATL in a nutshell
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Old 03-23-2022, 07:14 AM
 
Location: west cobb slob
269 posts, read 163,651 times
Reputation: 758
I don't know much about this farm but this seems worse than keeping it in the city. No guarantee that the new owners will properly depict the history of it.
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