SMYRNA, Ga. — For half a century, celebrities, tourists and local residents have flocked to Aunt Fanny’s Cabin, a restaurant known both for its Southern menu and for its depiction of plantation life and racist imagery, where white diners are mixed up with young Blacks were served by waiters with yoke-like menu boards made of wood hung around their necks.
Aunt Fanny herself – Fanny Williams, a black cook who worked for the white family who owned the business – was once described in a newspaper article as “a famous mama of color”.
The restaurant closed 30 years ago, but the little white cottage itself, easily overlooked on Atlanta Road in the small suburban town of Smyrna, has become the center of an unlikely debate about how a southern community can move on from its painful past , without forgetting his story in the process.
City officials recently proposed demolishing the building, arguing that it was so dilapidated that it would be too costly to repair. The site had been a source of civic unease for years, but among those most pressing to save it were members of Smyrna’s black community, who argued that demolishing the shack would erase a crucial part of local black history. Last week, the decision to keep Aunt Fanny’s cottage but move it to a nearby farm gave supporters a chance to wrestle over how best to preserve the complicated history of the restaurant – and of Ms Williams herself.
“The town is embarrassed and instead of figuring out how to honor Fanny Williams, they want to obliterate her,” said Maryline Blackburn, a leader of the Coalition to Save Aunt Fanny’s Cabin, a group of black-and-white residents who advocate for preservation the building. “These pictures of the boys with the menus are horrific. However, that is part of the story. You can not change it. You can’t take it away, sweep it under the rug to make you feel better.”
The controversy over Aunt Fanny’s comes at a time when numerous Confederate statues and other symbols of the Old South have been removed or relocated. But the fate of Restaurant Smyrna has been divisive and personal in other ways, as black residents recall their own experiences working at Aunt Fanny’s and seek to learn more about the woman at the center of the debate.
Aunt Fanny’s Cabin, which was separate in its early years, operated from 1941 to 1992 and served fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, “gen-u-wine Smithfield ham” and other regional specialties. Blacks worked as cooks, hosts, waiters, and waiters. Waiters had to sing for white guests. Uniforms for female employees included dungarees and headgear reminiscent of the slavery era. It was for a time among the most well-known restaurants in the Atlanta area, inspiring other local restaurants who romanticized the area’s plantation history.
Jackie Gleason ate at Aunt Fanny’s. So did Clark Gable.
Some former employees remember the facility with disgust.
“It reminds me of nothing but racism,” said Roderick McNeal, who worked at Aunt Fanny’s in the summer of 1959. “It’s an old racist’s house and it’s high time to leave.”
Lisa Castleberry, who worked there in the 1970s, said that just walking past the now-vacant building regularly reminds her of a painful time in Smyrna’s history.
“Now that I’m older I’m like, ‘Oh man, that was so demeaning’, but it was a job,” said Ms Castleberry, who is 61.
Ms. Castleberry, who is black, said although the split officially ended when she worked there, she and her family, friends and neighbors never felt comfortable going to Aunt Fanny’s.
Other former employees had fond memories.
“Even though it was based on slave times, nobody treated us like slaves and it’s part of history,” said Jo Ann Trimble, who worked at Aunt Fanny’s for 19 years. “I’ll be 75 this year and I’ve done all kinds of jobs and this is the only job I’ve ever loved.”
Mrs. Trimble supported her children with her salary and tips from Aunt Fanny. Her sisters, children, aunts and cousins also worked there in different positions. The fact that the restaurant has helped many Black Smyrna residents build their lives is reason enough to save the building, she said, even if it makes people uncomfortable.
Smyrna, a city of about 56,000 people, is about 46 percent white and 33 percent black. In 2017, Ms Blackburn became the first and only black woman to serve on the city council. She and others working to save Aunt Fanny said the project offers the community an opportunity to confront the racism that exists within it, while honoring a black woman who helped build her community.
More than 70 years after her death in 1949, very little is known about Fanny Williams aside from her role as the restaurant’s namesake and chef. Local researchers believe she made financial contributions to African Americans in the area, donated to the Wheat Street Baptist Church, an African American church in Atlanta, and raised money for Marietta’s first black hospital.
Activists are working to locate Ms Williams’ grave in the city’s South View Cemetery. They have plans to tell their story in schools and are holding a design competition to reinvent the cabin.
Turning the building into a welcome center, museum or Southern food cooking school, supporters said, would be one way to honor her.
“We have no standing structure in Smyrna that honors our history,” said Shaun Martin, a Black architect who has studied the lodge for years. “Aunt Fanny’s Cabin could be a place where all Black Smyrnites could be celebrated in a space reclaimed to give us the dignity they have stolen from us for decades.”
City council members and other residents who wanted the building gone said the city could commemorate Ms Williams in other ways.
“Why don’t we honor her by putting a picture of her in a museum? We can teach kids about them or build a statue,” said Bernice Livsey, a resident who is black. “Anything is better than keeping this little house and saying it’s in her honor.”
The restaurant was originally started as a business by Isoline Campbell McKenna, the daughter of a wealthy white family for whom Mrs. Williams worked. It has changed hands over the years – outliving Mrs Williams by four decades – and has not operated as a restaurant since 1992. The building has belonged to the city since 1997, when the government saved it from demolition by developers. In recent months it has been cordoned off with yellow caution tape, which the city has deemed unsafe.
In December, city officials said the building would be destroyed if no one came up with a proposal and the money to move it. Last week, the City Council accepted an offer from the owners of a nearby cattle ranch to move the cabin there and honor Ms. Williams with a plaque.
Ms Castleberry said that although she had hoped the building would be demolished, she was relieved it would be moved out of town and she and others would not need to see it on a daily basis.
For those who wanted to preserve the building but also want to keep it in Smyrna, the result was only a partial victory. Susan Wilkinson, a white city council member, said the community has only just begun to learn about Ms. Williams and the value of educating residents about her heritage.
At a recent council meeting, Ms Wilkinson argued that this mission would now be more difficult. “How do we preserve history when physical space is no longer there?”
