The Fall of the Wall: The Court Rules the Wall Unconstitutional

In 1963, in the face of mounting anger, letters and telegrams to Mayor Allen, and poor state and national publicity, a case against the Atlanta Wall was brought to court. The case, Googer v. City of Atlanta, tasked the court with deciding on the overall constitutionality of the wall. The main allegation against the wall was its sole purpose of serving as a “racial barrier.” In the plaintiff’s petition, it alleged that the Atlanta Wall “on the part of the defendants in erecting the respective barriers referred to above, is a further degradation of the respective constitutional provisions set out above for the reason that said sections of the respective ordinances and the said implementing action was for the purpose of establishing a ‘racial buffer’ to control the place of residence of the negro plaintiffs herein, and to others similarly situated.” In other words, that the wall’s only intent was to separate the city by race and to disallow black citizens from living in a “white” neighborhood. Later in the case, the plaintiffs argued that a man appointed by Mayor Allen met with a newspaper man to spin the closing of the streets as mutually beneficial to both black and white communities, but stated that the real reason for the closure was to prevent black individuals from purchasing homes in the Peyton area.

 The defendants for the city largely argued that the evidence presented was heresy and not actual fact. They claimed that all of the information offered on the case was gathered from third party sources and not from any actors directly. The court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and largely allowed the evidence presented. Furthermore, witnesses for the city argued that Peyton road was being used as a ‘race track’ for black teenagers, however it was discovered that the so called witnesses did not live on Peyton road.

 Given the totality of the evidence, the presiding judge, Judge Whitman, ruled that the wall was indeed unconstitutional and that the barricades erected at Peyton and Harlan roads would have to be removed. The Court argued that “the closure of respective portions of Peyton Road and Harlan Road ‘for the benefit of private persons,’ there is in the Court’s opinion no distinction between the closing of a street or a portion of a street illegally or in violation of constitutional rights, from that of such closure for the benefit of private individual or individuals.” Therefore, “it is further ordered and adjudged that said defendants remove or cause to be removed said barricades and each of them on or before five o’clock P.M. on Monday, March 4, 1963."

In a release regarding the matter, Mayor Allen requested that the City Attorney not appeal the decision and that Ray Nixon, Chief of Construction for the city, immediately remove the wall. In the release, Mayor Allen stated “the difficulties which brought about the necessity for the abandonment of the portions of Payton and Harlan Roads have served to focus the attention of the people of this great city to the many problems of finding ample living space for a large Negro population.”