A street in the historic Sweet Auburn neighborhood that is possibly the namesake of a Confederate leader will soon be rebranded after a beloved community organizer that mentored struggling Black men.
Atlanta City Council members overwhelmingly supported legislation that will rename Bell Street to Leonard Tate street — a small recognition, they said, for a person who has dedicated his life to the community.
Tate, 80, worked in Atlanta neighborhoods for more than four decades, most notably at Trinity House, a transitional home Atlantans living on the streets.
He is described as a figure of “tough love” who gave unhoused Black men a home, helped many wean off drugs and alcohol, and encouraged them to do things like go back to college later in their life.
It’s usually controversial pieces of legislation addressing hot topics that draw long lines to the public comment podium during city council meetings. But since March, dozens of Tate’s family, friends and former mentees flooded meetings over several weeks — in one instance, waiting hours to stand up for the man who they said always stood up for them.
Tate’s wife, Ginger Bell-Tate, who met her husband of 30 years while volunteering at a local church soup kitchen, said he always tells her “‘let the work I’ve done speak for me.’” She noted that dozens of Atlanta residents testified that Tate’s mentorship turned their lives around.
“He loved those men and his commitment was for them to change so that they could be a better person in the community that we live in, because we all have to live together,” she said, and asked council members to support the street renaming.
“So when people see the name Leonard Tate they will realize this is something that someone has done to make Atlanta a better city,” she said.
Credit: Courtesy of Ginger Bell-Tate
Credit: Courtesy of Ginger Bell-Tate
‘I could have been lost’
In the early 1980s, Trinity United Methodist Church — across the street from the Georgia State Capitol and just blocks from Atlanta City Hall — began opening its basement as an emergency overnight shelter in an attempt to ease the growing wave of unhoused Atlantans who were taking refuge on its doorstep.
The program expanded quickly to offer a Sunday soup kitchen and not long after turned into a nonprofit, Trinity Community Ministries, which became a transitional shelter for a small group of men.
Tate, fondly referred to as “Mzee” the Swahili word for “wise man,” became the program’s first director in 1991.
Former residents shared hours of stories about Tate to the City Council as the street renaming proposal moved through the legislative process.
Claude Ellis IV, who stayed at Trinity House for a brief period in the 1990s, said Tate’s mentorship and friendship never ceased — even after his time in the program
Tate never missed a single school graduation for Ellis’ son, he said, from pre-kindergarten through college.
“I just want to let you know what type of heart (he has),” Ellis said through tears to council members. “He lived and he breathed to help us off the streets.”
Trinity House’s current program director, Dr. Tommy Dozier, also went through the program guided by Tate. After struggling with substance abuse, Dozier followed Tate’s advice and went back to school at Morehouse College, then went on to get his master’s degree in addiction counseling and a doctorate in Biblical counseling.
“I owe a lot of that to Leonard Tate,” he said. “I don’t know of anybody more deserving to have a street named after him, because I could have been lost.”
Credit: Riley Bunch/riley.bunch@ajc.com
Credit: Riley Bunch/riley.bunch@ajc.com
The Trinity House program found a new home in the early 2000s, when the nonprofit moved the transitional shelter to the Big Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church’s Hanley Building on Bell Street.
The historic building in the Sweet Auburn District was originally built in 1915 and used a Masonic Lodge. But it is best known for it’s time as Mr. W.H. Hanley’s funeral home, which is famously known for preparing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s body before his funeral.
In contrast to the building’s rich civil rights history and prominent role in Atlanta’s Black community, it sits in the middle of a street possibly named after Hiram Parks Bell, a Confederate congressman.
Richard Rose, a former president of the Atlanta NAACP, said he has long been advocating for the removal of monuments like Stone Mountain, “the largest shrine of white supremacy in the history of the world,” he said.
“Sort of following the model of Dr. King who picked the biggest bully on the block and hit him in the mouth,” Rose said, and asked city council members to rekindle a focus on expunging Confederate history from the city.
“So that we can continue to rid, at least this city, these memorials to white supremacy, that continue to try to normalize racism, not only in Atlanta, but in America,” he said.
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