Lightning, Struck by Max Blau, Dustin Chambers & Sarah Lawrence
The timeline installation collects the voices of Atlanta’s Lightning community, displaced in the name of the city’s Super Bowl dreams
Max Blau, Dustin Chambers, Rosalyn Dupree-Tullis and Sarah Lawrence with the installation Lightning, Struck in Science Gallery Atlanta’s JUSTICE (Bita Honarvar, 2023)
Five years ago, journalist Max Blau and photojournalist Dustin Chambers began compiling oral histories of Lightning, a Black working-class neighborhood demolished in the 1980s and 1990s to make room for the Georgia Dome and the Georgia World Congress Center.
Originally published in The Bitter Southerner in 2019, their article captured the voices and portraits of former Lightning residents, who shared memories of a long-gone neighborhood and recounted its destruction by powerful political and commercial interests.
When Blau and Chambers learned about Science Gallery Atlanta’s JUSTICE exhibit, they decided to submit a grant application to continue sharing Lightning’s story. They partnered with former Lightning resident Rosalyn Dupree-Tullis and designer Sarah Lawrence to document and share the community’s history on a broader visual scale.
People who lived in — or stood up for — the community of Lightning. (Dustin Chambers, 2019)
“It gives former residents a chance to reconnect with their community and a sense of what was lost to the rest of us.”
The result of these efforts is now on display in an installation at the 2023 Science Gallery Atlanta’s exhibition JUSTICE. Lightning, Struck combines oral history, visual arts, set design, and archival documentation to examine the vanished Lightning community, telling the story of its displacement and asking what that history means for justice here and now.
“Lightning wasn’t just a neighborhood,” said Reverend Jerome Banks, former Lightning resident, at a recent Science Gallery Atlanta reunion event that brought together former Lightning neighbors. “We were a community. We looked out for one another. I knew just about everybody in Lightning.”
Blau, who graduated with a BA in sociology from Emory College of Arts and Sciences in 2010, credits the collaboration with Dupree-Tullis and Lawrence as key to the installation’s success.
A visitor experiences the installation Lightning, Struck by Max Blau and Dustin Chambers in Science Gallery Atlanta’s JUSTICE (Bita Honarvar, 2023)
“That conversation between the four of us really elevated the project,” he says. “It isn’t just a wall of artifacts. It aims to give former residents a chance to reconnect with their community while also giving the rest of us a sense of what was lost. Those are two very different audiences.”
Visitors to the Science Gallery encounter Lightning, Struck, as a scaled-down model neighborhood. They pass through five shotgun-style homes, the same architectural design that comprised most of Lightning’s original houses. Each home showcases an era in the life of the neighborhood: the 1900s-1920s, 1930s-1940s, 1950s-1960s, 1970s-1980s, and the 1990s. The team obtained maps from city, state, and federal policymakers that provide additional block-by-block details, showing how Lightning’s streets changed over time.
“You’ll be able to see that this was once a thriving community, with city blocks full of houses, churches, factories,” Blau says. “And then as you move forward in time, you get a series of maps showing specific government decisions over the years that harmed Lightning and its residents.”
“ I wanted to put people physically inside the neighborhood and experience the space taken up by this story.”
A mediator speaks about the installation Lightning, Struck by Max Blau and Dustin Chambers in Science Gallery Atlanta’s JUSTICE (Bita Honarvar, 2023)
Lawrence says she wanted gallerygoers to have a unique experience as they walk through the installation. “What happened to Lightning is unfortunately not a new story, not unique to Atlanta or other cities,” she says. “It’s easy for a busy person to see a headline, scan some words, and keep scrolling. For this installation, I wanted to put people physically inside the neighborhood, make them move around the sides of the houses, and experience the weight and the space taken up by this story.”
Chambers says he valued the opportunity to push historical retrieval in the direction of justice. “Any opportunity to bring to light forgotten truths of the past and help bolster them in our collective history is important,” he says. He and the rest of the team note the importance of support from Science Gallery Atlanta staff and organizers. “This is a large-scale installation,” Lawrence says, “and it takes time and effort to make your way through and complete the story. I am grateful we had this space and support at Science Gallery Atlanta to tell it.”
Dupree-Tullis, who served as adviser to the project, said at the Lightning reunion that her childhood home was—and still is—irreplaceable.
“This is part of Atlanta’s history. People need to know that we were here—right where you are standing.”
The neighborhood of Lighting (Dustin Chambers, 2019)
“To my child’s mind, Lightning was the best,” she said. “We learned how to be responsible. We learned respect. We learned how to survive. But I get emotional now, knowing I can’t go back. I can’t take my kids there to show them what Lightning was like.”
When asked what she might say to fans and tourists who visit the Mercedes Benz stadium today (the Benz replaced the Georgia Dome in 2017), Dupree-Tullis says she would tell them the truth.
“This was a neighborhood,” she says. “Where you are standing right now used to be a family-oriented neighborhood. A place where Black families built, developed, loved one another, and supported each other. Where you stand now is part of Atlanta’s history and should be recognized. People need to know that we were here—right where you are standing.”