By Chris Eckl

You can tell Hector Black is different from his neighbors in Vine City. He is white and they are black.

But that is a very small difference when you live in this slum area of Atlanta. Black and his neighbors suffer equally from the heat of summer and cold of winter. They know what it is like to be generally forgotten by civic leaders, the Christian churches and well-to-do Negroes. They know the contempt of white men. They know what low wages, ignorance and disease do to children and adults.

Black, a 41-year-old Harvard graduate, moved into Vine City with his crippled wife and three children nearly two years ago. He said conditions have improved in the slum through the efforts of the Vine City Council and grants from Economic Opportunity Atlanta, but it is still a neighborhood where Negroes pay $38 a month for a three room dwelling, battle rats and live in fear of eviction.

The soft-spoken Black admitted he did not know prosperous Atlanta very well. “I am generally disappointed with the city. While most cities settle for one or two slums, Atlanta has Vine City, Pittsburgh, Mechanicsville, Summerhill, Buttermilk Bottom, Lightning, Plunkettown and Lynwood. You don’t hear much about them.” In fact most Atlantans would have never heard of Hector Black if he had not led a rent strike last winter in the Markham St. area. He was arrested for trespassing while passing out blankets to occupants of a rundown building.

His name was mentioned again in the newspapers when SNCC workers called him “white Jesus” and tried to force him to leave Vine City. Black said the “white Jesus” label was particularly insulting because “no one considers himself my follower. Members of the Vine City Council don’t always agree with me, nor I with them. We try to work together.”

He became a resident of Vine City after coming South to join the civil rights movement and served as a tutor under the sponsorship of the Quaker House. He then stayed after the classes ended.

Asked how his wife liked living in Vine City, Black replied: “My wife enjoys herself, but finds things hectic.” His three daughters, ages 7, 6, and 5, don’t notice their surroundings. “The two who go to school are the only white children in their school, but they don’t think so because some of the other children are light.”

“When we moved into Vine City,” Black recalled, “the people went out of their way to be friendly. They brought us supper and we feel at home here.”

Black sighed and wiped perspiration from his face and neck as he discussed the future of Vine City. “If you talk about rent control, they call it socialism...job training is coming, but it’s slow...welfare payments keep body and soul together, but that’s about all...I get angry sometimes when people get high-handed or lie.” What can be done to help the people of Vine City? “We need money for food and clothes, a movie projector for the kids, linens, towels, blankets and concern. We also need legalized rent strikes where money could be paid to a court which could direct repairs. The rents are too high for the buildings, but where else can you find three rooms for $38 a month?” Black said the hopelessness of poverty was made clear to him when a Negro man died. “He lay in the funeral home for a month because his wife didn’t have enough money to bury him. When he was finally buried, it was in a wretched cemetery.”

Asked how long he planned to live in Vine City, Black said he did not know. “It’s hard to tell if I will stay. If things got better I might move to some other slum in the city.” In the meantime, he works to try and help his neighbors.

As Black and his neighbors strive to improve their neighborhood in small steps, the rest of Atlanta counts progress in the number of new skyscrapers, in the millions of dollars spent everyday, in the size of the crowds at athletic events.

He and the residents of Vine City hope that someday they will share in the booming prosperity, but they are not taking their hopes for granted.