Atlanta memoir: a love letter to Mrs. wyatt
This is a series of photographic portraits and personal narratives. While in graduate school in Atlanta, Georgia, I worked in the Perry Homes Housing Project. I took photographs of these children on our various after-school outings, capturing their youthful energy and enthusiasm. They were given copies of the photos at that time. After 2 years of having almost daily contact with them in their school and in their community, we continued to maintain contact through written correspondence after I left Atlanta. In 2015, 45 years after our last face-to-face meeting, I created a facebook page, Seeking Former Residents of Perry Homes, Atlanta, Georgia. Exactly one month later, I had the first response. Via email and phone conversations, we arranged for a reunion in Atlanta.
I am happy to report that many of these children, now mature adults, hold advanced degrees, work as professionals, own their own homes, and have raised successful children as well. At our reunion they spoke of how the photos that I gave to them as children gave them pride and stretched their vision of themselves and of how those outings showed them that the world was larger than the Perry Homes community where they lived.
To my delight, they have asked me to retake their portraits, which I have begun to do. The story continues.
