He remembers that during Christmas, the city would block off some of the side streets so children could play with their new toys. During warmer weather, younger residents explored the wooded areas and ate ripe plums from fruit trees.
“No one seemed to mind,” Farris says. “Kids from throughout the community used to come out and play with each other. I enjoyed the times, which is one of the reasons I’m still in the community.
It’s also practical. Farris, who graduated from Frederick Douglass High School, travels a lot for his work. Collier Heights is close to the airport and convenient to get to most places in Atlanta.
As the son, nephew, and grandson of civil rights activists, Farris was aware of what was happening across the nation as Black people fought for equality and economic justice.
For his family, “there was no such thing as being insulated from what was happening in the country, but we didn’t feel insecure or uncomfortable or felt we had to tiptoe around.”
“All the adults I knew, like my parents, were hardworking people, and that contributed to me having a secure sense of myself.”
Isaac Newton Farris
Frequent visitors to his parents’ and grandparents’ homes were his uncle and aunt, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, the Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, as well as Black and white community leaders, businessmen, and politicians.
Living in Collier Heights gave him a comfort level that he recognizes that African Americans in other places in metro Atlanta and the nation may not have had.
“I wasn’t confronted with racist behavior,” he said. “All the adults I knew, like my parents, were hardworking people, and that contributed to me having a secure sense of myself.”
He still lives in Collier Heights today and adds, “that’s the best endorsement that I could give you.”
