Goldie Taylor oral history interview, 2019-05-02

MARION LIOU: Okay. So my name is Marian Liou and I'm interviewing Goldie Taylor for the Buford Highway Oral History Project. The date is May 2nd, 2019 and we're in Atlanta, Georgia. So Goldie, can you tell me where does your name come from?

GOLDIE TAYLOR: Oh, gosh. I have -- I have written a little bit about this I think. The origin of someone's name really does tell their history or how connected their family is. My name is -- my first name is the name of my father's best friend. She owned a nightclub in -- in Saint Louis and her name was Goldie Holly. Goldie is still living today. She's 85 years old, stronger than an ox. But her mother's name was also Goldie and they came from a small township in Southern Illinois. They were a biracial Jewish and black family back 00:01:00during the day when that just wasn't a very -- it was a rare occurrence to have that happen and I am -- so that was my mother's -- my father's very best friend. But my middle name and kind of it's -- things start to get interesting because it kind of tells you who my parents were during that time. So my middle name is Maurita and it is the mix between Maurice and Rita. Maurice and Rita were frequenters of Goldie's nightclub, but in the months before I was born, they were found murdered; the both of them, in Saint Louis in 1968. Maurice was her pimp and Rita was a sex worker and so the connectivity of my parents to this other community that they really didn't have a large part of but had an awful lot of -- of respect for, wound up in my name. And so Goldie Maurita Taylor comes from where my parents were, you know, during that -- that era of '67 to '68 -- where they were in their -- in their young and very lively, you know, 00:02:00affluent -- fluid lives. Yeah, that's where it came from.

MARION LIOU: And they were in Saint Louis?

TAYLOR: They were in North Saint Louis and in the central-west end section of Saint Louis. I was born and raised there, as was my mother. My father was raised just out -- was born just outside of -- of Saint Louis in a town called Galesburg, Illinois and had been sent there. His mother had been sent there as a pregnant teenager to have him with an aunt and she later, being a -- a 17-year-old, single mom, married an Army Private and moved to Minnesota where my father was raised until the returned back to Saint Louis in his late teen years and that's when he met my mom. And so they are -- we are Saint Louisian's really through-and-through that it had been a -- it's -- the city is a bit of a hub for our family.

MARION LIOU: How long were you in Saint Louis and what was it like growing up?

TAYLOR: Saint Louis is probably and still is today, one of the most segregated towns in in the country, but when you live there you don't recognize that because you're living in it. And so we lived in a predominantly black neighborhood in my younger years; a predominantly white neighborhood in my older years. I didn't realize that there was a dividing line in the city -- that Delmar Avenue was sort of a dividing line between black and white if you lived on one side of it versus the other side of it. That as you drove up Saint Charles Rock Road the -- the further west you went on Saint Charles Rock Road, the fewer African American faces and voices you heard and saw and there weren't other nationalities. It was just black and white in the 1970s and so today, that's changed. And so now you've got to go pretty far up Saint Charles Highway 00:04:00-- Saint Charles Rock Road not to encounter, you know, someone of color. And so Saint Louis is -- is spreading out in terms of its -- its racial diversity and it's caused some growing pains, you know, frankly, for the city. We moved to Atlanta and I remember the exact -- the exact day. June 5th of 1985 is the day that we drove down 64 to 24 to 75 and came on into this state and moved into a Marriot Hotel that sits at the corner of I-75 at Windy Hill Road. My mother was a Marriott employee at the time and she was coming here to open the Atlanta Marriott Marquis. She was on the opening management team. They had just built this fantastic new hotel, I mean with miles of pipe and electricity and it -- it was a marvel at the time. It was a John Portman project and the Atlanta Marquis 00:05:00was just a -- it was a world-renowned, you know, facility that everyone wanted to go there, to be there, to hang out in its bars to, you know, have events there. It was just a -- and so we were a part of that. And so we lived in that hotel for about a week on Marriott's dime until we went out and found an apartment. That apartment happened to be at 3399 Buford Highway and we -- I was 17-years-old.

MARION LIOU: What was that transition like for you to move from Saint Louis to Atlanta? And were you--

TAYLOR: Well, you know, it was hard because we're talking about 1985 and so we're just a few years beyond the Atlanta child murders. So all that I had ever heard about Atlanta is that children like me, children my age, people who look like me, that they were dying and that they -- that there was some question as to whether or not they had convicted even the right man. And so I was afraid at 17 of coming to an unknown city that I have never once visited and we -- and I 00:06:00was heading into my senior year in high school, no less, and so who wants to leave before your senior year in high school to be uprooted in that way, but -- and the hotel was going to open and we were coming. I had some -- I cried the entire eight-and-a-half-hour drive because I was afraid of what I would see when I got to Georgia. The other -- only other thing I knew about Georgia is that they all were part of the Confederacy and there was this flag-waving thing going on and I was afraid that the Klan was alive and well in Georgia. And so all I knew were about these sort of highly radicalized stereotypes about the South, about this state in particular, and that there was a -- an -- an existential threat present for me that black children were dying and so I didn't want to go.

MARION LIOU: Did you not feel that in Saint Louis even though --

TAYLOR: No.

MARION LIOU: -- it was highly segregated?

TAYLOR: Highly segregated and -- and let me tell you that the neighborhoods I lived in in Saint Louis were not the safest places to be in the daytime or at 00:07:00night. But it was, you know, the temple of your familiar, and that you know when you're living that way in a -- in an every day -- this was a brand new threat that I could not see or identify. You know I knew that that's my neighborhood. I knew how to navigate and avoid them and this is a brand new lay landscape for -- for me as a 17-year-old, I just couldn't calculate up, you know, that I couldn't put it in, I think, the appropriate perspective and so it was -- I was leaving a boyfriend, you know, my very first love. High Darrell Poindexter. It's a -- it was just a -- I was leaving a lot really behind and you know, with no real assurances from my mother that things were going to be great and brand new. But come on kid, get in the car. I've got a new job and it's gone -- you know, this is a good opportunity and you'll go to school in Atlanta and you'll be just fine. And for me, at 17, nothing was just fine. You know nothing could be when 00:08:00you're 17. Nothing ever is.

MARION LIOU: Was it just you and your mom?

TAYLOR: It was. My sister and brother were all grown-up, moved out, so they weren't forced to make this move at the time. So they were grown-up, moved out, and had children of their own. My sisters and brothers were seven and nine years older than me, respectively. And so it was just my mom and I and the apartment that we moved into -- and we -- we had done a lot of looking, but this place was great. There was this glistening pool. By the way, it's no longer there, but there was this glistening pool. I think there's a Walgreens or something on the corner. On the corner of Buford Highway and Briar Wood, there is sort of a -- a dip. There's a -- a food mart over here, but across the street, there's this Walgreens and there's one of the -- in that dip was a sprawling apartment complex. It had hundreds of units and it had a beautiful pool but there was one hitch, it was adults only. So back during that day, you could have a community 00:09:00that restricted children. So no children under 18 lived in -- lived in the units and I was -- and I was just turning 17. There was a full year before I'd be 18 years old and we signed the lease and my mother proudly put down my birth date as July 18, 1967, rather than '68. And we moved in and it was a -- I remember our rent was $440 a month, two bedrooms. We -- we'd left out -- we'd owned a home in -- in Saint Louis, but we'd sold that home and suddenly, I was surrounded by lots of really cool college kids and young professionals and people that I had not been exposed to before and so moving there was -- there was a brand new sense of community for us almost immediately.

MARION LIOU: What else did you find there?

TAYLOR: At 17 years old what else did I find? I found boys, lots of boys. There were -- the -- it -- Buford Highway was crawling with teenagers during that -- those years. I mean we were -- and they were from nationalities I had never ever encountered before and so Pablo Silva who was in my senior class homeroom was from Venezuela. You know we had kids from Uruguay, we had kids from -- Aparni [sp?] -- was from India. I mean she was -- you know, had just arrived, you know, within the -- the recent couple years before I met her. There were just so many -- and so I found a racial diversity that I had never experienced before in my life. That they were -- we were still fairly a predominantly white community along Buford Highway by the way. I mean from the -- the Connector clear out to, you know, Johns Creek where the whole thing is, Buford Highway was still largely 00:11:00a homogenously white community. There were just a few of us who happened to be, you know, black and brown and from other nations and -- and cultures and nationalities. It was just an interesting mix that I had not encountered and we found ourselves making our own sort of sub-community within us, you know. So if you were from Venezuela, you probably the only kid from Venezuela, you know. If you were from -- you -- if you were from South Asia, you were probably the only kid from South Asia. So there was just a -- a very different -- it was sparse but the beginnings of the plantings of the racial diversity that Buford Highway now has is -- and is -- and is enriched by was just beginning to start.

MARION LIOU: Do you know why that is? What made Buford Highway attractive for people from different places?

TAYLOR: It was still affordable then. It was -- it was a highly affordable community and it was the accessibility into downtown where the service shops 00:12:00were that there was this MARTA station. The Brookhaven MARTA Station was just over the way and so you would take this -- I forgot the bus line. You'd grab this bus off Buford Highway and you'd wind straight up into this Brookhaven MARTA Station and -- maybe 23, I don't know -- and you'd wind up there and you could go downtown, which was where everything was at the time. I mean there was a Macy store downtown. There was a Richards store downtown. There were all these brand new hotels. The jobs were at the center of the city still. In terms of working in Johns Creek, no one worked in Johns Creek back then. What do you mean drive to Norcross to go to work? No one did that. You went downtown and so Buford Highway was still a hop, skip, and a jump for -- from every -- from every meaningful job to be had. And there was a growing immigrant community of University students. So I lived across the hall from an African girl who went to Spellman and Valerie became kind of a big sister, you know, really for me. And 00:13:00so if you were Spellman or Morehouse there was a kid around the way. Eric Bridges who was a Morehouse student at the time. There were two more Morehouse guys -- they were super cute by the way -- two more Morehouse guys right up the hill and in our apartment complex. So I didn't have to go far. And so there was this diversity of immigrants. They were, you know, seeking this affordable housing -- you know, places where they could -- they could live and be easily accessible to, you know, where they were going to work or going to school and Buford Highway was that. It was connected.

MARION LIOU: You said you and your mom were at that Marriott on Windy Hill Road for a week?

TAYLOR: Yeah.

MARION LIOU: So it took you only a week to find housing?

TAYLOR: Only took us a week.

MARION LIOU: Why did you all choose Buford Highway?

TAYLOR: Well, there weren't a -- my mom really liked the idea and she drove a -- 00:14:00a -- a Pontiac -- it wasn't a Ferraro, although I wish it was a Ferraro. That car was hot. It was like a -- I forgot the name of her car. Wait. She drove this little black -- little black sedan and she could literally hop on Buford Highway and be at work in minutes. She would cut down that connector, you know, onto Peachtree or cut down the Connector on -- cut down the Buford Highway Connector and onto the 75/85 Connector and at Courtland Street she was off and into the back driveway of the Marriott. My mother has always hated a commute. Even today, I mean she's like 78, 79-years-old. She hates getting onto highways to go anywhere and so the connectivity to work for her -- school wasn't even the consideration. There will be a high school close around here and you will go to it. Well, really was the choice, but it really was proximity to her job. I remember back then -- you know, there was no internet. There was no Zillow or you know Rent.com. There were none of these places. But there was an Apartment 00:15:00Finder places -- ProMove. There were companies that had, basically, staff that would take newcomers because lots of newcomers were -- were -- were here at that time. I mean there was -- that was what I call the -- the -- there was -- we were in the middle of a wave, a migration wave. And African Americans, specifically, were moving to Atlanta in droves during that time. We had no -- no idea that we were a part of that wave. They were coming here to go to school, they were coming here to go to work, and they weren't going back north. So there was a return of African Americans to the South happening at that time and it was because, you know, the mayor was black. You know you got Andy Young and then you had Mayor Jackson and then -- so there was this black political power that was attractive. My mother and I weren't aware of this, by the way, but we moved in the middle of what became a black renaissance in Atlanta. And so these ProMove places were set up for people just like us. They were waiting and they would take us around to tell us, you know, what are you looking for; a two bedroom, three bedroom, carpets, what do you want? And they would take us specifically to where we want to go. What we didn't know is that these companies had these 00:16:00financial arrangements with apartment communities to steer people their way and we went to Buford Highway. We looked at one apartment. Nah, it's too expensive for us. I think was $500. And we went down the road and we passed by and said, hey, what about that one and they took us inside, it happened to be Bourdillon and we -- we moved in in days. Yeah.

MARION LIOU: What would you say the reputation of Buford Highway was then?

TAYLOR: Oh, back then it was just a middle-class community. You know there were lots of homes behind -- in front of us, you know, in the Dresden Community, 00:17:00Briarwood Road and all that. There was people who had lived there, you know, their whole lives. You know bungalows and ranch-style homes that had been built. There was a predominantly black neighborhood on the other side of -- of Brookhaven's MARTA station, Lynwood Park; gentrification had not come to Buford Highway just yet. And so we were an -- an -- an unsoiled -- in two enclave of working-class folks, you know, who sure liked laying by the pool, you know, on the weekends and -- and it was, as I said, affordable for my mom who was, you know, a director level person working -- running bars and restaurants at a -- at a Marriott Hotel that we could afford to do it. So -- but that level of -- of -- I guess, tranquility was disrupted pretty quickly, even when I still lived there. The cranes started moving. You know the homes were being demolished. 00:18:00Apartment complexes were starting to come down and perfectly good looking places, by the way, where people were still living that they were buying people out of their leases and -- because the land as where Buford Highway sat was so valuable that these affordable units could not stand for long. And so Lenox Road was not developed. Lenox Road and all those wonderful high-rises that came -- came starting around 1985 and clear into 1990 where they built -- you know, what were at the time hugely expensive high-rises and mid-rises and townhomes and -- and we -- we looked in awe. Like wow, this is some amazing stuff. There is a community that now sits between Cross Keys High School and the back of Lenox Mall that is called Lenox Park. Offices, apartments, townhomes that was all forest when I was in high school. There was no cut-through to get from Cross 00:19:00Keys to Lenox. You had to go all the way back around Druid Hills Road and circle back around to get [?]. Now there is a cut-through as if it'd been there the whole time. And so we moved at the front edge of a redevelopment that literally drove people from the apartments and from the homes that they had lived in their entire lives and so now my school friends, you know, they -- we're all in our 50s. They live in the outer reaches of Atlanta. You know the parents sold and they moved to First and Norcross and then to Forsythe. And some people moved to Cherokee County; some people moved to Roswell, but there was a gutting of the communities that I don't know on balance if it was the right or wrong thing really. But I know that there were some families who were hurt by the new development because, frankly, they couldn't afford to live in the neighborhoods that they had raised their children in anymore. And so that was tough, I think. And I think rents dropped for some complexes that still stand and so you know, you've got -- and these are all privately held, so there are some absentee 00:20:00landlords on Buford Highway now that weren't there before. Prior when, you know, you -- someone owned an apartment complex, they were right here in town and you could reach out to the management company because they were right here in town. But now you've got those very same complexes that have been sold to outside investors who aren't necessarily interested in the -- the -- the growth and sustainability of the community. They're interested in the rents that are being drawn. And so there's sort of a mix now of beautiful new developments and you know lower income homes that could probably use a little bit of attention. The neighborhood, in general, has flipped in terms of its cultural mix in a way that I think is -- is important and has been thrilling because you know if you -- if you want Korean barbeque you go to Buford Highway now. That wasn't true then. You know if you want the best Chinese jack buffet in the whole world, you know, Buford Highway is the only place to go and get great dim sum in this city. And 00:21:00so it has become -- they took the plaza that I used to work in -- I worked in a -- a Foot Locker shoe store. I'm sorry, not Foot Locker, Finish Line. They'd be upset if I confused the two. I worked at a Finish Line shoe store in a mall near the corner of Dresden and Buford Highway. It is now Plaza Fiesta, I think, which I -- I am just like, wow, this is absolutely -- you know blows your mind. But you know -- but I think in that redevelopment a lot of businesses fled but it opened the door for some other really interesting and -- and rich cultural diversity to move right in. Northeast Plaza at the corner of Briarwood and Buford Highway, there used to be a Sears Outlet store there. I was a cashier there, you know. There used to be a bowling alley over there and a -- and a movie rental store -- Movie Stop or something or other like that. There was a 00:22:00was it Friday's? There was a Friday's around there and a -- a Copeland's. Not Copeland's, a Dalts restaurant. I mean there had been a Payless Shoe store and there were just some really, interesting, cool businesses around there that just aren't there anymore. But what has moved in, you know, I think is probably -- is the Old Country Buffet still there? Northeast Plaza? Maybe, I don't know. There's an Old Country Buffet, girl, eat there all day and night. But the changes that have occurred have been driven by two things. One, you know, the gentrification of, you know, housing and the bringing in of a wealthier class of citizenry, but also what was left in terms of -- of multifamily housing. The process dropped and so you -- it brought in a cultural diversity that we didn't have really before. So it's a -- it's a -- a strange phenomenon. I still live 00:23:00close by because it's still home for me in so many ways. I got a lot -- I had a lot of fun. I got in a lot of trouble. I -- you know, I -- I -- I left a mark on Buford Highway, I believe, but I have -- I decided that when I went to raise my own children that I wanted to raise them, you know, in a closer, nearby community. And so we never really left North -- North -- North Buckhead -- North DeKalb. I never really left it. Yeah.

MARION LIOU: Tell us about the drag racing.

TAYLOR: Joy Butler, if you can hear me, I'm calling your name. I had my best girlfriend I met at Cross Keys was a chick named Joy Butler and her brother Kenny and I had -- so my mother to appease me, to make me feel better about this 00:24:00move, decided she'd buy me a car. So we saw this ad in the newspaper. There was no online at the time. $99 down and $99 a month for a Mercury Lynx, which looked a lot like a Ford Escort. So I got -- she bought me this black Mercury Lynx. It was new and so I was a senior in high school with a new car and everybody was like, oh, the new girl has a new car and Joy and I got into the car and blazed our way around Buford Highway. And so for -- I was -- I did not participate in the drag races, but I was certainly present for them and so -- you know, and the new car attracted people, friends, boys; folks who just wanted a ride to the drive-in or the party or whatever it was. And it was during that era around 1985 to maybe 1987 that drag racing up Buford Highway became a thing that at night you could hear the motors revving from stop light to stop light because it was the only in-town street on our side that looked just like a highway. You could -- and I think the speed limit was 45 back then. Maybe -- maybe even 50. So here 00:25:00you had a major thoroughfare where the speed limit was 45 or 50 and you know, you could -- and -- and -- and at night, it was blank. There was no one out there. So you had a clear shot from -- all the way up from 285 clear down to the Connector where the Days Inn Reservation Center used to be, you got a clear shot to pick your corners and it was -- there was some excitement. There was a lot of -- of drag race tailgating. Lots of teenage beer drinking and you know, late nights at the fast food restaurants. There was a Dominos Pizza that came in over there and so we'd order a Dominos pizza and sit out on the Northeast Plaza corner and drink beer and eat pizza and let the -- watch the next race line up and there wasn't a lot of -- I wouldn't say police let us do what they wanted -- wanted to, but they had other things to do until, you know, the first major 00:26:00accident where somebody got hurt. Then people realized that drag racing up Buford Highway was a real problem. Yeah, and so now it's -- I think there was a big crackdown and the cars got faster over time and the kids got younger and -- and so now it's a -- now it's a thing. Yeah. And -- and a dangerous thing.

MARION LIOU: When was the first major accident?

TAYLOR: It was after we moved, but I -- I -- I think it was in '88 or '89 because I was either pregnant or having a first child when -- because my husband and I had moved up Buford Highway, up Peachtree Industrial to -- almost into what is now Johns Creek. And -- so we had got dispatched to the community all the time. I think it was probably '88 or '89 and a young'un died. It was like Mustangs and you know, big muscle cars and the car flipped is what we'd heard 00:27:00and you know, it -- fire blaze and -- but I think it was probably the 80's when the first major happened. But I think there have been others, you know, since that every once in a while you read, you know, there was another major accident. Yeah. And it's -- it's somebody -- you know, it's always somebody young and male. I think they've all been boys, yeah, so far. In that strip right in front of where we live because it has dips. It's the perfect place, yeah, if you want to rear up your engines. Yeah. There was a -- ours would start at the Kroger -- there was Kroger store that probably stood there. A Kroger store down near -- I guess that's Dresden at -- at Buford Highway. There was a large meadow here, which I think is still there and the Kroger was back here and there was a liquor store and a Book Nook here in this corner. The Book Nook was the best used bookstore you could ever find in your whole life. If you wanted comic books from 00:28:00the 50s they were in there. But our races would start at that corner, run the full length of Buford -- almost the full length of Buford Highway down to Northeast Plaza and so it was right in that big section is -- it is a straightaway, but there is a -- a couple of brief hills that are long enough that you know you won't go flying over the hill or anything, but the difficulty is on both sides of the street there are these gullies that go into the apartment complexes, so flipping off -- that's why there are guardrails, by the way, on Buford Highway. There weren't guardrails before. Yeah. And so now there are all these metal guardrails along the sides -- both sides of the street because kids were flipping down these hills. It was too bad.

MARION LIOU: What are the other hangout spots for you when you were a senior?

TAYLOR: When I was a senior I'm living out in a park -- somebody's parking lot. 00:29:00There was a teen club. Now, where was it? There were a couple of them. There was a teen club up Roswell Johnson Ferry Road that we would kind of roll up to. I thought there was something over here at Roswell that Blackland Confetti. Our -- our main -- and by the way, our main goal every Friday night was to get into an adult club. That -- that was the goal. The goal was to get into an adult club. Limelight, Confetti, Club 112, The Phoenix was a big African Americans nightclub at the time, Club 131 was. Our main goal every Friday and Saturday night was to get into a grown-up club because back then the drinking age was still moving. So when I moved to Atlanta the drinking age was 18 and it was moving up progressively. You know the next year it was 19, then it moved to 20, and it was tied to highway bill dollars. So if your state didn't move that driving age -- didn't move up that drinking age, you were going to miss out on all these highway dollars until you reached the 21-years-old progression. So I was a year 00:30:00behind, you know. So I was 17 and couldn't -- and by the time I turned 18, ready to drink, the age was now 19. So I was always chasing the drinking age. So Joy and I's main goal was to get dressed up on Friday night and dress like grown women, like 19-years-old and get ourselves into The Phoenix nightclub or get ourselves into V's Figure 8, you know, the nightclub down on Peachtree which was hugely famous. So that was our goal. And so other kids were doing other, you know, kid, fun things, we were trying to get into the nightclub. That's -- that was our deal. Yeah.

MARION LIOU: Would you say that was what most of --

TAYLOR: No.

MARION LIOU: -- the kids at Cross Keys was --

TAYLOR: No.

MARION LIOU: -- trying--

TAYLOR: No, we were just crazy. No, Joy and I were just lost. We just had a whole different thing about where we -- you know, where we thought our -- our lives were -- were going and I wanted to be a -- a singing star, so you know, being at the clubs they'd have an open mic night, time to sing and you know, my little tone deaf self would get on the stage and you know, try to win something. 00:31:00But no, the other kids were doing kid things. They were going to football games. You know they were going to, you know, tailgates. They were -- you know, they were still having sleepovers and having, you know, good fun. Joy and I were a different breed and that was just a very -- you know, we -- there was an awful lot of drinking for two young girls at 18 -- you know at 17, 18-years-old. That just -- yeah.

MARION LIOU: Where did that come from?

TAYLOR: Joy. No, just kidding. Joy and I were the same age and she's a bartender I think today, so it stayed with her. You know Joy showed me another side of the world that I also had not seen before. You know the role of the house party and I went, wow, kids. Beer and house parties, this is amazing. And so there was a -- if there's a coming of age story, it was Joy Butler and I with this little black Lincoln Mercury, you know, Lynx car in search of, you know, the eternal buzz, you know, from house party to house party because we couldn't get into the 00:32:00club, we'd wind up at somebodies house, which was -- invariably it because every bouncer in the world, you know, knew us on sight. You again? Yeah, me again.

MARION LIOU: Whose house? Where?

TAYLOR: It was Troy Delgado's house, who became my high school boyfriend at the time and -- and when I was a senior it was high house and his -- his brother. There's -- they still live in Atlanta. I think they live in Fayetteville or south -- southern side -- southern section of Atlanta. It was Troy Delgado's house and his cousins and we had really I think -- we had a good time. Boy did we. We had -- we had a good time, but you know, it was Troy who first told me that I was a writer, you know, who said, you know, you should -- this is good and you should do something with that. And so that was -- there was a beginning -- a planting there of hanging with -- with Joy [?] and his cousins and it 00:33:00seemed like everybody at Cross Keys was related in some way -- but there was a planting of being with him over that year around -- that my writing was something that I should look at as important. That it wasn't just a -- a high school essay or a -- that I was beginning to write at that time -- that had -- in a way that had nothing to do with an assignment and I hated going to school. I just wanted to be home and write. So -- and a high school counselor at Cross Keys and I forget his name -- in March -- we were in the trimester system back then -- after the second trimester, looked at my transcript and said, you know, you have enough credits to graduate and you don't have to be here this next semester if you don't want to be and I didn't. You know I wanted to, you know, hang out with Joy on the weekends and I wanted to write and that is exactly what I did. I took the early graduation. I did not march with my class because I 00:34:00didn't have a real connectivity to a lot of them. I did not march with my class. I did not go to the baccalaureate. None of those things. I took the -- the signature of the credit and I took off and I spent probably the next -- I spent that spring and that summer probably writing the first in the series of short stories over time and so that's when I started.

MARION LIOU: What were the stories about?

TAYLOR: Kids getting drunk on the weekend mostly. They were. The stories weren't particularly good. They were very, very much in the moment kind of stories as I recall. They were, you know, basically -- if I -- and if you went back and read them today, they were just about a 17-year-old girl finding her way, navigating her way through life. And I didn't have any particular connection to other black writers, but I sure loved Judy Blume, you know, and Flowers in the Attic and all those other kinds of -- of -- of things -- Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. 00:35:00Those are the kinds of things that attracted me most of the time and so those were the kinds of things that I was trying to write. I was trying to, you know, I guess mimic or identify closely with those coming of age stories.

MARION LIOU: Do you remember what it was that Troy Delgado read that made--

TAYLOR: I think it was just an essay, you know, that I had written. I had written something maybe for our English Lit class or something, but I think it was just an essay from school and he just found it and oh, but hey, this is good. You know you should do more of this, you know? And I said well, I do, I write all the time and he -- he wanted to see the -- the rest of the stuff. And so I don't think I ever showed him the rest of the stuff because I was a little more, you know, hesitant than that, more reticent. But he saw a couple things and I was writing poetry at the time. I really suck at poetry. But I was writing poetry at the time and he thought this is really, really good -- good stuff. Yeah. And we were into love letter too, so Troy and I would write letters back 00:36:00and forth so that was part of it. Yeah. I don't think I've written a love letter since maybe that. Maybe, maybe. So that was kind of -- that was the thing. It was -- that was kind of when I decided I had a voice that needed to be found and then I think I went mute for a long time and didn't turn back to writing until I was probably in my middle 20s and at that point, I was writing every day. Something every day, whether it was a news story or a fiction short story or -- I was writing something every single day and I couldn't -- still cannot get away from but it is always reflective of, you know, my own experiences and so a Buford Highway will pop up in Paper Gods, you know? Or you know Lenox Mall will pop up, you know, in the next book. Yeah, these things are always sort of -- of -- you write what you know and I spent the better part of my writing career writing exactly what I know -- exactly what I know with a little, you know, 00:37:00flare here and there. A few flourishes, but yeah.

MARION LIOU: What is your usual advice -- do you have usual advice for young writers or aspiring writers?

TAYLOR: Do it and do it a lot and read everything. You know I -- I think you're a better writer when you're a better reader, so-- I think the people get bogged down and -- and I'm a -- you know, I'm a stickler for form, you know, and all those things, you know, and -- and sentence composition and -- and -- and you know, I could probably teach an English lit class, you know, or a composition class, but there comes a time when we basically threw it away. There comes a time you threw form away, you threw sentence structure away and you just find your own voice and you become a storyteller rather than, you know, somebody 00:38:00that's just sort of streaming sentences together. And so that only happens when you do it a lot; when you are playing around with, testing, tinkering with, when you allow yourself to play on the page. That mastery of voice only comes then. Yeah.

MARION LIOU: What has Atlanta -- what is the role Atlanta has played in your voice? In your storytelling? Because in Paper Gods it's a character in itself.

TAYLOR: [?] is maybe more clear -- a clarity of voice. I had a -- an affinity for this city that I certainly didn't have at 17 coming down I-85 moving here. This is home today. I couldn't imagine that I would have raised my children and 00:39:00lived anywhere else during all of these formative years. And so the city has become a part of who I am. It informs my storytelling. It informs, you know, my work. And -- and so for me, Atlanta itself is another character, you know, and I -- when I wrote stories, I write Atlanta as a fully fledged and round character. So and I think in -- in that way the city has become very important really to me, but having worked in its politics, having worked in its major newsrooms, having, you know, been around it's so-called movers and shakers, I have another understanding of Atlanta that most folks don't always get to see. And so I've decided to tell that story. I've had access to some -- some of the smoky backrooms, so I've decided to tell the story of some of the smoky backrooms, which I think really is what Paper Gods is -- does -- opens up an avenue to character and story that hadn't been opened before. And so I think that's -- that's a part of it. If you remember maybe in the early 90s there was a book called the Man in Full. It was written by the terrific Tom Wolfe -- the amazing 00:40:00is an opus. I have a copy of it upstairs. It -- and it is based in Atlanta and it -- it purports to tell the story of and when you read it it could be any city on Earth. A Man in Full is a -- an incredible story, but he could have been talking as easily about Seattle or Washington DC. That the story itself is not so specific to Atlanta and I -- you know, have written couple other novels and that story just never left me and so when I decided to write Paper Gods, I wanted to write a story that hadn't been told that maybe Tom Wolfe had wanted to tell but had missed. I felt that he had missed a lot about Atlanta and so that's where Paper Gods came from. Paper Gods is my version of A Man in Full. I just decided to tell it -- to open the door and tell the rest of the story. Yeah. It's much shorter too. It's much shorter. I think I -- I get it done in like maybe 300 pages. I think his is like 900 or something like that. Yeah.

MARION LIOU: But you're going to tell the sequel too, so there is more --

TAYLOR: There is --

MARION LIOU: -- to say.

TAYLOR: -- there is more to say. There -- there probably is a sequel or two behind this and Paper Gods is going to be a TV show. And so lots of folks are going to get to see Paper Gods on their -- on their tiny screen at home. I don't know which network yet, but a production company has optioned it and we're off to the races. Yep. So --

MARION LIOU: Congratulations.

TAYLOR: -- yes. So I'm -- I'm excited. I'm -- I'm living in an exciting time.

MARION LIOU: What is it saying that Atlanta, the TV show, isn't saying? It's very different.

TAYLOR: It's very different. There are other shows on television that are set in other cities --

MARION LIOU: Uh-huh.

TAYLOR: -- but the -- the -- the intersection of politics and pop culture in Atlanta, I think, is what I talk most about in the book and I think it will be compelling because you can't -- you know, between faith and business and entertainment and politics -- all these communities run together in Atlanta. It's kind of hard to tell which room you're -- you're really standing in and so 00:42:00I talk -- and I bring that to life I think in the book and I hope that you know as we produce it for television that the level of realism that I gave to it -- it's a -- it's a bit of a cross between House of Cards and Scandal, but it looks like The Wire. So I am hoping that our production team can bring it -- bring it to life in a way that I think I intended.

MARION LIOU: What is that man's story? What is the voice that you are giving to Atlanta that people don't know?

TAYLOR: I think Atlanta has -- and -- and this was evident of Buford Highway -- Atlanta has a social contract that -- you know there are south side African American voters, predominantly, and north side, largely, white families who 00:43:00control the purse strings. Mayors are elected out of that contract. New development happens out of that contract and now there are these new developers of other races and nationalities that are kind of shaking things up now, isn't it? Things -- things are -- the -- the landscape is certainly changing, but that contract was brokered in the early 70s with the election of Mayor Jackson and it has sustained itself through all of these decades. Now it's coming undone because the dynamics of the city, the demographics are changing, the centers of power are shifting, and you know, no longer do sort of these cabals of you know political machines control things. People understand the power of their individual vote and their power to organize individually and so the centers of power are breaking apart and the social contract is -- a brand new contract is coming to grow. And so the story of Atlanta is waiting to be written. It's what that new contract will look like. You know it may not be as clear as the last 00:44:00one, but there will be a social contract in a way that we do business in a city that I think is changing. Yeah.

MARION LIOU: You said that's evident on Buford Highway; can you explain more about that?

TAYLOR: Well, I think it's in the way that the development came. That you know Buford Highway was a predominantly white neighborhood and now look. You know the -- the languages and the nationalities represented is -- is -- is a potpourri, a cacophony of you know just cultures. That was not true in 1985 or was it true even as, you know, late as 2000 and 20 years ago. But progressively, over time Buford Highway has now its own, you know -- its own, you know -- its own sorts of power and how it votes and why it votes. It isn't sort of run quite the same 00:45:00way and so -- it used to be unincorporated DeKalb County. It now is a city with a police department and it is now a city with a mayor and a council. That's a very, very different thing. It now can stop development whereas it could not before. You know when they developed Lenox Road and along Brookhaven and back through Dresden, developers pretty much had their way because like it's [?] we're going to do this and they did it. Today? MARTA tried to do a transit-oriented development at the Brookhaven MARTA Station and the City of Brookhaven others said no. We want to preserve our communities; we want balanced and sustained -- sustainable growth. You know we want to make certain that the communities continue to have or -- or hold onto, you know, their -- their cultural basis and they said no. And so nothing is being built on top of that. They were going to build on top of the MARTA station, which it looked really 00:46:00incredible but it wasn't in line with what the people of Brookhaven -- this new Brookhaven city wanted. And so now it has a political power that it did not have in '85. It could have had more say in what Lenox Road looks like. It could have had more say in what Buford Highway looks like or even Northeast Plaza or any of the other developments that came along. It could have had more say. It didn't because it wasn't organized. Today it is. Today is organized. And I think that's -- that's how the contract is changing. People are forming their own basis of political power.

MARION LIOU: Who is most desperate to hold onto the old social contract?

TAYLOR: The people that made the money. The people whose families became wealthy from the old social contract. And so if you look at -- the airport is an economic engine. If you look at the development community as an economic engine. If you sort of take a look at where the city and -- and county contracts flowed 00:47:00to, those are the people who have the most skin in the game when it comes to maintaining the old social contract. Because if you bust the old contract that opens up more opportunity for a lot more people competing with you. And you know it's cheaper not to compete. So you want the old contract if it keeps other people from competing for wealth.

MARION LIOU: Do you think that people who held the power in the old social contract are doing their hardest --

TAYLOR: No.

MARION LIOU: -- to try --

TAYLOR: Oh.

MARION LIOU: -- to ensure that the people who have the most to gain are now buying into that old contract or--

TAYLOR: They'd like to believe that the old contract still exists --

MARION LIOU: Oh.

TAYLOR: -- is what it is. They -- they -- I think they're still by-and-large living in the delusion that the old contract still exists and that it will persist for some time, but you don't have to be blind to see a Whole Foods go up on the 14th and you know Spring -- West Peachtree. You don't have to be blind to 00:48:00see some of the things that are happening in town and how this contract is changing. If you look at the last several mayor elections and the racial makeup of the -- if you look at what Stacey Abrams was able to do against Mac -- against Brian Kemp in this last -- I'm calling him Mac Kemp, a football player -- against Brian Kemp in this last gubernatorial election then you have got to see that the old contract is coming apart. Not because somebody came along and busted it; because we outgrew it and this is growth that you're not going to be able to turn back. Georgia is going to be aggressively more racially diverse -- it's [?] going to be more racially diverse over time and that's going to bring changes in who controls the political purse strings in the state. It's just a -- it's just -- it's just what it is.

MARION LIOU: Do you get pushback for saying things like that?

TAYLOR: Nah. Sure -- sure they do. Every once -- every once in a while I do, but you know, I'm the -- I'm the cranky old lady on the corner, so-- They -- they pushback quietly, typically, because I think they're afraid I'll write about them or something. They'll be -- they'll become a character in a book or something. No, it's a -- I think political scientists in general and that's what I studied it at at Emory, by the way, is political science. Political science, in general -- scientists, in general, will tell you -- you know, can show you the data of how Georgia is growing and why and so there's really no disputing that. Where you get the pushback is, oh, Goldie, we're not trying to protect the old contract. To which I give them a side eye and I keep it moving. I keep it moving, so I think that's kind of -- if there's any pushback it's we're not who you -- who you -- who you say we are. Yeah. If there's any.

MARION LIOU: Is the black renaissance still alive and well in Atlanta?

TAYLOR: It's become something else. You know there was a huge renaissance of black art, of black young -- young people graduating from the Atlanta University Center starting new enterprises. There was a huge burst of excitement starting probably in the middle 80s and moving clear probably into 2005 and this migration of folks -- the migration is reversing. Those who came and stayed decades, their children are moving back to Chicago, back to New York, back to DC, back to, you know, where they were coming -- so the -- the migration toward Atlanta, that has stopped. It -- it -- it was a wave. In 1985, you could literally see the -- the cars packed with household goods coming down the highway. They -- people were just coming every day and so that has stopped because the -- of the economic growth of the homes that they left. Atlanta was 00:51:00boomtown during that time. The boom isn't quite over, but you know, we have -- the people here are able to sustain it, I think. And so that is -- so that part of the renaissance is probably -- and for now. It'll be back. I think Atlanta is just a place where the cost of living, the quality of life you know are really pretty good. Low cost of living, high -- for a high quality of life. You can get an awful lot for your money here. I think that we'll continue to attract people of all persuasions, but in terms of the wave, I think that's -- that's it for now. Yeah, just for now.

MARION LIOU: The ending, is that contributing to the undoing of the social contract?

TAYLOR: It is.

MARION LIOU: Uh-huh.

TAYLOR: Well, you know if you look at the last mayor election and you figure out who is voting wherein-town the percentage of the in-town electorate is changing. The new high-rises, the -- the new -- high-rises like this, you know? And you look on and see who your neighbors are and go, wow, you weren't living in the 00:52:00city a few years ago and there is a very different, you know -- while we became a more diverse city, some of those whites who fled to suburbs in the 80s and 90s are back and their children are back living in-town. East Atlanta, Grant Park, Inman Park, full stretches of you know the West Side Corridor. That was all black. Now there this Beltline. The old Fourth Ward, you know, where -- predominantly black communities are now much more diverse than they ever had been and so a brand new contract is coming to four. We just don't know all of what it will look like yet.

MARION LIOU: What do you think it looks like?

TAYLOR: I think it's incredible. I think with all the brand new, you know, mixes 00:53:00of race, religion, and cultures and language coming in; I just think it is an amazing thing. There are some folks who are very, very hesitant though because as I -- I think as I say in the book, Victoria Dobbs thinks, you know, there might be a white mayor in Atlanta. There are some people who are afraid that there will be a white mayor in Atlanta. And you know -- and they're probably right that there will be because of how, you know, many more African Americans are moving to the suburbs and how we are voting in town seems to point to that. I'm just wondering what the fear is though. You know I'm trying to figure out, you know if that person is right and represents an experienced in all the things that we look for in a great mayor. Who cares, you know, what racial background he or she hails from. But yeah, there is a -- a -- I think there are some people who are worried about losing the mayors office. That this is what Maynard Jackson fought for. This is exactly what Maynard Jackson fought for. He fought 00:54:00for a larger -- larger and greater access to the economic pie and now it's here and increasingly for more and more people. And that might mean that as a voting block African Americans have diffused their votes into Sandy Springs and Douglasville and other -- and Stone Mountain and other places where we're moving to -- and Brookhaven and other places that we're moving to so that now the city -- how a mayor or a city council person is elected out of that new tapestry will certainly be an interesting thing to see.

MARION LIOU: What is your gut feeling?

TAYLOR: Oh, we'll have a white mayor soon. Yeah, probably -- I could probably tell you who it is. Yeah, no, no questions, you know, I've had -- yeah, there are a great number of -- it probably won't be Mary Norwood, but you know, I think I think I have a--.

MARION LIOU: That's on the record.

TAYLOR: I know. I always -- I think I was Sara -- I think I'm a Sara Mitchell in 00:55:00the book, so Mary -- Mary as well. That was Sara Mitchell in the book who is my Mary Norwood person in the book. And there is a -- every character represents somebody or somebodies, you know, a group of people, but--

MARION LIOU: So who is Victoria Dobbs?

TAYLOR: Victoria is actually a mix of people, but I had to erase every other mayor from the book in the modern era to create her.

MARION LIOU: Oh.

TAYLOR: And so I know Kasim Reed well. I know Bill Campbell extremely well. I had to erase them to create Victoria because I didn't want my friends to say, you know, I'm not like that, but I did -- I -- I -- at the -- I -- all at once, erased our four previous mayors and created a brand new one based on both the best and worst attributes of those that I knew. Yeah. So she's not -- she is somebody and nobody. But everybody else in the book is -- is a -- is a mix of 00:56:00sort of other people. But in terms of mayors, I mean, we've got, you know, Peter Aman is an incredible human being and businessman here in the city. I wouldn't be surprised if he stepped into the ring again. There was a -- a state house representative, Kathy Ashe. She has a son, Robbie Ashe, who had been an assistant to, you know, Kasim Reed until Shirley Franklin. He's probably a viable candidate coming in the future. There are a number of people who happen not to be black, but who have their own basis of political power that could lead them straight to the mayor's office and so there are probably any number of folks out there who -- probably not anyone who has been elected. It'll likely be someone who came -- who is either a lawyer today or has come from -- come from the business community. But it'll be somebody who has been able to create a bridge between communities. You know someone who is as comfortable walking through Cascade as he is through East Atlanta as she is through, you know, the West Side Corridor District who is -- is -- you know, at ease here in Buckhead, 00:57:00you know, as they would be, you know, in Druid Hills. It could be -- that is -- it will take a very special person to pull off, but I think that person is out there.

MARION LIOU: What is the social contract do you think a person will be offering?

TAYLOR: I think the person is going to talk about greater equity, access to prosperity for all Atlantans I think that person is going to talk about how we are better together. That we're stronger when we work on one accord. I think that person is going to talk about preservation of neighborhoods and smart managed growth because people -- the growth that we're seeing in Atlanta, frankly, scares people. I think that person is going to talk about affordable housing and poverty and how we, as one of the richest cities on Earth, how do we still have people living in Woodruff Park. I think, you know, that person is going to talk about how Georgia State is growing and Georgia Tech and the growth and how do we support that in a really smart manageable way. They're going to 00:58:00talk about economic and environmental sustainability and how this city serves its people rather than people simply living in it. And so it could be an interesting -- and it will start soon. This very next cycle, I think we're going to see new candidates and I don't think it will take very long after that before we see a change in what -- or a manifestation of what the new social contract will look like.

MARION LIOU: Do you think that'll happen in Mayor Bottoms' first election -- or first --

TAYLOR: Her first --

MARION LIOU: -- term --

TAYLOR: -- reelection?

MARION LIOU: -- or--

TAYLOR: It -- it could happen. If --

MARION LIOU: Uh-huh.

TAYLOR: -- if -- when she stands for reelection there -- she may get some opponents depending on how strongly she runs this term. She may draw -- but Atlanta is not very good -- we're -- we're very good at reelecting mayors. We're very -- so her chances of being reelected are -- are very good too. It's just who we are. But the term after that when the sea is open, when anybody -- all-comers, I think that's when we're going to see a manifestation of what this 00:59:00-- what this contract looks like.

MARION LIOU: So my last question is what is Buford Highway's role in Atlanta's story?

TAYLOR: Well, Buford Highway decided that it wanted to be Brookhaven. That is an important thing to -- to -- to kind of put in here, but its proximity to the city is I mean it just sits at its -- at its -- at its water's edge and so you can't live in Brookhaven and not be a participant in Atlanta. I mean two blocks up Peachtree is the Brookhaven line -- two blocks from here. So I live right on the -- the city -- the City of Brookhaven line, so things that happen in Brookhaven impact me. Things that happen here in my community impact the folks of Brookhaven and so I think that's -- and so I think that's part of -- that part of it is that they aren't -- while they've separated from Atlanta jurisdictionally, they still are pretty much part of, you know, the political framework of the city. I do think that Brookhaven's diversity will, at some 01:00:00point, embrace its own power because, you know, today it's historically white neighborhoods still have the political power in Brookhaven. That's going to change just by the sheer numbers of things and I don't think it will be very long before it does. Yeah, so you may have an Asian or Hispanic mayor in Brookhaven before [?]. Yeah, I think that [?] will happen, absolutely.

MARION LIOU: What does that mean for Atlanta's--

TAYLOR: I think one of my old schoolmates is mayor or -- or at least he was a year ahead or behind me, something like that. I think I know the old mayor from like high school years or something -- the mayor from high school or something. Maybe. [?] Somebody'll mention a name and I go I know him. But yeah, that's -- Brookhaven will -- Brookhaven's demographics will change its political landscape as well in a much -- slower, but much more dramatic way than Atlanta. Much more dramatic way. Yeah, very interesting. Yeah, could be.

MARION LIOU: Do you have anything else you want to talk about?

TAYLOR: Well, I can tell you that Buford Highway was a -- for me as a -- in -- in my formative years, you know, that 17, 18-years-old, that it was a gift to me and that you know it -- I just find myself -- I could go and -- and float in its waters and just spend some time -- but it gave me access to cultures and activities and opportunities that I -- I would never have seen before had we not made this -- made this move and so I think it is and continues to be a real important part of who I am. You know I think all of leaves Buford Highway at some point, but Buford Highway really never leaves you. And so it is a -- as a strip of geography, it's just never really left me. Yeah, it's as -- you know, for the short period -- relatively short period of time that we really lived 01:02:00there, my attachment to it is even stronger than it is to my hometown in Saint Louis. I call Buford Highway home. Yep. Yeah, so that's what I'll say.

MARION LIOU: Thank you so much.

TAYLOR: Thank you. Thank you.