Lanier University, named after poet Sidney Lanier

Sidney Lanier

Sidney Lanier was an American musician and poet.-Biography:Sidney Lanier was born February 3, 1842, in Macon, Georgia, to parents Robert Sampson Lanier and Mary Jane Anderson; he was mostly of English ancestry. His distant French Huguenot ancestors immigrated to England in the 16th century...

, was from a short-lived university in today's Morningside-Lenox Park

Morningside-Lenox Park

Morningside/Lenox Park is a residential neighborhood in Atlanta, Georgia founded in 1931. It is located north of Virginia-Highland, east of Ansley Park and west of Druid Hills...

 neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...

.

Charles Lewis Fowler, a Baptist minister, founded Lanier in 1917. He hoped for financing from Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...

 magnate Asa Candler but instead got backing from the Georgia Baptist Association. Lanier was to be Georgia's first co-ed Baptist college.

Architect A. Ten Eyck Brown

A. Ten Eyck Brown

Albert Anthony Ten Eyck Brown was an architect active in Atlanta, Georgia and other areas. Brown was born in 1878 in Albany, New York. He studied at the Academy of Design in New York.His works include:* St...

 made architectural plans for the new campus in Morningside on a crescent-shaped strip of land (see illustration). At the head of this strip, at University Drive and Spring Valley Lane, would stand a replica of the Custis-Lee Mansion

Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial

Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial, formerly named the Custis-Lee Mansion, is a Greek revival style mansion located in Arlington, Virginia, USA that was once the home of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. It overlooks the Potomac River, directly across from the National Mall in Washington,...

 in Arlington, Virginia. This was built and named Arlington Hall.

The University Park subdivision was developed around the university in 1921, and University Drive is also a reminder of that time.

But financial problems plagued the school; in 1921 the property was sold to the Ku Klux Klan

Ku Klux Klan

Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...

, which owned it for a year, with General Nathan Bedford Forrest

Nathan Bedford Forrest II

Nathan Bedford Forrest II was the grandson of Confederate Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest , a pioneering leader of the Ku Klux Klan, and father of Brigadier General Nathan Bedford Forrest III...

 (descendant of the Confederate general by the same name

Nathan Bedford Forrest

Nathan Bedford Forrest was a lieutenant general in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. He is remembered both as a self-educated, innovative cavalry leader during the war and as a leading southern advocate in the postwar years...

) as Secretary and Business Manager. The university failed within a year, closing on September 1, 1922. It was sold that October.

The property wound up as a synagogue. In 1949 Congregation Shearith Israel, then in Summerhill

Summerhill (Atlanta)

Summerhill is a neighborhood directly south of Downtown Atlanta between the Atlanta Zoo and Turner Field. It is bordered by the neighborhoods of Grant Park, Mechanicsville, and Peoplestown. Summerhill is one of 26 Atlanta neighborhoods making up the Atlanta Neighborhood Planning Unit system...

, bought the property from the estate of Walter E. King. During this time Summerhill was deteriorating due to the construction of the Downtown Connector

Downtown Connector

In Atlanta, Georgia, the Downtown Connector or 75/85 is the concurrent section of Interstate 75 and Interstate 85 through the core of the city. Beginning at the I-85/Langford Parkway interchange, the Downtown Connector runs generally due north, meeting the east-west Interstate 20 in the middle....

 freeway and many Jews were moving from there to Morningside, where many would later join to fight the construction of the I-485 freeway through Morningside

Atlanta freeway revolts

There have been multiple freeway revolts in Atlanta, Georgia. However, the longest and most famous is the one against I-485 and the Stone Mountain Freeway through Intown Atlanta, lasting over 30 years, from the early 1960s until the final construction of Freedom Parkway on a small portion of the...

.

Since 2009, Arlington Hall has been occupied by the Canterbury School while the synagogue remains in buildings behind it to the east.

External links

• "Shearith Israel Renovates.....'All Southern' Lanier University ", Morningside/Lenox Park Association
• "Forrest tells aims of Ku Klux College", New York Times, September 12, 1921
• The Ku-Klux Klan: Hearings before the Committee on rules - information on faculty, curriculum, etc. after KKK acquisition of Lanier