Flat Rock Archives takes community history on the road to Stonecrest and Lithonia libraries

Before the subdivisions or even the granite boom, there was Flat Rock. This fall, the history of that community—one of Georgia’s oldest Black settlements—is coming to the library branches that now sit on its ground, free of charge.

“History of the Flat Rock Archives” comes to the Stonecrest Library auditorium on Saturday, Oct. 17, from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. A second program with the same title comes to Salem-Panola Library in Lithonia on Saturday, Nov. 7, from 12:00 to 1:30 p.m. Both are free adult programs open to the public.

Older than the quarries

Flat Rock lies in present-day Stonecrest, in DeKalb County, southeast of Lithonia and inside the Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area. The community predates Lithonia’s incorporation. The earliest documented map of it dates to 1822, and enslaved people lived there before it became a free Black community after emancipation.

After emancipation, the formerly enslaved people of Flat Rock became farmers, sharecroppers, and landowners, building the community’s churches, schools, and other institutions themselves. The Flat Rock United Methodist Episcopal Church was founded by formerly enslaved people in 1870, and a nearby cemetery holds burials dating to the era of enslavement.

The Georgia tourism guide Explore Georgia calls Flat Rock “one of Georgia’s oldest African-American Communities,” with more than 150 years of history. The DeKalb County Solicitor General’s Black History Series calls it “one of Georgia’s oldest continuously occupied African American communities.” [n_oldest1, n_oldest2]

Descendants keep the record

Flat Rock Archive, Inc. was founded in 1981 by Johnny Waits, a descendant of Flat Rock families, who developed the vision of preserving the community’s history after hearing stories from community elders. The Archives opened to the public in December 2006 and is housed in the historic Bryant family home donated by co-founder Rev. T. A. Bryant Jr. Its co-founders—Waits, Vera L. Whitaker, and Bryant Jr.—are all descendants of Flat Rock families.

The Archives preserves the record those families built—census records, photographs, maps, cemetery records, church and school materials, artifacts, and oral histories donated by descendants of the Waites, Hendersons, Bryants, Wises, Kellys, Shoemakers, and Lyons families.

Waits describes what the community stood to lose: “The last time we appeared on any map was 1865. After that, we wasn’t on any maps anymore.”

He points to the unmarked history the descendants carry personally: “This is our great-grandmother’s grave right here, Eliza Waits, that was born a slave. There’s no headstone.”

The land we stand on

T. A. Bryant Sr. was among DeKalb County’s earliest Black property owners, buying roughly 40 acres for about $600 in the 1920s and then selling or leasing smaller parcels to relatives and other Black residents. That helped former sharecroppers become the landowners whose descendants still live in the community.

Today the historic community is surrounded by metropolitan Atlanta’s suburban expansion—the modern subdivisions and roads of Stonecrest and the Lithonia area—while surviving landmarks such as the T. A. Bryant Sr. homestead, Lyon Farm, the former Flat Rock Church site, and Flat Rock Cemetery remain.

Waits ties that history directly to the ground his neighbors now occupy: “Knowing that slaves worked the very land we now own is so important to everyone. The more we know our history, the more we understand ourselves. I mean, we’re still here. A lot of people left the South. We’re still here and we’re surviving.”

Whitaker marks how much the landscape has changed while the Archive endures: “Flat Rock has really grown. We have no more cotton fields, we have no more farmlands there... but the Flat Rock Archive building is there.”

Walk in the door

DeKalb County Public Library’s event pages for both programs carry the same description: “Learn about the history of the Flat Rock Archive and the Flat Rock community.” The Salem-Panola page carries an additional “America250” tag.

Stonecrest Library is at 3123 Klondike Road, Stonecrest, GA 30038, and can be reached at 770-482-3828. Salem-Panola Library is at 5137 Salem Road, Stonecrest, GA 30038, and can be reached at 770-987-6900.

Walking into the Stonecrest auditorium on Oct. 17 or Salem-Panola on Nov. 7 is a way to sit with the oldest history of the ground you live on—history Flat Rock’s descendants have kept from being buried, now brought free to the branches built on top of it.