Atlanta postpones meeting for Chattahoochee Brick and RiverLands projects

Catch up quick: Chattahoochee Brick, which was owned by former Atlanta Mayor James English, forced people to labor in grueling conditions without pay.

• They acquired workers through convict leasing, a practice that began after the Civil War.
• Southern states loaned out incarcerated people — most of whom were Black and often arrested for misdemeanors such as loitering or spitting — to companies that wanted cheap labor.
• Chattahoochee Brick shut down in 1972 and the company that bought the site, General Shale Brick, demolished the buildings in 2011, according to the Atlanta Department of City Planning.
• The city bought the site in 2022 and is planning to create green space and a memorial to the people who worked — and died — at the site.

Zoom in: Atlanta will also seek feedback on how it should implement its segment of the RiverLands project.

• The project seeks to create more access points to about 7 miles of the Chattahoochee River that runs along the city's western boundary.
• Four of those miles, which the city has coined the "Atlanta Reach," could include water access points; connections to the Beltline, Proctor Creek Greenway and Silver Comet Trail; and more than a dozen bus stops within a 15-minute walk, the city said.

Go deeper: Learn more about both projects by visiting the city's website.

This story has been updated.