by Lentheus Chaney –
City officials and bereaved families honored slain loved ones Tuesday. City Hall is now home to the Atlanta Children’s Eternal Flame Memorial.
A crowd gathered on the east lawn of City Hall in remembrance of the tragedies that struck Atlanta four decades ago when what is known as the Atlanta Child Murders captivated Atlanta and the nation.
From 1979 to 1981, 30 African American children, teenagers and young adults went missing throughout local Atlanta communities.
Among those who addressed the crowd Tuesday were Mayor Andre Dickens and former Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.
“We were children, and we remember the fear,” Bottoms said. “We remember our parents holding us close. We remember communities frozen.”
Bottoms, who spearheaded the memorial initiative prior to leaving office, expressed gratitude for her role in ensuring that this memorial will exist in perpetuity.
Bottoms said to the crowd at the memorial event, “I’m so honored to have played a part in making sure that this memorial will be here for an eternity so that every single person who passes the grounds of Atlanta City Hall remembers that those Children matter to us. That they matter to us now, and they will matter to us for generations.”
Local radio personality Frank Ski served as chair of the task force that helped make the project a reality.
“It was really just putting together a group of family members and a group of civic and city leaders that came from all different divisions here around the city to come together for one cause, to create this memorial,” Ski said.
Sheila Baltazar served on the task force, and her stepson, Patrick Baltazar, was one of the victims.
“Seeing this come to life is absolutely wonderful,” Sheila Baltazar said. “As they called out all the names, I thought about all the parents, and I watched those parents die with a broken heart. I’m here in the behalf of the parents of Atlanta missing and murdered children.”
According to Ski, a great deal of pain remains with the recently reopened murder cases, and people need a place to heal.
“This is a deep wound in our city’s history that will never go away,” Ski said. “But at least now we have that space where like-minded people who are suffering all the same can come and remember their loved ones.”
ABOUT THE MEMORIAL
Gorden Huether, sculptor of the memorial, said that it is fabricated from Coreten steel and stainless steel and measures 55 feet in length. The memorial also bears the names of the 30 victims.
“Well, the Coreten steel has a certain earthiness to it, a certain timelessness to it. It almost has its own soul,” he said. “So, that as your background and then the victim’s names in stainless steel is a beautiful contrast.”
The granite inlay honoring the victims features Pearl Cleage’s “A Poem for Our Children” and is set in the center of the area.
“The art that I do, and this one is no exception, is not ever about me. It’s about the people that are in that community, the people that experience it every day,” Huether said. “I wanted to bring a layer of local and this is your Poet Laureate.
“So, it seemed really apropos that her words be part of this Eternal Flame Memorial,” Huether said.
Map of where the victims bodies were found
The locations of the Atlanta Child Murder victims are marked on this interactive map with red and white circles. Their bodies were located within a radius of a few miles of the victims’ residences. Map by Google My Map
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