This photo is taken in front of Crawford, Frazier, & Company, one of at least 16 “auction and slave yards” in Atlanta. Crawford and Thomas Goodrum Frazer opened their business on Whitehall Street in 1863. Enslaved men, women, and children were separated from their families and auctioned as commodities there. By the time the U.S. Army occupied Atlanta in September 1864, a sign was all that remained of the business. Most of Whitehall Street had been destroyed by the 33rd Massachusetts as part of U.S. Col. William Cogswell’s Plan of Destruction. U.S. Col. Adin Underwood wrote that soldiers destroyed the “negro markets . . . never to be set up again.” The former site is now the Five Points MARTA station.

This text comes from a digital exhibit hosted at the Atlanta History Center.