Ricci de Forest

August 28, 2020 - Interview between Scott Morris and Ricci de Forest.

Alright. We’re now with Ricci de Forest of  Madame CJ Walker’s. This is Scott Morris. We're recording now. And so Ricci, if you would just kind of tell me your... your history with the Sweet Auburn community. However, you want to start that story.

Oh. Okay. Uh, let me see if I can put it in a capsule.  Uh, I stumbled on to the community, um, some 30-odd years ago as an international hairstylist.  I had a salon on North Highland and I would come back in town, you know, and run my salon. I'm cruising the area, and I turned from Auburn on to Hilliard, and I look to the left and I see Madame CJ. Walker Beauty Shop on the glass. Knowing the legacy, you know, I slammed on my brakes, got out of the car, went over to the glass and started paying homage to the name. Never interested in the space, but just paying respect, because you can tell by the, uh, type style and the ink that it was, uh, a period, uh, window display… window, uh, what do you call it? Script on the window.

That's still there. And so I've just been watching the space periodically coming back, um, paying respect, praying that it was still on the glass. Fast forward 20 something years ago. I, uh, needed a new location for my salon. And I remember this space. I get the lease and on the inside, I stumble onto beauty tools used by the Walker agents who used to work there. 

Well, at that point, I'm thinking, okay, I'm a stylist.  Let me preserve this legacy and run my salon out of Madame CJ Walker, because basically, I was being Ricci International, you know, but I backed off on that because the legacy of Walker was so significant that I said, let me move the legacy forward for young people to have access to this history. So I created a museum environment and still did hair there.

Two years into the lease, a Black woman comes to the door and opens it, sticks her head in while I'm doing hair and tells me that the first Black radio station in America WERD was directly above me.

Wow.

I had no idea. I was elated to learn, and like I say. And then elation turned into enraged because I'm thinking how dare the people who came before me not bother to preserve a legacy that rich. I just... I still can't understand it, but my client said it’s because it was meant for you to find it and preserve it. So for 20 years, I've been promoting and preserving the legacy of Madame C.J.  Walker, one of the original locations in Atlanta and the legacy of W E. R D. Radio, which was one of  the first black radio station in North America.

Dr. King's office was on the other side of the wall of vinyl when you come into the museum. The wall of vinyl. On the other side was Dr King's office, and he would go upstairs and use the radio station. The same young lady told me when she was a little girl, she could hear the music spilling out from the windows above the beauty shop, which was W E. R. D. So what I do out of respect for that legacy, I take my speaker outside, and I only play music from the 1920s through the 1970s, all vintage, all vinyl, all the time I brought the station back because it was sold. It was from 49’ to 68’.  So I brought the station back via the Internet under the all vintage, all vinyl, all the time format. And that's all we play is music from the WERD years.

And y’all are still streaming online now?

Yeah. I mean, I'm having trouble with my website, so the streaming is probably offline right now, Covid has really taking its toll on my ability to get things done because we were doing a live five says, Yeah, but… so the station, um, was basically the soundtrack to the Old Fourth Ward. And what people fail to realize is that Dr. King used that station. If it weren't for WERD, King wouldn't have had a platform to use mass media because white stations weren't about to let a Negro go on and say where to boycott or deliver his non-violent message. So WERD studio, which is where that concept comes from... “Word up? Word to your mother?” Uh, well, it goes back to WERD.

Oh, my gosh. Wow. Well, well, I mean, I know from the Cameo track, but Yeah, that's cool. 

So it's got an incredible legacy. And the seniors that get the haircut next door, they stop in the studio and give me the stories of what life was like on Auburn when they were a kid. And they said it was like a who's who going into WERD: everybody who is anybody. Because at that time during the Jim Crow era, Blacks could only congregate in one area. And so all the stars, when they perform in and around Atlanta, came to Auburn and hung out at WERD, whether they played at the Peacock or the, um, what's the name of that building? Um uh, next door...

The Odd Fellow’s Building. They perform their a lot of, you know, Cab Calloway and the like. Oh, well, they all came to W E R D and hung out.

And what is … what are some of the …  what can you kind of tell me about the community when you you you mentioned paying homage to, to the vacant space some 30 years ago? And then when you moved in there, what was the community like? 

It was an interesting community. It was. My wife was concerned because, you know, I had an upscale clientele, and Auburn avenue was not conducive to an upscale clientele.

So but I just… So I had the vision of where this area was going.  And when I got there, it was Wheat Street Garden apartments, which was the first housing development, experimental development, that was partly funded by the government and, uh, Reverend Borders.

Okay.

And so a lot of the dope boys, grandmothers, working class. Everybody was in that community, you know, But unfortunately, it was dominated by the drug industry, you know? So you know the drug boys, crackheads. So, I was concerned about, you know, my world being, you know, the way that I conduct my life, you know, now everyone in the area watches out for my space. They keep it clean, drug boys will pull up and say, you know, uh, do you need me to move my car up because they got, like, blocking my space? Yeah. So I get maximum respect in that area.

The area has changed tremendously, but, you know, it's it's almost at a standstill, and it's been neglected, you know, by every level of society. And they, um you know, they talk about the legacy, but I don't see much going on in terms of helping preserve that legacy. The legacy is being used for personal gain. You know, but it has a legacy that is unparalleled.

As a matter of fact, Auburn Avenue, um, was running parallel with the Harlem Renaissance during the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. It's just that New York is New York, So people, you know, they know the legacy of New York. New York has … has weight, but Atlanta was experiencing the same type of renaissance. But it's the South, so it just didn't get the airplay and the notoriety that New York got.

Oh, right, right, Okay. And so, um, you know, I'm, I'm thinking a lot for this project about kind of community connections. And, and, you know, I... I know this is a few blocks from your location, but, um, do you have any kind of connection or, or thoughts on that, that kind of north-south connection, that is the Grant Street tunnel and maybe Grant Park? Do you have any kind of tales or stories or...

Just just a few I've got from some of the people who lived in the area during that era, used to tell me that they would have to run through that area at certain time of night. You couldn't just walk. If, you know, you had to go anywhere near or past Cabbagetown. It was a jog.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, for your life.

Oh, gosh, yeah.

Some of the cats are still around. They said, Yeah, when I was I little, we remember we would have to time when we had to, uh, you know, go through that area because, you know, the the, uh, in white kids would be throwing rocks at you and, you know, chasing the n***ers out of the area. But it's a quite interesting relationship.

Yeah, yeah, but the reality is W E R D was the thread. I've spun music at senior facilities and had a white senior female come up to me and whisper to me that when she was a little girl, she would take her transistor radio up an attic so that she can listen to W E R D. Because, you know it's not allowed. It wasn't allowed in their home.

Wow.

And Dr King spoke of the significance of music as a, uh, cohesive force in breaking down the barrier of segregation. He spoke too, uh, Atlanta Radio and Television Association in 1966, 67.

Okay. Wow.

So, yeah, it's a great history, you know, just in... in retrospect and talking to some of the elders, WERD basically was the soundtrack for the area. It was also used for when there was a scare at a school for a Klan bombing. The station, uh, the parents or the school would call the station, and the station would make that announcement so that the parents would know to keep their children home from school. It was really tight knit within the African American community.

That's pretty incredible. 

It's unbelievable.

A project by Dashboard and MARTA | Artbound.