Southern diner OK Cafe in Buckhead is coming under fire after installing a tone-deaf banner reading “Lives That Matter Are Made With Positive Purpose” on the side of the restaurant as a student-led march called Buckhead4BlackLives began on Sunday afternoon.
Alumni and students from three area private schools — the Lovett School, Pace Academy, and Westminster — gathered in the parking lot at the West Paces Ferry shopping plaza Sunday to kick off a protest march to the governor’s mansion in response to the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd. The group, filled with students, parents, and area residents, and numbering in the thousands, was greeted with the questionable sign at OK Cafe, alongside a booth with another sign that read “OK Cafe Tea Party.”
The banner has since been removed and replaced with another regarding OK Cafe’s takeout and delivery options. Since the banner backlash began on social media late Sunday afternoon, the restaurant’s Facebook page was briefly taken down and previous posts were removed.
“We all felt like Buckhead was not getting the message because it’s hard to really see what’s going on behind a screen,” Isabel Johnson, one of the organizers of Buckhead4BlackLives, tells Eater Atlanta. “But when you’re seeing it beyond your front door, and it’s being led by students and children you know and love, it makes a bigger impact.”
Johnson is a recent alumna of the Lovett School and now attends Georgia Tech.
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Johnson estimates between 2,000 to 3,000 people attended Sunday’s march, which included a number of Atlanta sports stars and celebrities like Atlanta Falcons head coach Dan Quinn and radio personality Frank Ski. Ski is the father of two of the Buckhead4BlackLives student organizers.
“It’s such cryptic wording that we feel like they were trying to step around it while not actually saying ‘All Lives Matter,’” Johnson says. “We aren’t going to comment on it on our Instagram page because we don’t want to waste our breath on that. Their mission was beneath us, and their message isn’t important.”
The group intends to work on future initiatives in Atlanta to do with social justice and racial inequality.
OK Cafe, neighboring Blue Ridge Grill across the street, and Bones Restaurant on Piedmont Avenue are part of Liberty House Restaurant Corporation, co-owned by Susan DeRose and Richard Lewis.
A person, who claims to be a former administrative assistant and worked at the Liberty House corporate office, provided Eater Atlanta with an email sent to Susan DeRose and the subsequent replies regarding the meaning behind the banner at Sunday’s student-run march. The person, who did not wish to be named, also asks DeRose in the initial email why controversial artwork depicting the previous Georgia state flag is still on display at OK Cafe.
The flag in question flew over Georgia from 1956 until 2001 and incorporates the Confederate battle emblem. Multiple photos of the artwork can be seen on customer review sites like Yelp. The United States Marine Corp recently banned the use of the Confederate emblem from all of its installations worldwide saying it “has all too often been co-opted by violent extremist and racist groups.”
A reply supposedly sent from DeRose states the Tea Party sign at the booth on Sunday is meant to represent “Taxation Without Representation.“ The reply goes on to say “businesses across America are being looted and burned down. We need our tax dollars spent on stopping this brutality. When the businesses are gone you will be living in a 3rd World country.”
The full email to the former employee is provided below.
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DeRose apparently then asks in the email which groups will be responsible for repaying business owners whose properties were apparently damaged during recent protests, and whether repayment would come from “Black Lives Matter” or “regular tax payers who did nothing wrong.”
Protests began in earnest around Atlanta on Friday, May 29. The first two days of protests in the city saw hundreds of people gather throughout Atlanta in solidarity for the Black Lives Matter movement. Several restaurants in downtown Atlanta and Buckhead sustained damage by a small group of people who broke off from the protests last Friday and Saturday evenings. Since last weekend, thousands of people have peacefully protested and marched each day around Atlanta and in cities throughout the surrounding metro area.
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Eater reached out to Liberty House Restaurant Corporation and DeRose Monday morning for comment, but has yet to receive a response.
OK Cafe opened in July 1987 at the corner of Northside Parkway and West Paces Ferry Road in Buckhead, two miles from the Georgia governor’s mansion. The all-day diner serves everything from biscuits and gravy and grits, to burgers and sandwiches, to blue plate specials like turkey and fried chicken dinners.
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June 08, 2020 at 11:52PM
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Buckhead Restaurant Ok Cafe Under Fire for Tone-Deaf Banner Displayed During Student-Led Protest March on Sun… - Eater Atlanta
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