Calling A House A Home

Black American archive of place, people, and possibility

Across Atlanta and the South, Black families have made homes in neighborhoods too often targeted by extraction, displacement, and disinvestment.

Calling a House a Home is a digital archive rooted in recovery, memory, and truth-telling. It honors the legacy of Black tenancy and the everyday ways we’ve made life, made home, found joy, built stability, and cared for one another, even when the odds were intentionally stacked against us. 

This project is deeply tied to The Guild’s work to build a world where Black people aren’t just surviving; we’re resourced, owning, self-governing, and shaping the neighborhoods where we live. Through land trust development, cooperative economics, and grassroots organizing, The Guild reimagines what our communities can be.

Calling a House a Home adds to our mission by documenting the history, the people, and the everyday moments that have always made these places feel like home.

We tell these stories to: 

• Honor the people and places that have held our communities together
• Reveal the systems that have sought to erase us and extract from us
• Uplift visions of Black life rooted in self-determination and care

Our homes have never been just four walls and a roof. They have been defined by the lives we build inside them. 

They’re about carports and cookouts, eviction notices and act of resistance. About grandmamas holding court from the front porch, corner stores that feel like family and neighbors who always look out. Our homes are about the ways we design our spaces: plastic on the sofas, peach-colored walls, Black Jesus in the hallway, encyclopedias stacked in the corner, crystals in the window, and Sunday hats hanging by the door.

These were never just decorations, they’re declarations. Reminders that whether or not we own the land, we own our style, our stories, and our sense of home… and we make it ours.

Tell Us What Made Your House a Home

We’re collecting stories, photos, and memories from Black folks across Atlanta, Durham, and the South.

Whether it’s the gold-flecked candles in your grandmother’s living room, your uncle’s record collection, or the way the kitchen always smelled on Sundays—we want to hear it. This will be a living, growing archive.