Gertrude "Ma" Rainey built a house for her mother in Columbus, Ga., and she herself lived in it until her death in 1939. Over time, the house began to crumble, and the city, in a split vote put up the funds to stabilize and to to restore it using matching federal funds.
The New York Times, in a notes from Columbus feature, notes: Mr. (Frank) Martin, a white trial lawyer elected with a large part of the city’s black vote, said he was motivated in part by a sense of racial equity. “You could always promote white tourism,” he said, “but when it came to something black, people were, like, ‘Why would you do that?’ ”
The house has been restored and is now open to the public.
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