He could pull out a map of Atlanta, place his finger on downtown, and move it west toward Northside Drive. On the left side of the street, he’d see Vine City, the neighborhood where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. raised his children. On the right, Monroe would find the Black working-class community of Lightning. 

One of Atlanta’s oldest communities, Lightning hosted church revivals in the ’30s and moonshine alleys in the ’40s; an industrial boom in the ’50s and the Civil Rights Movement in the ’60s. Although it was surrounded by prestigious institutions, from Georgia Tech to the historically Black colleges of the Atlanta University Center, outsiders frequently associated Lightning with the least of Atlanta, in part because it was among the city’s last communities to get paved roads and electric power. Following a slow decline in the late 20th century, fueled by harmful government policies such as redlining and urban renewal, the city and state targeted the land on which Lightning stood to build the Georgia Dome.

Lightning has been largely erased from Atlanta’s story. When asked today where his family is from, Monroe must think carefully, for the answer is far more complicated than it used to be. To Atlantans, Monroe holds the title that always designates a native: He’s a “Grady baby,” born in Grady Memorial Hospital, the public institution that has cared for Atlantans of all classes since 1892. He is also a son of the west side. To west-siders, he’s a native of historic neighborhoods like Vine City or Bankhead. All are stand-ins for where he’s really from—which is nowhere, looking at the current map of his hometown. “It’s rare to run into someone who knows Lightning,” Monroe said. “They usually just associate it with the weather.”