Buttermilk Bottom

About the Book

“Buttermilk Bottom” was a real place. It existed for many years in the shadows of Atlanta’s business district and was considered a festering eyesore. Many generations of black families lived there in almost total seclusion because of it geographic location, which was a sunken community riddled with poverty, crime, rodents, and economic depression that was legally imposed by the separate but unequal Jim Crow laws that devastated the lives of thousands of black families throughout the South. This is a fi ctionalized account of the people who lived in “The Bottom” and their lifestyle during the 50’s and the early 60’s. Buttermilk Bottom had a notorious reputation because of its delapadated wooden framed apartment houses, high crime rate, extreme poverty, and its isolation from the rest of the city. The reader will glimpse the living conditions, the mindset of the people, and the political atmosphere that devastated their lives on a daily bases. You will meet and be charmed by the handsome, dangerous ex-con Cameron Fielding, the local number writer. The smart and very attractive school principal, Grace, Cameron’s long-time sweetheart is helplessly trapped in her passion for Cameron despite the pressures of her peers and her professional life. You will be amused by the intelligent and funny storyteller, “Cripple Jake.” The forbidding Voodoo Priestess will makes you wonder, while her beautiful daughter, Jazmine, will captivate you. The popular and well-endowed Queenie, the madame and co-owner of the local “juke joint” is unforgetable, along with Lucille, who you will remember and laugh about for a lifetime. In Buttermilk Bottom soul food never tasted so good, the blues never sounded so low down, and the intimacy in love relationships of the characters will sizzle in your dreams long after you put this remarkable story down and re-read for years to come. “Buttermilk Bottom” is a pictorial in words and the storytelling is brilliant.

About the Author

H. Victoria Hargro Atkerson writes inspiring romantic stories based on historical events. Her love of history and her dedication to her craft are apparent in the profundity of each character that she writes about in her stories. Philadelphia is her home, which she shares with her husband, but her southern upbringing resonates in all her writings and in her storytelling abilities. When she is not writing, she enjoys baking, needlecrafts, and fishing with her family on the Jersey shore.