History:

Continued from Page 7 basketball league in Alpharetta.

Soon after returning home, Grogan was hired in the mailroom for an electric company. Once he started, they hired more Black men to fill positions.

“When I got out of the army, they started hiring more Black people,” Grogan said.

He started playing softball with his coworkers, where he was the only Black man on the team. Grogan said fish fry takes at least 100 volunteers of all ages, who start preparing food at 9 a.m., serve meals and bus tables and clean the space until about 9 p.m.

With volunteer help, they turn the All Saints Church gym into Dunwoody’s largest restaurant for seven nights each year and function as a well-oiled machine capable of turning out a meal every 6 seconds at peak times.

“It's a continual effort by Knights, their spouses, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, some of the kids of the of the Knights,” Simon said. “So, it's a community effort.” his time in the mailroom was relatively “smooth going,” which he credits to his coworkers and his laid-back attitude.

To learn more about the All Saints Church Knights of Columbus Fish Fry, visit allsaintsdunwoody.org/ programs-events/events/fish-fry/.

Now, years removed from the early days of desegregation Grogan reflects on Roswell’s Black History. He said the city is doing a “decent job” respecting their history. He said Roswell Roots is one of the “cool things” the city does that he appreciates.

It’s not all perfect, though.

Years ago, Grogan talked to people who wanted to have different historically Black locations people could visit in Roswell. Grogan pointed out that there were not very many places Black

“Roswellians” could gather.

“There weren’t that many locations,” Grogan said. “The café, that’s the only place we could go back in the day.”

Grogan also remembers more recent historical struggles. Many of the people he grew up with no longer live in Roswell, pushed out by housing restrictions and costs. In the 1970s, his cousin tried to buy a house. The realtors said there weren’t any vacant homes in Roswell.

Now, his family lives in Minnesota and Michigan.

“They don’t care about coming here,” Grogan said.

He knows other people who live in Atlanta and avoid Roswell because of the bad experiences they had. But Grogan disagrees with their decisions.

“You probably offended somebody once, and you don’t want them to take that for 50 years and carry it,” he said. Instead, he encourages people to return to Roswell and enjoy the memories.

“When I got to Willow Street, I sit on the porch and still see myself riding down street on the tricycle,” Grogan said. “This is where I grew up and this is where my story goes.”