The interior is wall papered with anti-drug stickers, old photographs and children's crayon drawings. George Young inherited Mom's from his parents. He has worked in the establishment since he was eight - 41 years. Customers have changed over time from 99 percent black and one percent white to about 60-40 today, he says matter of factly. He characterizes Mom's Kitchen as a restaurant that welcomes anyone, black or white.
Some people are still into keeping the dream along.
His wife, Bertha, said the endeavors of King led to a mutual respect between whites and blacks that did not exist in her days as a Georgia high school student. But her face expressed worry when she said that drug abuse chains poor blacks despite their civil rights. Black people say it's the white man bringing the drugs in. Everybody's laying the blame. The African Methodist Episcopal Greater Bethel Church on Northwest Seventh Avenue lies between the Gainesville Police Department and a poverty-stricken black neighborhood where old dust clings to chips of once bright paint sloughing off houses.