Rising Stars: Meet Rebekah Enoch of Atlanta’s West End

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rebekah Enoch.

Rebekah, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I have always been a people person and a storyteller. However, my career until recently had me working on advocacy and communications in the human rights space. Since the start of my career I very much identified myself as a human rights advocate and to be honest, I never thought that would change. I connected with that path while on a year-long around-the-world trip with my husband. I was awed by all the warmth and cultural richness we experienced in the countries we traveled through. However, the backdrop was so often grinding poverty. I came back home committed to being a part of finding solutions to the root cause issues of what I witnessed. In many ways I turned into a storyteller for the people and issues I had learned about on that trip, eventually landing in communications and marketing for a wide variety of humanitarian organizations. During the pandemic and after living in San Francisco and Sydney (among others) my husband and I moved back to Atlanta where I was born. I and my husband were both working remotely in our new/old home. After the pandemic ended I began to yearn for more human connection and the ability to see the impact of my work more directly. I was working in the anti-modern slavery sector for an international organization and the relentless nature of the challenge coupled with the often intangible impact started to get to me. So I began casually looking over local non-profit job listings looking for a small part time job at the local level. Something that would get me out of the house and meeting people in my local community. That is when I saw the listing for an Administrative Assistant at The Wren’s Nest. Despite having been born in Virginia Highlands, I had never heard of or visited this little house museum nor was museum work anything I had ever considered doing but I went ahead and applied. During my interview one of the questions was why did I WANT to do this role, since clearly my skillset and experience made this role quite a departure from my other work in terms of skills and pay. But when I explained that I was looking for a role that would be a change from my “bread and butter” work in the anti-modern slavery sector and that would connect me directly with people, the interviewers understood. I was offered the Admin Assist role in June of 2024 and since that time the role has really changed MY story in a big way! The Wren’s Nest is such a unique and thorny part of Atlanta’s history and one that has storytelling at the heart of both its uniqueness and its thorny-ness. A year-and-a-half later I am the Museum Administrator at The Wren’s Nest and I am getting to be part of how we tell ALL of that story. From the script re-write launching in April that focuses heavily on the uncomfortable parts of The Wren’s Nest and its former owner, author and journalist Joel Chandler Harris, to the events like the Mayor’s Summer Reading Club, camps for young school age writers, Girl Scout badge programs and historic/academic lectures – we just keep growing and expanding. I am so loving the work I get to be part of at The Wren’s Nest, it is sometimes hard to take my attention away to do my other work. Today I see my work at The Wren’s Nest as not only helping shape how we tell the story of Atlanta history as we understand it now, but also how that story and the way it’s told has and IS shaping those in my community (including myself) through the experience.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I was born in Atlanta in the early 70s but my parents were recent transplants from Seattle. Due to that I always felt “from the South but not of the South”. During my undergraduate study at San Francisco State University, I minored in Asian American Studies. As part of one of my classes, Asians in America, since I wasn’t Asian American like most of my classmates, my professor asked me to unpack why when telling people where I was from, I always made sure to put a large distance between myself and where I was born. Or more specifically the perceived dominant values of those from the South, particularly racism. To me, there are echos of that feeling in the work and legacy of Joel Chandler Harris.

To help him tell the wonderful stories he heard from the enslaved people he spoke to, the stories that he became famous for, Harris a created character he called a “human syndicate” of people he had known – “Uncle Remus”. In 1946, Walt Disney produced a movie based on his Uncle Remus stories, called Song of the South. James Baskett, starred as Uncle Remus. However, when the movie premiered he was barred from attending due to racist practices in Atlanta at the time. Two years later he was awarded an honorary Oscar, the first won by an African American male. But the role he played in the film drew protests from the NAACP and others, who pointed to the harmful stereotype of contented enslaved people that the Uncle Remus character embodied. And due in part to this movie and others, most notably Gone with the Wind, it’s a myth that we’re still fighting today.

As a young person I strove to put distance between the racist views I witnessed growing up rather than confront them. I moved away from Atlanta about as fast as I could and never thought I would be coming back. In her famous 2012 essay “Uncle Remus, No Friend of Mine,” author Alice Walker writes, “In creating Uncle Remus, [Harris] placed an effective barrier between me and the stories that meant so much to me, the stories that could have meant so much to all of our children, the stories that they would have heard from us and not from Walt Disney.” Similarly, I love the climate, the environment and the community of the South, but in my drive to distance myself from the racist elements also of the South, I put a barrier between myself and what I loved about Atlanta and the Georgia environs.

With the new script launch, The Wren’s Nest is actively engaging with the legacy of how the Brer Rabbit stories were captured and the harmful stereotypes compounded by the Disney film. And I’m still unpacking my own sense of my Southern identity. But rather than sweeping uncomfortable issues under the rug or simply trying to get enough distance they seem to go away, I now see them as an entry point to begin or continue important conversations about race and history for Atlanta, The Wren’s Nest and for myself. Importantly, the history of The Wren’s Nest underlines how stories can harm but also how they can help. By breaking down outdated concepts, fostering conversations, and sharing culture we can find a new guiding narrative and a fresh path forward. And as part of that storytelling, I look forward to opening the doors, welcoming visitors and getting started on writing and sharing new “stories” that better reflect my history, our shared history in Atlanta, and what out of all that we want to tell future generations.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
One of my fundamental values is that while the world is full of challenges and injustices, I always want to be part of the team that tries. The team that tries to stop human caused climate change, the team that enforces fair labor practices and wages, the team that ends global poverty. And now, the team that tells the stories!

Career-wise, I specialize in outreach, engagement and community building and have always used strong storytelling in both digital and print media in all that I do. As part of my undergraduate work I won an Honorable Mention in the 30th Annual Mandarin Speech Contest in San Francisco, an award I am particularly proud of as language is such an interesting window into culture. I am an avid traveler and a firm believer in listening before you speak. I’ve had the honor of working for organizations that reach out all over the world to help supply food, water, shelter, livelihood, education and healthcare and build the capacity of communities to support themselves. I am valued for my communication skills and ability to build bridges and find connection in groups and situations where those concepts seem out of grasp. I am a writer, a wife and a mother but most of all I am a facilitator, if you tell me you want to travel to China, I’m here to help you figure out how to do that. If you want to make bread, I’ll sign up for a class with you. And if you want to throw a party with a Gilded Age theme, I’ve got you, let’s get started!

Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
Keep listening and leave the door open! Not literally of course, though in some cases maybe, but metaphorically. When you are just starting out you often think you need to find your path, and you do- but it might be a winding path, it might branch a lot of times and that is all OK! If you find yourself at a crossroads or not knowing where/what to do, listen to life. That weird shop you always pass on your way home, the museum you visited that really resonated with you, that friend of your mother’s who had an interesting story about their job, ask about it all! Ask the question, introduce yourself, share your experience, you never know where it might lead. Life often shows you the right next step, but you have to open the doors, the windows, and listen sometimes for the idea to fly through. Most often the journey isn’t what you thought it would be, but if you are listening, it can be even better than you could imagine.

Pricing:

• 15 for regular admission
• 12 for students and seniors

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.wrensnest.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wrensnestatl/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wrensnest