ATLANTA -- To those not familiar with her, she's just another sweet little old lady on Ormond Street.
But Mattie Jackson helped change the landscape on the south side of Atlanta.
And that's why so many are fighting to keep her right where she is.
"I don't want to move anymore," she said. "I want to stay in my house."
The 92-year-old woman is a legend in Atlanta politics – a grassroots organizer.
She was a big part of the community revitalization that came with Turner Field and the Olympics.
That's why so many are furious that she had to come to city hall on Wednesday night to beg to keep her home in the neighborhood she helped build.
"I'd rather stay there than anywhere," she said. "Because I was born there."
Ironically, while her house has never flooded, Jackson lives smack in the middle of the Peoplestown flood zone.
But the city is saying that it's only a matter of time – and she's got to leave for her own safety.
"As it relates to Mrs. Jackson, we're going to come up with a menu of alternatives for her which includes lifting her home up and moving it to a place that's acceptable to her," Mayor Kasim Reed said. "We're working on it right now."
But residents and family members said the city is moving too fast and that it's putting property ahead of people – especially those up in age like Jackson.
"Please do not take my mother's house and do not make my mother move from her house, please," her daughter Josephine Lowe said. "And you're going to kill my momma. You wouldn't want nobody to kill you momma."
The watershed department said it has no choice but to take the homes.
But the residents who refuse to move have said that they, too, have no choice but to fight – for themselves and Mattie Jackson.
