House fire kills 99-year-old Collier Heights icon, former Clark Atlanta University Professor

A 99-year-old woman killed in a devastating house fire in northwest Atlanta Tuesday morning is being remembered as a pioneering educator, author and community leader who spent decades shaping lives and preserving the history of her neighborhood.

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Family members identified the victim as Phyllis Lawhorn, a longtime resident of historic Collier Heights and former professor at Clark Atlanta University.

Atlanta firefighters responded to the home in the Larchmont Court area around 5 a.m. Tuesday. Crews arrived to find heavy flames coming from the sides of the two-story split-level house.

Fire officials said a neighbor alerted firefighters that an elderly woman who used a wheelchair lived inside.

Firefighters launched an aggressive search despite dangerous conditions, including a downed power line and the collapse of the home’s second floor.

At one point, a firefighter emergency was declared after a crew member was briefly unaccounted for. That firefighter was quickly located.

Firefighters eventually found Lawhorn on the lower level of the home near the carport. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

The Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office had not officially identified the victim at the time of the initial report.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

For those who knew Lawhorn, her death represents the loss of a woman who helped shape generations of students and preserve an important part of Atlanta’s history.

Longtime Collier Heights resident Jennifer Walton described Lawhorn as a remarkable educator who taught in Atlanta’s public schools before becoming a professor at Clark Atlanta University.

“Miss Lawhorn was a phenomenal woman,” Walton told Channel 2 Action News.

Walton said Lawhorn was among the first Black teachers to help integrate schools on Atlanta’s Northside.

“She just gave me all that history of how she went up to the north side of town and … was one of the first Black teachers to integrate those schools up there as a teacher,” Walton said.

Lawhorn also dedicated herself to documenting the history of Collier Heights, a historically Black middle-class neighborhood in northwest Atlanta.

She authored a book titled Atlanta’s Collier Heights: Bending with the Wind, exploring the community’s development and history.

The book even features a photograph of the home where Lawhorn lost her life.

Last year, neighbors gathered at the Auburn Avenue Research Library to celebrate the book’s release. Walton, who helped facilitate the event, said Lawhorn was also honored with a proclamation from an Atlanta City Council member.

Walton said Lawhorn remained intellectually active well into her late 90s.

“The last time I spoke to her, she told me that she had found one of her manuscripts of a book she had written, and she was going to start working on getting that book published,” Walton said.

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One of Lawhorn’s former students says the educator’s influence extended far beyond the classroom.

Roni Henderson-Day first met Lawhorn in 1999 while attending Clark Atlanta University.

Henderson-Day, now an assistant vice president of communications and marketing at Claflin University, remembers Lawhorn as a demanding professor who cared deeply about her students.

She recalled that Lawhorn taught an 8 a.m. class and required students who arrived late twice to drop the course.

But behind those strict expectations was a woman who took a personal interest in her students’ lives.

“Mrs. Lawhorn was a person who saw you as more than a student. She saw you as a human, and she took it seriously, the need to nurture good people,” Henderson-Day said.

That compassion became especially important when Henderson-Day lost her mother during her senior year of college.

Lawhorn stepped in to provide guidance and support as Henderson-Day navigated motherhood and prepared to begin her professional career.

“She would have me bring, at the time, my baby daughter to her during her office hours, and I’d have to bring my vitamins, the vitamins I was giving her, so that she could check to make sure that I was doing what I needed to do as a mom,” Henderson-Day recalled.

Lawhorn also introduced her to prominent members of Atlanta’s Black community and encouraged her to participate in academic discussions alongside established scholars.

Henderson-Day said Lawhorn wrote recommendation letters that helped launch her teaching career and even provided clothing and shoes for her first professional job.

Years later, when Henderson-Day became a professional photographer and filmmaker, Lawhorn continued supporting her ambitions.

She gave Henderson-Day photography equipment that had belonged to her late husband, John Lawhorn, to help her build her business.

“Mrs. Lawhorn is and will forever be a major part of who I am today,” Henderson-Day said.

Back in Collier Heights, Walton remembers Lawhorn not only for her academic achievements but also for her hospitality.

Walton said Lawhorn frequently hosted dinner parties, bringing together friends, neighbors and influential members of Atlanta’s Black community.

“She held dinners in her home, where she would invite people, and would pull out fine china for you to eat on,” Walton said.

Walton described her as a sophisticated, intelligent woman who loved reading and participated in several book clubs.

On Tuesday morning, Walton said she heard sirens and saw fire trucks heading toward Lawhorn’s neighborhood but initially believed crews were responding to a medical emergency.

It wasn’t until she walked down the street later that she realized the fire had destroyed Lawhorn’s home.

“It’s just devastating. All of us are so devastated,” Walton said. “It’s just a great loss to this community.”

For Henderson-Day, Lawhorn’s death has brought both gratitude and heartbreak.

She said she had been thinking about her former professor repeatedly in the days before the fire.

Henderson-Day recently took on a leadership role in higher education and wanted to share the news with the woman who had helped launch her career.

But she never made the call.

“I kept telling myself I got to call Mrs. Lawhorn and give her the good news that I’m in higher ed, and I didn’t call, and I have deep regrets today about that,” Henderson-Day said.

Despite that regret, Henderson-Day said she knows her former professor would have celebrated her accomplishments.

“She was a person who always believed that I could be great, and I know she would be proud. I know she would be proud,” she said.

As investigators work to determine what caused the fire, those who knew Lawhorn say her legacy will endure through the students she mentored, the lives she changed and the history she worked to preserve.

“I think the way she should be remembered is a brilliant being, a beautiful writer, an amazing teacher, and a person who wasn’t afraid to do the work,” Henderson-Day said.

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