In Atlanta’s historic Vine City neighborhood, hidden among the trees overgrowing the lot at the corner of Sunset and Magnolia, is a barren concrete slab. On this spot, in the heart of an early-1930s African American community, Atlanta was first introduced to what would become “America’s National Dance”: the Lindy Hop.

Teenagers from all over the Westside would flock to the Sunset Casino and Amusement Park. The cavernous pavilion, which had been converted to a dance hall, featured a rotating cast of local talent along with the best swing bands in the world — Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald. The Sunset also held Saturday afternoon dances and weekly Jitterbug contests. At the Sunset, for just 25 cents, the city’s black youth could briefly escape the ravages of the Depression and Jim Crow and dance their cares away.

I had hesitated to visit the site where the Sunset Casino once stood. I had learned about the Sunset from books. I had dug up, in the archives of the Atlanta Daily World, colorful descriptions of the dances there. I had found old advertisements for performances featuring long-dead artists I have come to love.

But I don’t have any kind of connection to the people in these stories — or really to this place at all. I’m a recent transplant to Atlanta and to the South. I am white. My entry point was through the dance itself, an art form that I, like many others, had come to love — but only later sought to understand.

As I stood there, I tried to picture the old streetcar stop, where trolleys full of students would step off and line up at the entrance to the dance hall. I imagined the sound of boys playing basketball, the smell of popcorn in the air, and the delighted laughter of children riding a carousel. I tried to conjure the feeling of a crisp fall night in 1937, carnival lights twinkling all around, walking into the Sunset. I imagined that moment when the scorching sounds of a blaring trumpet filled the packed dance hall, when the drummer broke loose in a percussive flurry, and when the Duke himself started pounding the ivories.

The crowd must have gone wild.

And I imagined the Lindy Hoppers. I saw them in my mind, showing off the acrobatic moves they had been practicing on the street or to records in their living room. I imagined them complaining about the heat inside the hall, using handkerchiefs to wipe away sweat. I imagined them swinging out hard, experiencing the same exhilarating feeling of pure joy and connection that I feel on the dance floor today. And I pictured the smiles on their faces, every one of them black.