Civil Rights

Q: Here we are 45 years later and people are still clamoring to talk to you about this film, made for a reported $114,000. Does that ever make your jaw go slack?

As the worst moments of his life played out on screen in the final minutes of Bridegroom inside a theater at Landmark Midtown Arts Cinema Thursday night, outside in the hall, Shane Bitney Crone took a moment to recharge. Leaning against a lobby wall, the documentary’s producer and star allowed himself a breather, his cellphone charging in the outlet below him as audience members wept in the next room. When you’re communicating with 18,985 Twitter followers and more than four million people have watched your YouTube video and continue to post heartfelt comments hourly, you need a fully charged phone.

Last week, during the half-century anniversary of the historic March on Washington—best known as the day Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his masterpiece “Dream” speech—my social media feed was crowded with photos of the three surviving King children at the Lincoln Memorial.

Today marks a monumental anniversary: fifty years since the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and Atlanta native son Martin Luther King Jr.'s iconic "dream" speech. Amid all the discussion of how far we've come and how far we need to go, it's worth reflecting on how King's legacy is reflected in his hometown.

Editor’s Note: Georgia congressman and civil rights legend John Lewis has added another item to his resume: bestselling author. March: Book One, the first volume of his memoir-as-comic trilogy with Marietta-based Top Shelf Productions, grabbed the top spot in its category on the New York Times bestseller list. Lewis, who will deliver the keynote address at the 2013 Decatur Book Festival, is in Washington this week to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom; he notably is the only living speaker from the 1963 event.

At least 30,000 attendees will jet in for the seventeenth annual Pure Heat Community Festival, Atlanta’s black gay pride event held at venues across the city. Pure Heat co-coordinator Avian Watson provided a preview.

As the country prepares to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, John Lewis, the last surviving speaker from that iconic event, discusses voting rights with the New York Times.

Bernice King was only an infant when her father delivered his famous “Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, but she can recite its lines with authority. And so, welcoming civic leaders invited to the Carter Center for a discussion on education and civil rights, she said she would like to focus on the portion of the speech about the “red hills of Georgia.”

Three giant (as in building-sized) murals were installed in the King Historic District yesterday in the latest Living Walls effort to turn structures into canvasses. One such “canvas” is the former Henry’s Grill at 345 Auburn Avenue, where a small crowd turned out to watch an acclaimed muralist at work.

When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, his youngest child was just five. She had spent little time with her father; he was so often on the road—jailed in Birmingham a few weeks after her birth, addressing 200,000 people on the National Mall when she was five months old, marching from Selma to Montgomery when she was a toddler.