Tag: Civil Rights
Donald Hollowell
If you wanted to fight injustice in the courts in the sixties—and win—you called the gutsy, stately Donald Hollowell, the go-to attorney for civil rights leaders and causes,
John Lewis
One of the youngest heroes of the civil rights movement, John Lewis moved to Atlanta in 1963 to head the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
Benjamin Mays
The eighth child of former South Carolina slaves, Benjamin Mays rose to become the longtime president of Morehouse College, building it into one of the nation’s foremost African American institutions.
Maynard Jackson
The child of black Atlanta aristocrats, Jackson was the first grandson of John Wesley Dobbs, the unofficial “Mayor of Auburn Avenue” and a visionary who worked to register black voters.
Ivan Allen Jr.
Born into a wealthy family, the World War II vet married the granddaughter of city patriarch Hugh T. Inman. From 1962 to 1970, Allen proved a heroic mayor.
Herman Russell
A generous, behind-the-scenes philanthropist, Russell was the first black member of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce (invited by “mistake” via form letter) and its second black president.
Civil rights icon Xernona Clayton’s unlikely friendship with a KKK Grand Dragon
Perhaps the most remarkable chapter in Xernona Clayton’s life was her influence on Calvin Craig, a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.
Ralph McGill
McGill won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing after he denounced the 1958 bombing of the Temple on Peachtree Street. The lionhearted journalist, who had covered the rise of Hitler, linked the bombing to the racial hatred of the South’s white leaders.
Herbert Jenkins
Soon after Mayor William Hartsfield named him police chief, Jenkins busted up the KKK-infiltrated police union and hired the city’s first eight black officers.