Blondie Strange
In a move that combines burlesque with recycling, Blondie Strange crushes Budweiser empties flatter than platters between her breasts without flinching, dismounts the stage, and pulls a Sharpie from behind the bar to autograph them for the hooting frat boys, intown scenesters, and gamy night crawlers who are waving dollar bills.
Anne Cox Chambers
Even though Anne (with an e, please) Cox Chambers reigns as the richest person in Atlanta—her estimated $13.4 billion almost ten times what Arthur Blank could cough up—you wouldn’t necessarily know it after a visit with the Cox Enterprises doyenne.
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.
Eldrin Bell
The Clayton County Board of Commissioners chair, former Atlanta police chief, and Baptist minister has led a flamboyant lifestyle that has often gotten him into hot water.
Hosea Williams
Hosea “Hosey” Williams served as a Georgia legislator, Atlanta City Council member, and DeKalb County commissioner, but his extracurricular activities earned him the most notoriety.
Robert W. Woodruff
If you took a map of Atlanta and placed dots on every spot where Woodruff—during his time the most admired, most influential, and richest man in Atlanta—left a mark, the terrain would be covered.
Lester Maddox
Lester Maddox, best known as an anti-integrationist and chicken restaurateur, stumbled into the governorship. When his opponent failed to win a majority of votes, the General Assembly picked Maddox.
Steve Kaplan
In 2001 the racketeering trial of Gold Club owner Kaplan gave Atlanta—a place where strip clubs and churches battle for prominence—a peek into the city’s premier cathedral of the flesh.
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.
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.