50th Anniversary

Cookbook author and emerging restaurateur Darius Williams celebrates black culture in his new “soul bistro” in the quickly gentrifying neighborhood of Westview.

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.

The greatest orator of the twentieth century inspired seismic changes at home that reverberated around the world.

Through thousands of newspaper columns and twenty books, the Georgia-born humorist forged a bond with Southern readers—whether he wrote about football-carrying Dawgs in Athens, the chili variety at the Varsity, or his beloved black Lab, Catfish. At twenty-three the UGA alum became the youngest sports editor in the history of the Atlanta Journal, where he worked alongside his idol Furman Bisher. But when the Atlanta Constitution assigned him to write a column in 1977, Grizzard became a star, syndicated in 450 newspapers and with recurring visits to Johnny Carson’s couch on The Tonight Show. He died from heart failure at age forty-seven. A portion of his ashes was scattered on the fifty-yard line at Sanford Stadium.

In the forty years he has been in the public eye, Ted Turner has been called a genius, a jackass (by his father, among others), a visionary, childlike (a compliment), childish (not a compliment), a pioneer, a young maverick, an old lion, a straight shooter, egomaniacal, steadfast, restless, haunted, mercurial, brilliant, impatient, impetuous, insecure, generous, genuine, loyal, and cheap. Also nuts.

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.

Outkast put Atlanta on the hip-hop map. Classmates from Tri-Cities High School, Antwan “Big Boi” Patton and André “André 3000” Benjamin got their big break in the unlikeliest of places. “We performed outside a beauty supply store,” says Big Boi, “rhyming over A Tribe Called Quest’s ‘Scenario’ remix. [Organized Noize’s] Rico Wade loved it and sent us to [bare-bones production studio] the Dungeon, where it all started.” One minute they were sixteen, rapping in a basement, and the next they were signing a record deal with L.A. Reid and LaFace records. Since 1992 Outkast has won six Grammys, along the way fusing rap, funk, and rock into a transcendent sound. Benjamin has been acting—his last film was 2008’s Semi-Pro—while Big Boi continues to make music and run Purple Ribbon Records. (He’s halfway through his second solo album, tentatively titled Daddy Fat Sax: Soul Funk Crusader.) He’s also working on a ballet, following up on 2008’s Big with the Atlanta Ballet. And there’s Outkast clothing, a Big Boi shoe, his Big Kidz Foundation, and of course, the next Outkast album, rumored to be imminent. “It just has to be jamming, man. I’m never moving away from Atlanta. The creative energy here is just incredible.”

The Southern Center for Human Rights provides a crucial check of Southern prison and criminal justice systems.