Civil rights themed murals installed in the King District
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.
The murder of Alberta King
On Sunday June 30 1974, Alberta Christine Williams King played “The Lord’s Prayer” on the organ of Ebenezer Baptist, the church where her father, A.D. Williams, her husband, Martin Luther King Sr., and son, Martin Luther King Jr., all had served as pastors.
The Quiet Storm: Bernice King
One after another social commentators have watched Martin Luther King Jr.‘s children and wondered if one day one would assume the mantle once worn by the "king of peace" himself.
Atlanta’s “Berlin Wall”
In December 1962, Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. ordered barricades to be built across two Atlanta streets to discourage black citizens from purchasing homes in an adjacent all-white neighborhood.
Bernice King on her family’s legacy: “What was once something I resented, I now feel honored to carry.”
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.
The Children of Dr. King: Living with the Legacy
"My father was sent to do a very specific job. . . . He was a God-sent man and when his work was done he moved on higher. . . ." —Yolanda Denise King
Dedication of new downtown mural honoring John Lewis, civil rights hero.
John Lewis came to Atlanta five decades ago as a founding leader of SNCC—the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee—and with an already impressive resume as an activist.
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.
The integration of Atlanta Public Schools
On the morning of August 30, 1961, nine African American students headed for the first day of classes at four all-white Atlanta high schools. They were shadowed by hundreds of reporters, dozens of police officers, and crowds of parents, politicians, and onlookers.
The Center for Civil and Human Rights connects Atlanta legacy and current conflicts
As its name suggests, the Center for Civil and Human Rights, which opens to the public on Monday, is about two struggles—the American one that was fought primarily in the South in the latter half of the twentieth century, and the worldwide one that involves oppressed peoples in distant (and not-so-distant) lands. While there’s an obvious thematic linkage between the American Civil Rights Movement and the broader human rights one, the line between them must have been a challenge for the Center’s designers to straddle. One has a built-in narrative, with a beginning and middle (if not yet an ending), and the other requires navigating the vast space beneath the human rights umbrella, whether it’s oppressed women in Africa, child laborers in Pakistan, or tortured activists in Burma.
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