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.
The Day King Died
On the night of Thursday, April 4, 1968, Louise and I were in our bedroom at home watching television and reading the newspaper when a bulletin flashed on the screen: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., SHOT IN MEMPHIS.
The Last Dreamer
John Lewis was on the front lines in Selma, Birmingham and Montgomery. Today, the fight has changed. This article originally appeared in our August 2003 issue.
A Separate Peace
In 1963 Herman J. Russell built his house on the lot that nobody else wanted. His plastering firm had just landed a mammoth contract to help construct the new Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium, so tackling a hilly residential lot seemed relatively simple.
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.
The Maynard Jackson inaugural
Maynard Holbrook Jackson Jr. made history as Atlanta’s first black mayor, and his January 7, 1974, inaugural itself shattered precedent. The traditional City Hall ceremony for a few hundred was traded for a riotous ninety-minute gala at the Civic Center.
W.E.B. Du Bois’s Legacy Deferred
There’s no single, clear reason why, in late 1943, Atlanta University president Rufus Clement unceremoniously fired W.E.B. Du Bois, the university’s most acclaimed academic.
Video of the Day: Rep. John Lewis dancing to Pharrell’s ‘Happy’
John Lewis may be a living legend of the civil rights movement and a longtime congressman from Georgia, but that doesn't mean he takes himself too seriously.
Resegregation
Mary McMullen Francis doesn’t remember many details of August 30, 1961: the dress she wore or what her mother said before she walked out the door or the names of her teachers. But she remembers how eerily empty the street was of cars and people.
Joseph Lowery
Lowery, a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, is nothing if not outspoken.
NEWSLETTERS
