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.
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.
Five decades of civil rights coverage
Today marks a monumental anniversary: fifty years since the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and Atlanta native son Martin Luther King Jr.'s iconic "dream" speech. Amid all the discussion of how far we've come and how far we need to go, it's worth reflecting on how King's legacy is reflected in his hometown.
Joseph Lowery
Lowery, a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, is nothing if not outspoken.
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.
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.
Commentary: Another King family lawsuit? Enough already.
Last week, during the half-century anniversary of the historic March on Washington—best known as the day Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his masterpiece “Dream” speech—my social media feed was crowded with photos of the three surviving King children at the Lincoln Memorial.
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.
Is it 1974 all over again?
In the media scrum to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Hank Aaron’s record-breaking home run, the undercurrent—the moral—of the story was the blatant racism he faced while chasing down Babe Ruth in 1974. In many of those commemorative stories, Aaron explained that he held on to the epithet-laced letters to remind him that racism still exists. Well more than a few “fans” have gone out of their way to prove Aaron right.
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.
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