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.
Flashback: Larry Flynt shot in Lawrenceville
On that warm March afternoon, what pastor Fred Musser first thought was the sound of freight palettes dropping from a truck turned out to be the crack of a .44 caliber Marlin rifle—a weapon designed to kill large game.
The first glass of Coca-Cola is served
Coca-Cola was billed as a versatile drug that could “cure all nervous afflictions—Sick Headache, Neuralgia, Hysteria, Melancholy, Etc. …”
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.
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.
Behold the awesomeness of Atlanta in the 1980s
Well, one thing you conclude watching the PR extravaganza that is "Atlanta: A Visual Postcard," is that everyone had really long attention spans back in the day. Who'd sit through fifteen minutes of chamber of commerce fluff today? Yeah, I thought so.
The Great Fire of 1917
A half-century after Sherman burned Atlanta, the core of the city went up in flames again. The Great Atlanta Fire of 1917 destroyed 1,938 buildings, wiped out 300 acres of real estate, and left more than 10,000 people homeless—almost a tenth of the city’s residents.
It’s going to take more than $45 million* to help Vine City
When it comes to building stuff, Atlanta’s got a great history of public-private partnership. Civic leaders come up with an idea, City Hall irons out the political wrinkles, and then Coke, Delta, the Home Depot, and other hometown companies contribute funding. It’s how Atlanta won the Braves and the Olympics. On the other hand, our track record of taking care of people in the process of building things—large venues in particular—is lousy.
Birth of Martha Lumpkin, Atlanta’s namesake
Atlanta wasn’t really planned. It just kind of ... happened. Our streets follow the lines of former cow paths (which explains why I always get turned around on Moore's Mill). And our name evolved in a similarly scattershot manner.
11 Years Ago This Month: Willie B.’s Memorial
It might have seemed like an awful lot of fuss to make over the death of an ape: thousands of mourners, a live TV broadcast, corporate sponsors vying for the right to transport his remains back to Africa, and a eulogy by an icon of the civil rights movement. But in February 2000, when Willie B. died of complications from cardiomyopathy at a NEWSLETTERS
