Commentary

"The lasting memory I’ll have of him is how much he made me and my community feel seen and known, especially during a time when we were the most in need of help," writes Asian Americans Advancing Justice—Atlanta founder Helen Kim Ho.

I thought I would live in Chicago until the day I died. But life has a way of forcing you to improvise, to adjust, to do things you never imagined. For me, a lifelong Midwesterner, one of the greatest adjustments involved learning to drive.

Most southside Atlanta residents aren't shedding any tears for the demise of the airport Sheraton, and nor should they. Future developers would be wise to build hotels and offices that integrate with both the airport and the communities it sits smack in the middle of.

A sunny Saturday in mid-March, the day before my 26th birthday, is one I have come to think of in the weeks since as “the last good day.”

For Atlantans, translating what it means to live or be from here to outsiders can prove to be a challenge, and we tend to show more than tell.

Cornelia Walker Bailey knew Sapelo Island’s history and was determined to get it straight. As the unofficial griot (a West African term for a historian or storyteller) of Hog Hammock, the last remaining of the original African American communities founded by the island’s population of freed slaves and their descendants, she taught it every chance she got.

My daughters are three and six years old, and today I had to face them.

When Pastor Troy’s “No Mo Play in GA” started playing inside Dugans, everyone chanted along with the chorus: “We ready, we ready.” An elderly man who had, up until that moment, been calmly enjoying his cigar, leapt to his feet and swayed, punctuating his moves with flicks of his wrists.

Dollar enabled an old-school sales compliance technique practiced by everyone who's worked a phone during an NPR membership drive. The good reverend can come back with a more modest request and cite the struggle of fundraising in a faithless world. His people will fall for it. And by laughing at Dollar, we're helping him.

Listen you ITP people, there’s no reason to get personal. We Cobb residents didn’t ask for a baseball stadium any more than you Atlantans lobbied to kick the Braves out. Please direct your anger at Braves owner Liberty Media and your *own* elected officials. Hating on Cobb County is like an ex-wife blaming her husband’s new spouse, even though she’s the one who initiated the divorce.