A Message of Hope: Ebenezer Baptist Church marks MLK Day with a powerful service
Picture Martin Luther King Jr., and you likely imagine him leading marchers across Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, or speaking before a quarter million civil rights supporters on the mall in Washington D.C. But perhaps no place is more closely connected to King than Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta
What (or who) is behind the rise of RICO?
What do Atlanta Public Schools teachers, “Cop City” forest defenders, the rappers Young Thug and Gunna, and former president Donald Trump have in common? All have been—or may be—prosecuted under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, aka RICO.
Second annual Fire in the Fourth festival lights up Old Fourth Ward
Last year’s inaugural Fire in the Fourth festival—commemorating the Great Fire and the neighborhood’s later revitalization—attracted more than 5,000 attendees. This year organizers are hoping to go twice as big.
Atlanta author Colleen Oakley releases debut novel Before I Go
In her poignant debut novel, Before I Go, local freelance journalist Colleen Oakley uses likable characters and gallows humor to explore issues of death, life, coping, and letting go.
Perfection pays when you’re detailing cars—or Air Force One
"I started detailing cars full-time in 2003, but I got tired after a few years and decided to stop," says Yasir Waqaar. "As soon as I quit, I had old clients begging me to come back to work on their cars. So I realized detailing must be my calling."
High Museum debuts Vik Muniz exhibition, including a self-portrait made of trash
Vik Muniz gathered hundreds of pieces of trash from the largest landfill in Rio de Janeiro to create an enormous sculpture—a portrait—made from soda cans, broken computer monitors and toys, bike parts, even an old cash register.
Social Circle solar farm harvests clean energy
Agriculture still drives much of Georgia’s economy, but workers on one of the state’s newest farms harvest energy, not peaches or peanuts. A former cotton farm in Social Circle, about forty-five miles east of Atlanta, has been converted to Simon Solar, one of the largest solar farms in the United States. Steve Ivey, whose family has owned the land since the 1930s, has covered 150 of its 250 acres with panels that can produce approximately thirty megawatts of energy—or enough to power 4,130 homes for a month. Georgia Power is buying the electricity generated from the farm under a twenty-year power purchase agreement.
Twyla Time
During the almost four months she spent in Atlanta since last spring rehearsing her new ballet, "The Princess and the Goblin," legendary choreographer Twyla Tharp didn’t see much of the city. There was too much to do: Hit the gym every morning for stretching and weight training, then on to the Atlanta Ballet studio on Marietta Boulevard for six hours of rehearsal.
Georgia’s Olympic Hopefuls
Of the 760 American Olympic athletes who had made their teams by mid-June—when we went to press—twenty-one called Georgia home. That total ranked eleventh in the nation and third in the South, behind Florida (forty-four) and Texas (sixty-three). Georgia has the ninth-largest state population, approaching 10 million, so we’re slightly underperforming (proportionately). Of course, medals are what counts. We’re counting on this Georgia gang to make us proud in London.
Flashback: John Lewis wanted to go to Congress. He didn’t make it the first time.
John Lewis likes to remind supporters to never give up. In January 1977, after President Jimmy Carter appointed then U.S. Rep. Andrew Young to be ambassador to the United Nations, Lewis joined a dozen candidates vying to replace Young. Come election night, Lewis lost to fellow Democrat Wyche Fowler. “Two months ago, nobody knew who John Lewis was. This is only the beginning.” Elected to the House in 1986, Lewis began his 17th term in January.
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