Tag: Black Lives Matter

For more than three weeks, protestors occupied the Wendy’s where Rayshard Brooks was fatally shot by police. Here are the are the stories of four people who witnessed the occupation from four different perspectives.

This time of unrest offers the chance to take a different path forward and lead the Atlanta region, the South, and the nation toward a more equitable future. We must take the lessons (both good and bad) from our courageous past to realize a New Atlanta Way.

While it’s certainly possible to both empathize with protesters and feel pained to see the city in chaos, Atlanta's mainstream hip-hop artists also benefit financially from encouraging peace. As entrepreneurs and longtime ambassadors of a city that is a hub for Black businesses, their economic success and the continued growth of Atlanta are indisputably linked. Even if they came from the Black working class and genuinely wish to advocate for them, refusing to acknowledge this reality dilutes their messages.

Not everyone is able to go out and protest, and that’s okay. But there are still plenty of ways to help out those in our local community who are fighting for racial equity. Here is a roundup of local and national nonprofits, groups, and funds.

Tex McIver has become a symbol. What kind of symbol says more about who we are than who he is. To those close to him, convinced that he loved his wife Diane without question and could no more shoot her intentionally than sprout wings and fly out of his jail cell, Tex is a victim of reverse prejudice, a convenient scapegoat for a society riven by class and racial resentments. Or is he, surrounded by his half-dozen defense attorneys, nothing more than a rich white man who believes the rules do not apply to him, who has spent decades with his thumb on the scales of power, who’s cynically exploiting race-based fears to cover up the opportunistic murder of his wife?

The Hate U Give author discusses Black Lives Matter, representation, and the Spotify playlist she listens to when writing.

The best stories each week about Atlanta, from Atlanta-based writers, and beyond.

Black Lives Matter isn’t a traditional civil rights organization. But the movement is producing leaders, most of whom are not preachers or politicians—or even men. Meet three of the women behind Black Lives Matter in Atlanta.

Stone Mountain–based artist Sheila Pree Bright has spent 2015 traveling America, from Ferguson to Baltimore, capturing the protests and youth leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement. Still, she doesn’t consider herself an activist but a cultural observer.

After leading a Philadelphia march against police brutality on August 12th, onetime Atlantan Janelle Monáe has released a moving new #BlackLivesMatter protest song through her label Wondaland Records.