Tag: Civil Rights

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.

Sometime after midnight, in the early morning of December 16, 1939—more than five hours after settling into their seats—the city’s elite flowed out of Loew’s Grand Theatre, overjoyed at the spectacle they’d just witnessed. Margaret Mitchell emerged, enormously relieved. Hollywood had not destroyed her story after all.

In 1963 Herman J. Russell built his house on the lot that nobody else wanted. His plastering firm had just landed a mammoth contract to help construct the new Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium, so tackling a hilly residential lot seemed relatively simple.

At breakfast tables across Atlanta on March 9, 1960, quiet consumption of coffee, grits, and eggs was disrupted as subscribers to the Atlanta Constitution and Atlanta Daily World opened their morning papers to discover a startling full-page ad.

In the segregated South where the brothers Young grew up, the YMCA was much more than a place to work out. With restaurants, hotels, auditoriums, and convention centers off-limits to blacks, the Y—which was not integrated until 1963—served as a gathering place for meetings, concerts, and educational programs.

The Reverend Joseph Lowery is uncharacteristically quiet as he sits at a long table inside the modest room in Downtown’s Atlanta Life Insurance Company building. Between bites of fried chicken and peach cobbler, he occasionally interjects or asks a question, but mostly he listens attentively, staring out at a group that’s as diverse as the issues for which its members are so passionate.

The remarkable behind-the-scenes story of Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1968 funeral.

John Lewis was on the front lines in Selma, Birmingham and Montgomery. Today, the fight has changed. This article originally appeared in our August 2003 issue.