Before the clocks struck midnight, before freedom found its way into law books, Black folks were already awakened. Awakened in the hush of pine-shadowed churches, awakened in praise houses leaning toward the marsh, awakened between damp blankets, awakened in cabins where whispered prayers traveled faster than fear. On the night of Dec. 31, 1862, African […]
Ann Hill Bond
Ann Hill Bond is Capital B Atlanta's community engagement editor.
She is deeply engaged in Atlanta’s cultural and civic life. She enjoys exploring Atlanta’s arts and history, contributing to oral history projects, and mentoring emerging leaders in the community.
Posted inCommunity, Social Welfare
How to Help or Get Help During SNAP Pause in Atlanta: Free Food, Donations, and Volunteering
Starting Nov. 1, thousands of Georgia families who rely on food aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will face a sudden halt to their monthly benefit allotments, as the federal program is paused amid the ongoing U.S. government shutdown. With no clear date for federal aid to resume, local food banks, churches, and mutual-aid […]
Posted inCommunity, Economic Development, Politics & Policy
For the Love of Atlanta: Connected on the Westside
Last Friday, I headed over to The Gathering Spot for the Transform Westside Summit, hosted by the Westside Future Fund. This month’s theme hit close to home: “Connected on the Westside — Building Pathways to Parks, Jobs, and Opportunity Without Displacement.” Westside Future Fund is a nonprofit committed to helping the historic neighborhoods of Vine […]
Posted inEssay, History
From Summerhill to Auburn Avenue, the Church That Would Not Fall
Sunday is when paradise is preached and seen. They come dressed in their Sunday best. Starched collars and scuffed shoes. Wide-brimmed hats blooming like flowers across the sanctuary. An elder humming low, as if tuning her soul like a string before the choir rose. The beauty of the stained glass fell across the pews like […]
Posted inCulture, Economic Development, Politics & Policy
Georgia’s Highest Court Sides With Sapelo Island Residents to Put Land Battle on Ballot
In a win for Black landowners, Georgia’s highest court unanimously sided with Gullah Geechee communities in a long-standing zoning battle on Sapelo Island. On Tuesday, the state Supreme Court reversed a lower court ruling that had stopped a referendum to consider repealing a revised zoning ordinance passed by McIntosh County officials two years ago. A […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, History
The 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre Stole Black Lives Where Downtown Condos Now Stand
I hold your stories. I am Georgia’s red clay and black land. The silence that speaks beneath the roar of trains and traffic. I am a record. You call me soil, but I am memory. I remember how Black life rose after slavery’s end. How men and women carved businesses into my streets, lifted schools […]
Posted inEssay, History
History Beneath Our Feet: The Police Killings That Sparked Summer Riots in the 1960s
Atlanta loves to repeat its favorite line, a city too busy to hate. But these places know otherwise. There are streets in Atlanta where memory lies low, beneath the asphalt, whispering like wind through brick. If you walk slowly enough, you’ll hear it: not history, but instruction. Not nostalgia, but reckoning. Begin here. Georgia Avenue. […]
Posted inEssay, History
History Beneath Our Feet: Marcus Garvey Met with the Klan and then Faced Prison in Atlanta
Stand at the corner of Auburn Avenue and Jessie Hill Jr. Drive, and wait for the wind to blow. Admire the blue letters “Jesus Saves,” hanging like a benediction above Big Bethel AME Church. Steady your eyes and try to see him in the whirlwinds. It’s been raining lately in Atlanta, so maybe you will […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Gentrification, History
History Beneath Our Feet: Atlanta’s Gentrifying Neighborhoods Hold Haunting Stories of 24 Murdered Black Women
On a quiet stretch of White and Lawton streets, in southwest Atlanta, there’s no marker. No sign. Just a patch of sidewalk, cars passing, and weeds curling from a cracked curb that offers no clues to its past. But in the summer of 1911, this is where Lizzie Watts was found — her throat slashed, […]
Posted inEssay, History
History Beneath Our Feet: Where MARTA Runs, Lives Were Once Sold in Atlanta
Back then, they called it Whitehall Street. Today, it’s the Five Points station, where trains rattle beneath pavement and buses exhale their daily breath into the Georgia sun. But before there was MARTA, before the high-rises, before Black folks were paid for the culture that created the pulse of this city, we were on the […]