Atlanta influences everything, including Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. From the day Atlanta’s native son Bem Joiner said “Atlanta Influences Everything,” the city of Atlanta’s mantra was born. The company founded by Tory Edwards, head of operations and content; Joiner, head of innovation and civic; and Ian Ford who oversees creative, built on those words and […]
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 inCriminal Justice, History
Palmetto Massacre: Black Men Arrested at Sundown, Lynched by Midnight
Palmetto, Georgia, was, by all accounts, a quiet and growing town in the final years of the 19th century. Located 25 miles southwest of Atlanta, it had a cotton mill, two warehouses, a hotel, churches, and slow, steady commerce. Its Black residents were part of the working and worshipping community that white newspapers would later […]
Posted inCulture, History
Political Power and Black Business: A Sweet Auburn Building Anchored Black Atlanta
Built in 1895, the brown and yellow Queen Anne style house sits close to the sidewalk, two stories rising straight from a narrow yard bordered by hedges trimmed even with the porch rail. The steps leading from the street are paved with concrete worn at the center where thousands of feet have walked the same […]
Posted inCulture, History
From Enslavement to Legacy: The History Buried at South-View Cemetery
On the southern edge of Atlanta, red clay settles into quiet hills, and magnolia trees stretch toward the sun. South-View Cemetery rests like a long, unfinished sentence. Not silent, nor asleep. It listens. It remembers. Beneath its grass and stone lies a community that refused to disappear. Here, the dead become the storytellers about the […]
Posted inCommunity, History
Keeping Watch: The Night Black People Claimed Freedom
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 […]
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 […]