A Confederate soldiers group that filed a lawsuit last month to stop a “truth telling” exhibit from opening at Stone Mountain Park were dealt a blow by Georgia’s attorney general. The Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans filed the lawsuit against the state park, saying officials broke state law by planning an exhibit […]
History
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 inHistory, Politics & Policy
Bernice King Condemns MLK File Release, Calls for Epstein Docs
The youngest daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. has joined the chorus of critics calling on President Donald Trump to release the Jeffrey Epstein files in response to the federal government unveiling thousands of investigative documents relating to her father’s assassination. Bernice King expressed disapproval in a series of statements on Monday regarding the Trump […]
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 inHistory
Confederate Supporters Sue over Slavery and Segregation Exhibit at Stone Mountain
Most weekends, within the shadow of its controversial history, Stone Mountain Park is teeming with a diverse group of attendees. Located just east of Atlanta, Black women gather to power walk along the winding trails while others climb the jagged rocky path to the top of the Confederate memorial in the 3,200 acre park. Billed […]
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 […]
Posted inCapital B Atlanta, Everyday Heroes, History
MLK and Me: How a Young Freedom Fighter Helped Integrate Atlanta
As a freshman Spelmanite in 1960, Georgianne Thomas, then 18, was so committed to the Atlanta Student Movement that not even the burn of a klansman’s cigarette being pressed into her skin could make her lose her cool or deter her from protesting segregation. “We’re not supposed to stop the line. So you let the […]
Posted inCulture, History
Juneteenth 2025: Where to Go and What to Do Around Atlanta
It’s been four years since Juneteenth became a federal holiday, and Black revelers in metro Atlanta are finding unique ways to mark the occasion. The annual commemoration of the day in 1865 when formerly enslaved Black Americans in Galveston, Texas, learned of Abraham’s Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation takes place on Thursday. Juneteenth celebrations in Atlanta, which […]
Posted inEconomic Justice, History, Politics & Policy
With Inauguration Day on MLK Day, King’s Family Reflect on His Legacy
Sitting in his Atlanta home office with his wife and fellow civil rights activist Arndrea Waters King, Martin Luther King III can’t help but reflect on a deep irony: Martin Luther King Jr. Day coincides with the second presidential inauguration of Donald Trump on Jan. 20. He worries about the fact that his father’s only […]