Jesse Hill

1927-2012

C. B. King

1923-1988

W. W. Law

1923-2002

Benjamin Mays

ca. 1894-1984

Charles McCartney

"Goat Man," 1901-1998

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A More Perfect Union

The New Georgia Encyclopedia is supported by funding from A More Perfect Union, a special initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Issue cover of May 1978 Atalanta newsletter

Atalanta, 1978

Women of the Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance self-published their own monthly newsletter, Atalanta, named after a huntress from Greek mythology and meaning "equal in weight." They sent the newsletter to other women’s groups so that news of Georgia’s queer life circulated across the nation and other parts of the lesbian world, connecting feminist lesbians in Atlanta to their global sisters.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center, Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance newsletters.

Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance members gather for a softball game

ALFA Omegas

Perhaps the most important social benefit of the Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance was its softball teams, notably the ALFA Omegas. The team competed nationally and allowed lesbians from Atlanta to build community around the country.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center, Pamela Parker Photographs.

Southern Comfort Pin

Southern Comfort Pin

The Southern Comfort Conference was one of the most well-known transgender conferences in the United States. Originally held in Atlanta, it created a space where members of the transgender community could gather, learn about medical resources, and organize politically.

From the Digital Transgender Archive, Joseph A Labadie Collection, University of Michigan.

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Southern Conference

Southern Comfort

The 2001 documentary Southern Comfort brought unprecedented attention and visibility to the Southern Comfort Conference. Directed by Kate Davis, the film follows the final months of long-time conference regular Robert Eads, a Georgian transgender man dying of ovarian cancer.

Black and white photograph of Leonard Matlovich receiving a Bronze Star in Vietnam.

Leonard Matlovich

Leonard Matlovich received a Bronze Star in 1966 for his service in the Vietnam War. Born in Savannah, he was one of the earliest activists to challenge the status of gays and lesbians in the U.S. military.

Courtesy of Hormel LGBTQIA Center, San Francisco Public Library, Cliff Anchor Papers (GLC 49), #GLC-0013.

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Rally Before the Augusta Riot

Rally Before the Augusta Riot

On May 11, 1970 protestors massed outside an Augusta municipal building to protest the killing of Charles Oatman, a developmentally disabled Black teenager, in the Richmond County Jail. In 2021 the Department of Justice, through its Cold Case initiative, reopened its investigation into the deaths of Oatman and six other Black Augustans killed in the ensuing protests.

From Augusta University Special Collections and Archives

Protestors set a laundromat on fire at during the Augusta Riot

Augusta Riot

On May 11, 1970 thousands of Black Augustans participated in a major uprising against police violence. Known thereafter as the Augusta Riot, the event resulted in $1 million in property damage and was the largest Black rebellion in the civil rights South.

From the Augusta Chronicle

National Student Moratorium

National Student Moratorium Poster

On May 5, 1971 students held a national moratorium to remember the deaths of protestors at Kent State University, Jackson State University, and in Augusta the previous spring. In the years that followed, Kent State remained a national touchstone for repressive violence, while Black rebellions in Augusta, Jackson, and elsewhere receded from national memory.

From the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam

The Negro Motorist Green-Book, 1940 edition

The Negro Motorist Green-Book

The Negro Motorist Green-Book, also known as the Negro Traveller's Green-Book, was an essential guide for Black travelers between 1936 and 1966. This yearly publication, created by postal employee Victor Hugo Green, helped readers avoid sundown towns and locate safe lodging, gas stops, and eateries.

From Wikimedia

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Ku Klux Klan Cartoon

Ku Klux Klan Cartoon

Most Ku Klux Klan action was designed to intimidate Black voters and white supporters of the Republican Party. Founded in Tennessee in 1866, the Klan was particularly active in Georgia from 1868 to the early 1870s.

From Harper's Weekly

Brotherhood March, 1987

Brotherhood March

White supremacists picketing at the first Brotherhood March on January 17, 1987, in Forsyth County.

Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive, #AJCNS1987-01-17l.

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Brotherhood March

Organized by civil rights activists Dean Carter, Charles Blackburn, and Hosea Williams, the Brotherhood March brought nationwide attention to Forsyth County's long history of racial violence and discrimination.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center, Southline Press, Inc. Photographs, #VIS 158.18.05.

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Forsyth County Protest

Forsyth County Protest

Marchers demonstrate for fair housing in Forsyth County in 1987. The march, led by Hosea Williams, ended in a confrontation with Ku Klux Klansmen throwing rocks and bottles at the demonstrators. The incident brought national attention to Forsyth County and resulted in the indictment of two Klan organizations.

Hosea Williams

Hosea Williams

Hosea Williams led two demonstration marches in Forsyth County in 1987. The first march, held in celebration of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, was attacked by several hundred members of the Ku Klux Klan. The second march, attended by Coretta Scott King, was held in protest of Klan activities in the county.

Scripto Factory Employees

Scripto Factory Employees

Between 1931 and 1977, Black female employees at the Scripto factory in Atlanta organized against unfair wages and a discriminatory work environment. Their activism was a precursor to the civil rights movement.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection, #LBCB095-022a.

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Scripto Inc. Pen Advertisement

Scripto Inc. Advertisement

Black women made up more than 80 percent of the workforce at Scripto's factory in Atlanta. This 1958 advertisement depicts ballpoint pens, one of the company's most popular products.

Image from James Vaughan

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Scripto Inc. Lighter

Scripto Inc. Lighter

Cigarette lighters, such as the popular Compact Vu-Lighter shown here, were one of Scripto Inc.'s defining products, along with pens and mechanical pencils.

Image from Joe Haupt

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Scripto Employee Strikes

Scripto Employee Strikes

Operation Breadbasket was created in 1962 as a branch of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). A minister-led program, Operation Breadbasket worked to improve economic conditions in the Black community through boycotts and organized support.

Courtesy of Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Southern Christian Leadership Records.

H. Rap Brown

H. Rap Brown

H. Rap Brown, the final leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, speaks at a press conference in 1967. In 1968 he changed the name of the organization to the Student National Coordinating Committee, marking the group's new willingness to use violence as a means of self-defense.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

H. Rap Brown

H. Rap Brown

H. Rap Brown was the fifth chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and an honorary officer of the Black Panther Party in the late 1960s.

H. Rap Brown on page nine of the May, 1968 Atlanta Clark University's Newspaper, The Panther.

H. Rap Brown

Civil rights activist H. Rap Brown was elected chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1967. Brown's radical vision and aggressive rhetoric marked a shift from the nonviolent civil disobedience prescribed by Martin Luther King Jr.

SNCC Newsletter 1967

SNCC Newsletter 1967

H. Rap Brown's leadership of the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (SNCC) was characterized by radical discourse, as seen in SNCC's newsletters from the late 1960s.

Image from Washington Area Spark

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Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (formerly H. Rap Brown)

Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (formerly H. Rap Brown)

Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (formerly H. Rap Brown) is pictured in 1990 in front of his grocery store in Atlanta's West End. Al-Amin was arrested in 1999 for his involvement in the fatal shooting of a police officer and later sentenced to life in prison.

James and Robert Paschal

James and Robert Paschal

James and Robert Paschal opened Paschal Brothers Soda, a thirty-seat luncheonette at 837 West Hunter Street, in 1947. They are pictured here in 1978.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

Paschal’s Restaurant

Paschal’s Restaurant

In 1967 Paschal’s underwent a major expansion with the addition of a six-story, 120-room motel. Paschal’s Motor Hotel was the first Black-owned hotel in Atlanta.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

Robert Paschal

Robert Paschal

Robert Paschal prepares the restaurant's famous fried chicken, the recipe for which remains a secret to this day.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

John Lewis at Paschal’s

John Lewis at Paschal’s

Representative John Lewis speaks for Atlanta' Concerned Black Clergy at Paschal's Restaurant in 1988. The relationships that James and Robert Paschal built within the city’s Black community made Paschal’s a central meeting spot during the civil rights movement and helped earn the restaurant its reputation as Atlanta’s “Black City Hall.”

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

Maynard Jackson at Paschal’s

Maynard Jackson at Paschal’s

Reverend Joseph E. Lowery (right) and mayoral candidate Maynard Jackson at a 1989 campaign event at Paschal's Motor Hotel. Paschal’s was a hotbed of political activity for Atlanta’s African American community.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

Depot Soldiers Support Vietnam

Depot Soldiers Support Vietnam

Soldiers at the Atlanta Army General Depot in 1967 show their support of the troops in Vietnam.

Courtesy of Garrison Public Affairs Office, Fort McPherson

Russell and Johnson

Russell and Johnson

U.S. senator Richard B. Russell Jr. (left) converses with U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968. Russell, an early supporter of and mentor to Johnson, criticized the Johnson administration's escalation of the war in Vietnam during the 1960s.

Dean Rusk

Dean Rusk

Dean Rusk served as U.S. secretary of state from 1961 to 1969. During that period of service under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, he was a primary architect of U.S. intervention in the Vietnam War on the side of the South Vietnamese.

Julian Bond

Julian Bond

Pictured in 1966, Julian Bond was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1965, but the legislature refused to seat him because of his outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War. In December 1966 the U.S. Supreme Court declared the actions of the house unconstitutional, and Bond was finally sworn in on January 9, 1967.

UGA Military Building

UGA Military Building

Graffiti left by antiwar protestors marks the military building at the University of Georgia in Athens during the Vietnam War (1964-73). Student activists at UGA attempted to burn down the building five times between 1968 and 1972. The slogan "Che Lives" is a reference to Che Guevara, a leader of the socialist revolution in Cuba and an icon of the American New Left. He was captured and executed in Bolivia in 1967.

Vietnam War Protest

Vietnam War Protest

In 1970 demonstrators in downtown Atlanta protest U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War (1964-73). Most antiwar marches in the city, which took place from the late 1960s to the early 1970s, followed a route down Peachtree Street to Piedmont Park.

Photograph by Carter Tomassi

Calley Court-Martial

Calley Court-Martial

William Calley Jr., depicted here in an artist rendering of his 1971 court-martial, was the only U.S. soldier convincted for his role in the My Lai Massacre.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Sketch by Howard Brodie.

Max Cleland

Max Cleland

In 1968, during the Vietnam War, Max Cleland (far right) was injured in an accident, in which he lost both his legs and his right hand. He was awarded the Silver Star and the Soldier's Medal.

Black and white photograph of Eldrin Bell during a press conference about the Atlanta Youth Murders

Police Press Conference

At a press conference, Assistant Police Chief Eldrin Bell holds up a photo of one of the victims of the Atlanta youth murders. From 1979 through 1981, at least twenty-nine Atlantans between the ages of seven and twenty-seven were abducted and slain.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

Black and white photograph of Techwood Homes community "Bat Patrol"

Community Bat Patrol

During the Atlanta youth murders, Techwood Homes community members formed a neighborhood "Bat Patrol." By the time city officials established a formal task force to investigate the killings, eleven young Atlantas had already been added to the list of missing and murdered.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

Black and white photograph shows remains of the Gate City Day Nursery after explosion

Gate City Day Nursery

The remains of the Gate City Day Nursery after an explosion on October 29, 1980, that claimed the lives of five people, including four Black children. Though the blast was attributed to an overheated boiler, many community members and observers remained unconvinced that it was an accident.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

Maynard Jackson and a Cash Reward

Maynard Jackson and a Cash Reward

From July 1979 through May 1981 the Atlanta child murders took place. With leads in the case dwindling and no arrest in sight, Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson imposed a 7:00 p.m. curfew on the city's children and offered a $10,000 reward (pictured) for information about the perpetrator of the crimes.

Black and white photograph of Wayne Williams being escorted back to jail

Wayne Williams

Atlanta youth murders suspect Wayne Williams is escorted back to Fulton County Jail after a hearing in 1981. Williams would eventually be convicted of two murders and implicated in virtually all of the others.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

Black and white photograph of Howard Moore Jr. seated at desk.

Howard Moore Jr.

Howard Moore Jr., a civil rights attorney from Atlanta, handled a number of precedent-setting cases in the 1960s and 1970s. He is best known for serving as lead counsel on the Angela Davis trial.

Black and white photograph of Howard Moore Jr. seated at desk.

Howard Moore Jr.

Howard Moore Jr. grew up near the Auburn Avenue neighborhood in Atlanta. After attending law school in Boston, he returned to Atlanta and soon developed a reputation as the go-to defense attorney for political activists.

Courtroom sketch of Angela Davis and Howard Moore Jr.

Davis Trial Court Sketch

Howard Moore Jr., depicted here in a court-rendering alongside Angela Davis, relocated to California in 1971 to serve as lead counsel for Davis's trial. The jury found Davis not guilty in June 1972.

Photograph from Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley

Court sketch of Howard Moore Jr. during the Angela Davis trial

Davis Trial Court Sketch

Noted civil rights attorney Howard Moore Jr., depicted in this courtroom sketch, speaks in defense of his client Angela Davis. Moore served as lead counsel on a number of high-profile cases.

Photograph from Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley

Rosa Lee Ingram Postcard

Rosa Lee Ingram Postcard

The National Committee to Free the Ingram Family worked to promote public interest in Rosa Lee Ingram's case. Their efforts included this Mother's Day postcard campaign addressed to President Truman.

Image by the National Committee to Free the Ingram Family, Wikimedia

Rosa Lee Ingram and Sons

Rosa Lee Ingram and Sons

Rosa Lee Ingram and two of her adolescent sons were sentenced to death for their role in the death of a white landowner in 1948. Their conviction raised considerable doubt about the integrity of Georgia's judicial system and prompted a nationwide campaign to secure their release from prison.

Photograph from BlackPast.org

Rosa Lee Ingram parole

Rosa lee Ingram Parole

Supporters of Rosa Lee Ingram wait outside the offices of the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles during her 1953 parole hearing. The Ingrams were denied parole several times before their release from prison in 1959.

Photograph by Norma Holt, from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, New York Public Library

Calley Court-Martial

Calley Court-Martial

Captain Ernest L. Medina testifies during the 1971 trial of Lieutenant William Calley Jr. The army Peers Commission concluded that Calley's platoon was responsible for roughly one-third of the deaths at My Lai, and Calley was found guilty on twenty-two counts of premeditated murder. . troops killed hundreds of unarmed civilians in a small coastal village inQiang Ngai province, South Vietnam

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Sketch by Howard Brodie.

Disability Day 2016

Disability Day 2016

Crowds gather in Liberty Plaza near the Georgia Capitol for the eighteenth Annual Disability Day on February 18, 2016.

Courtesy of Ryan Johnson

Disability Day 2014

Disability Day 2014

Governor Nathan Deal, with First Lady Sandra Deal, addresses the Disability Day crowd on February 20, 2014. 

Courtesy of Ryan Johnson

Olmstead Litigants

Olmstead Litigants

From left to right:  Sue Jamieson (Atlanta Legal Aid Society) and Olmstead case plaintiffs Elaine Watson and Lois Curtis in 2003.

Photograph used by permission of Institute on Human Development and Disability (UCEDD), College of Family and Consumer Sciences, the University of Georgia

Amy Mallard

Amy Mallard

Amy Mallard (far left) is pictured in January 1949 outside the Toombs County Courthouse, where she testified at the trial of William Howell, one of several men accused of killing her husband in a racially motivated attack. Mallard was accompainied by Joseph Goldwasser, a member of the NAACP in Cleveland, Ohio, along with her son, John Mallard, and her daughter, Doris Byron.

Courtesy of Getty Images, Francis Miller/The LIFE Picture Collection.

Mallard Murder Trial

Mallard Murder Trial

A crowd gathered in the Toombs County Courthouse on January 11, 1949, for the trial of William Howell, a white man accused of killing his Black neighbor Robert Mallard. Mallard's wife, Amy, witnessed the murder and testified at the trial, after she was falsely accused of committing the crime herself.

Courtesy of Getty Images, Francis Miller/The LIFE Picture Collection.

Trustees’ Charter Boundaries, 1732

Trustees’ Charter Boundaries, 1732

King George II granted James Oglethorpe and the Trustees a charter in 1732 to establish the colony of Georgia. This charter provided, among other things, that the new colony would consist of all the land between the headwaters of the Savannah and the Altamaha rivers, with its eastern boundary formed by the Atlantic Ocean and its western boundary by the "south seas," a reference to the Pacific Ocean.

Map by John Nelson. Reprinted by permission of William J. Morton

Colony of East Florida, 1763

Colony of East Florida, 1763

In 1763 the British divided what had been Spanish Florida into the two new colonies of West Florida and East Florida, with the Apalachicola River serving as the dividing line between them. East Florida was all the land east of the Apalachicola River, with St. Augustine as its capital.

Map by John Nelson. Reprinted by permission of William J. Morton

Colony of West Florida, 1763

Colony of West Florida, 1763

In 1763 the British divided what had been Spanish Florida into the two new colonies of West Florida and East Florida, with the Apalachicola River serving as the dividing line between them. West Florida, with Pensacola as its capital, extended west to the Mississippi River.

Map by John Nelson. Reprinted by permission of William J. Morton

Georgia Colony Boundaries, 1764

Georgia Colony Boundaries, 1764

The appointment of James Wright in 1760 as governor of Georgia coincided with a period of expansion. By 1764 the boundaries of the colony had expanded to include those territories between the Mississippi and Chattahoochee rivers that had not been granted to the Florida colonies.

Map by John Nelson. Reprinted by permission of William J. Morton

Georgia Colony Boundaries, 1767

Georgia Colony Boundaries, 1767

In 1767 the governor of West Florida received permission from the king of England to advance the colony's northern border along the Mississippi and Chattahoochee rivers, where royal trading posts were located. Georgia's land holdings significantly decreased as a result.

Map by John Nelson. Reprinted by permission of William J. Morton

Georgia State Boundaries, 1783

Georgia State Boundaries, 1783

The 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War (1775-83), fixed the 31st latitude north as the southern boundary of the new United States. The line extended from the Mississippi River eastward to the Chattahoochee River, moved down that river to its junction with the Flint River, and then followed a direct line east to the headwaters of the St. Marys River. 

Map by John Nelson. Reprinted by permission of William J. Morton

Orr-Whitner Line, 1861

Orr-Whitner Line, 1861

The Orr-Whitner line was accepted by Florida in 1861 and Georgia in 1866 as their official boundary, although the outbreak of the Civil War (1861-65) delayed the line's approval by the U.S. Congress until 1872.

Map by John Nelson. Reprinted by permission of William J. Morton

Placement of Ellicott’s Rock, 1811

Placement of Ellicott’s Rock, 1811

In 1811 Georgia hired Andrew Ellicott to survey and mark the location of the 35th latitude north, which formed the boundary between Georgia and North Carolina. In an 1812 letter to North Carolina governor William Hawkins, Ellicott states: "In the parallel of 35 degree N. latitude, on the west side of the Chatoga river, a stone is set up marked on the South side (G. lat 35 N.) and on the north side, (N.C.) for North Carolina." This map locates what is currently and erroneously called Ellicott's Rock on the east side of the Chattooga River.

Map by John Nelson. Reprinted by permission of William J. Morton

Georgia’s Northern and Western Boundaries, 1826

Georgia’s Northern and Western Boundaries, 1826

This map shows the surveyed line as marked by James Camak, which set Georgia's northern boundary line south of the 35th latitude north, including the offset known as Montgomery's Corner.

Map by John Nelson. Reprinted by permission of William J. Morton

Georgia’s Northern and Western Boundaries, 1802

Georgia’s Northern and Western Boundaries, 1802

Following the 1802 Article of Agreement and Cession, Georgia's new western boundary began with the juncture of the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers in southwest Georgia and proceeded north to the great bend of the river (at present-day West Point, Georgia). From there it stretched for 160 miles to the Indian village of Nickajack on the Tennessee River and continued from there up to the 35th latitude north.

Map by John Nelson. Reprinted by permission of William J. Morton

Fulton County Voters

Fulton County Voters

Voters in Fulton County line up at the polls in the early 1970s.

Courtesy of Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library Archives, Voter Education Project Organizational Records.

Register and Vote Flyer

Register and Vote Flyer

A flyer produced by the Voter Education Project in the early 1970s refers to the protests in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. The VEP, formed in 1962 as a program of the Southern Regional Council, was a voting rights and voter education organization based in Atlanta for thirty years.

Courtesy of Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library Archives, Voter Education Project Organizational Records.

Register and Vote Flyer

Register and Vote Flyer

A flyer produced by the Voter Education Project in the early 1970s encouraged African Americans to exercise their right to vote. Based in Atlanta, the VEP promoted voter registration and education, and became known as an authoritative source on southern elections in general.

Courtesy of Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library Archives, Voter Education Project Organizational Records.

John Lewis and Julian Bond

John Lewis and Julian Bond

John Lewis (left), who served as executive director of the Voter Education Project from 1971 to 1977, is pictured with Julian Bond in the Mississippi Delta during a Voter Mobilization Tour in 1971.

Fulton County Voter

Fulton County Voter

A voter casts his ballot in Fulton County, circa 1972.

Courtesy of Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library Archives, Voter Education Project Organizational Records.

Jean Childs Young and Rosalynn Carter

Jean Childs Young and Rosalynn Carter

Jean Childs Young (left), pictured with Rosalynn Carter in 1979, was appointed by U.S. president Jimmy Carter as chair of the 1979 International Year of the Child, a program celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child. The program also worked to raise awareness of children's rights and issues.

Courtesy of Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System. Photograph by Rick Reinhard

Jean Childs Young

Jean Childs Young

Jean Childs Young, pictured circa 1985, was the wife of Georgia politician and civil rights leader Andrew Young. She was renowned nationally and internationally for her work as an educator and advocate for children's rights.

Courtesy of Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System

Jean Childs

Jean Childs

In 1953, the year before she married civil rights leader Andrew Young, Jean Childs became the first African American to be elected "May Queen" at Manchester College in Indiana. She graduated from Manchester with a bachelor's degree in elementary education and later earned her master's degree in education from Queens College in New York City.

Courtesy of Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System

Andrew and Jean Childs Young

Andrew and Jean Childs Young

Jean Childs Young is pictured with her husband, Andrew Young, during his tenure as mayor of Atlanta in the 1980s. During those years, Jean Childs Young founded and chaired the Mayor's Task Force on Public Education and was active in other educational endeavors, including the Georgia Alliance for Public Education.

Courtesy of Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System

Campaign Flier, 1981

Campaign Flier, 1981

A 1981 flier from the group "Women for Andrew Young," founded by Jean Childs Young, promotes Andrew Young during his campaign to be elected mayor of Atlanta. The group supported Young through four U.S. congressional campaigns, two mayoral campaigns, and one Georgia gubernatorial campaign.

Courtesy of Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System

Battle of Jonesboro Reenactment

Battle of Jonesboro Reenactment

The Battle of Jonesboro reenactment at Stately Oaks Plantation takes place every second weekend in October.

Courtesy of Clayton County Convention and Visitor's Bureau

Civil War Reenacting

Civil War Reenacting

Reenactors portray a Confederate unit during a reenactment of the Battle of Chickamauga in Walker County in September 1999.

Courtesy of Gordon L. Jones

Civil War Reenacting

Civil War Reenacting

Confederate reenactors crew a half-scale cannon at the Civil War centennial reenactment of the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in June 1964.

From Centennial Commemoration, Battle of Kennesaw Mountain--June 27, 1864-1964: Official Souvenir Program

Civil War Reenacting

Civil War Reenacting

A reenactor portrays a Union soldier in General William T. Sherman's army at an encampment at the Atlanta History Center in 2005.

Courtesy of Gordon L. Jones

Civil War Reenacting

Civil War Reenacting

A woman portrays a local refugee during a reenactment of the Battle of Chickamauga in Walker County in September 1999.

Courtesy of Gordon L. Jones

Parade Queens

Parade Queens

Latina women from the Mexican, El Salvadoran, and Guatemalan communities in Dalton participate in the city's annual Mexican Independence Day parade.

Courtesy of Thomas Deaton

Latino Workers

Latino Workers

Latino workers plant loblolly pine seedlings in 1999 near Bremen, in Haralson County. Latino immigrants came to Georgia in large numbers during the 1980s and 1990s to work in the agriculture, construction, carpet, and poultry processing industries.

Hernando de Soto and Crew

Hernando de Soto and Crew

An 1866 tobacco label depicts Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto and his crew being welcomed ashore by Native Americans. De Soto entered Georgia twice in 1540, encountering the Altamaha, Capachequi, Coosa, Ichisi, Ocute, Patofa, Toa, and Ulibahali chiefdoms during his travels in the area.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Centennial Olympic Park

Centennial Olympic Park

Centennial Olympic Park, one of the most enduring legacies of the 1996 Olympic Games, was carved out of a blighted area in downtown Atlanta. The twenty-one-acre swath of greenspace and bricks was closed after the games, redesigned for permanent use, then reopened in 1998. 

Photograph by Wikimedia

Supermercado

Supermercado

Los Compadres, a supermercado (grocery store) located in Athens, is one of many Latino-owned businesses that have opened around the state since the wave of Latino immigration in the 1980s and 1990s.

Photograph by Sarah E. McKee, New Georgia Encyclopedia

Mitchell and Students

Mitchell and Students

Erwin Mitchell visits elementary students in 2000 at Roan Street School in Dalton. In 1997 Mitchell founded the Georgia Project, an innovative teacher exchange program that provided training opportunities for Dalton educators working in bilingual classrooms until 2007.Reprinted by permission of Christopher Lancette.

Etowah Mounds

Etowah Mounds

The Etowah Mounds in Bartow County include one of the largest Indian mounds in North America. The mounds, constructed during the Mississippian Period, served as platforms for public buildings in a town that occupied the site from around 1100 until the 1600s.

Rock Eagle

Rock Eagle

Rock Eagle, a stone effigy built by Native Americans during the Woodland Period, circa A.D. 200, is located in Putnam County. The structure, made of quartz cobbles, measures 102 feet across the wings.

Courtesy of Explore Georgia, Photograph by Ralph Daniel.

De Soto Crossing the Chattahoochee

De Soto Crossing the Chattahoochee

A drawing from Lambert A. Wilmer's Life, Travels and Adventures of Ferdinand de Soto, Discoverer of the Mississippi (1859) depicts Hernando de Soto and his men crossing the Chattahoochee River. The accidental introduction of European diseases by explorers destroyed many of the civilizations along the river's banks.

Courtesy of Florida State Archives, Photographic Collection.

Georgia Trustees

Georgia Trustees

This oil painting by William Verelst shows the founders of Georgia, the Georgia Trustees, and a delegation of Georgia Indians in July 1734. One year later the Trustees persuaded the British government to support a ban on slavery in Georgia.

Battle of Kettle Creek

Battle of Kettle Creek

This sketch, likely a small portion of a larger work, depicts the Battle of Kettle Creek, which took place in Wilkes County on February 14, 1779, during the Revolutionary War. The original caption reads: "Engagement between the Whigs and Tories."

Courtesy of Kettle Creek Chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution

Eli Whitney

Eli Whitney

The inventor of the cotton gin, Eli Whitney lived in Georgia for just a year, on Catharine Greene's Mulberry Grove plantation near Savannah. After learning of the difficulty planters had with separating seeds from fibers in upland, or "short-staple," cotton, he set out to create a machine that could perform such a task more efficiently. His invention, the cotton gin, revolutionized the southern economy.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Cherokee Trail of Tears

Cherokee Trail of Tears

In his 1942 painting Cherokee Trail of Tears, Robert Lindneux depicts the forced journey of the Cherokees in 1838 to present-day Oklahoma.

Courtesy of Woolaroc Museum, Bartlesville, Oklahoma

Secession Ordinance

Secession Ordinance

On January 21, 1861, the ordinance of secession was publicly signed in a ceremony by Georgia politicians. Two days earlier, delegates to a convention in Milledgeville voted 208 to 89 for the state to secede from the Union.

Robert Toombs

Robert Toombs

Wilkes County native Robert Toombs, pictured circa 1865, served briefly as the Confederate government's secretary of state and as a brigadier general during the Civil War.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Andersonville Prison

Andersonville Prison

Union prisoners of war are pictured at the Andersonville Prison in Macon County on August 17, 1864. Malnutrition and poor sanitary conditions at the camp led to the deaths of nearly 13,000 of Andersonville's 45,000 prisoners, the highest mortality rate of any Civil War prison.

Courtesy of Civil War Treasures, New-York Historical Society

Freedmen’s Bureau

Freedmen’s Bureau

An 1868 sketch by A. R. Waud illustrates the difficulties faced by the Freedmen's Bureau, caught between white planters on one side (left) and formerly enslaved African Americans on the other (right). The bureau was established in 1865 after Union general William T. Sherman issued his Field Order No. 15, which called for the resettlement of freedpeople on confiscated lands.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Henry W. Grady

Henry W. Grady

With his New South platform, Henry W. Grady advocated unity and trust between the North and South and helped to spur northern investment in Atlanta industries.

Sharecroppers

Sharecroppers

Sharecroppers, pictured in 1910, harvest cotton in Randolph County. Theoretically beneficial to both laborers and landowners, the sharecropping system typically left workers in deep debt to their landlords and creditors from one harvest season to the next.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #ran218-82.

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Thomas E. Watson

Thomas E. Watson

In 1892 Georgia politics was shaken by the arrival of the Populist Party. Led by Thomas E. Watson of McDuffie County, this new party mainly appealed to white farmers, many of whom had been impoverished by debt and low cotton prices in the 1880s and 1890s. The Populists also attempted to win the support of Black farmers away from the Republican Party.

Roosevelts in Atlanta

Roosevelts in Atlanta

U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, visit Atlanta in 1935, during the Great Depression. From left: Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt, U.S. senator Walter F. George, and U.S. senator Richard B. Russell Jr.

Ben Epps

Ben Epps

Georgia aviation pioneer Ben Epps is pictured with his first airplane outside his garage in Athens, 1907.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
clr176-83.

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Fort Benning

Fort Benning

U.S. soldiers, pictured in the spring of 1942, undergo training at Fort Benning in Columbus. During World War II Fort Benning was the largest infantry training post in the world.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Segregation Protest

Segregation Protest

Students protest segregation at the state capitol building in Atlanta on February 1, 1962. The passage of the federal Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965 ended legal segregation across the nation.

Integration of Atlanta Schools

Integration of Atlanta Schools

Reporters gather at Atlanta's city hall on August 30, 1961, the day that the city's schools were officially integrated. The recommendations of the Sibley Commission to the state legislature in 1960 contributed to the desegregation of schools across Georgia.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection.

Hunter and Holmes, UGA

Hunter and Holmes, UGA

Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes, the first Black students to enroll at the University of Georgia, are pictured here at the end of their first day on campus in January 1961.

Albany Movement

Albany Movement

Martin Luther King Jr. (second from right) and Ralph David Abernathy (third from right) pray during their arrest in Albany on July 27, 1962. William G. Anderson, the president of the Albany Movement, asked King and Abernathy to help with efforts to desegregate the city.

Carl Sanders

Carl Sanders

Augusta native Carl Sanders, elected governor of Georgia in 1962, brought the state into compliance with federal civil rights law during his single term in office.

Lester Maddox, 1964

Lester Maddox, 1964

In 1966 Lester Maddox defeated former governor Ellis Arnall in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in a major political upset. Subsequently, as a result of a close race between Maddox and Republican Bo Callaway, the General Assembly chose Maddox as governor.

Hamilton Jordan and Jimmy Carter

Hamilton Jordan and Jimmy Carter

U.S. president Jimmy Carter (right) meets with Hamilton Jordan in the Oval Office of the White House in 1977. Jordan served as Carter's chief of staff from 1977 to 1980.

Peanut Farming

Peanut Farming