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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.

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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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.

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

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.

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.

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

Stetson Kennedy

Stetson Kennedy

Stetson Kennedy, pictured circa 1939 in Miami, Florida, collected oral histories with the Federal Writers Project in Florida from 1937 until 1941. In 1942 Kennedy moved to Atlanta, and during World War II he infiltrated and reported on the activities of the Ku Klux Klan in the city.

Courtesy of Stetson Kennedy. Photograph by Edith Kennedy. Photograph restored by C. Ivy Bigbee

Palmetto Country

Palmetto Country

Originally published in 1942, Palmetto Country by Stetson Kennedy is a compilation of the history and folklore of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. The book was reissued in 1989 by the University Press of Florida, and again in 2009 by the Florida Historical Society.

The Klan Unmasked

The Klan Unmasked

Stetson Kennedy, who spent 1946-47 infiltrating the Columbians, a neo-Nazi group, and the Ku Klux Klan in Atlanta, published his experiences in 1954 as I Rode with the Ku Klux Klan. The book was reissued in 1990 by the University Press of Florida as The Klan Unmasked.

Claude Sitton

Claude Sitton

Journalist Claude Sitton (right) covers the desegregation of the University of Georgia in 1961 as the southern correspondent for the New York Times.

Earl Shinhoster

Earl Shinhoster

Earl Shinhoster, a Savannah native, served in various leadership positions with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for more than thirty years. His career with the organization began in 1966 when, at the age of sixteen, he was elected president of the Savannah NAACP Youth Council. At the time of his death in 2000, Shinhoster was the NAACP's national director of voter empowerment.

Courtesy of Savannah Tribune

Leroy Johnson

Leroy Johnson

Leroy Johnson desegregated the Georgia General Assembly when he won his seat in 1962 and went on to become one of Georgia's most powerful state senators. During his tenure, Johnson revised the literacy test for voting rights, making voting more accessible to all citizens of Georgia.

Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries

William Holmes Borders

William Holmes Borders

The Reverend William Holmes Borders served as pastor of Wheat Street Baptist Church in Atlanta from 1937 to 1988. In the late 1950s he led the Love, Law, and Liberation Movement to desegregate the city's bus system, and in the 1960s he arranged for the construction of a low-income housing project, Wheat Street Gardens.

Courtesy of Wheat Street Baptist Church; Estate of the Reverend William Holmes Borders Sr.

Wheat Street Baptist Church

Wheat Street Baptist Church

Wheat Street Baptist Church, located in the Sweet Auburn district of Atlanta, was founded in 1869. The church building, located at the corner of Auburn Avenue and Yonge Street (later William Holmes Borders Drive), was constructed between 1921 and 1939. William Holmes Borders, a prominent civil rights activist, was pastor of the church from 1937 to 1988.

From The United Negro: His Problems and His Progress: Containing the Addresses and Proceedings the Negro Young People's Christian and Educational Congress, Held August 6-11, 1902, by Irvine Garland Penn and John W. E. Bowen Sr.

Walden and Borders

Walden and Borders

Members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People gather in February 1957 for civil rights hearings held before the U.S. Senate in Washington, D.C. Prominent leaders from Georgia include A. T. Walden (second row, fourth from left) and the Reverend William Holmes Borders (second row, fifth from left).

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Visual Materials from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Records, #LC-USZ62-126520.

Triple L Movement Leaders

Triple L Movement Leaders

Leaders of the movement to desegregate the bus system in Atlanta gather in the office of Rev. William Holmes Borders (seated) at Wheat Street Baptist Church. From left, Rev. R. B. Shorts, Rev. R. Joseph Johnson, Rev. Howard T. Bussey, and Rev. Ray Williams.

Courtesy of Wheat Street Baptist Church; Estate of the Reverend William Holmes Borders Sr.

William G. Anderson

William G. Anderson

Physician William Anderson, the president of the Albany Movement, is pictured in July 1962.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

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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.

Albany Movement

Albany Movement

Protesters march down Broad Street in Albany during the Albany Movement, one of the largest civil rights campaigns in Georgia. From 1961 to 1962 Black residents protested the city's segregationist practices. Around 1,200 protesters were imprisoned as a result of their activities during the movement.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #dgh231-86.

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Bernice Johnson Reagon

Bernice Johnson Reagon

Albany native Bernice Johnson Reagon, a prominent singer of the civil rights movement, worked at the Smithsonian Institution from 1974 to 1994, first as a cultural historian in the Division of Performing Arts/African Diaspora Project, and then as a curator at the National Museum of American History. In 1993 she was appointed distinguished professor of history at American University.

Courtesy of Bernice Johnson Reagon. Photograph by Sharon Farmer

Johnson and King

Johnson and King

Civil rights activist and real estate broker Slater King was one of the leaders of the Albany Movement. To the left is Bernice Johnson, one of the original Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Freedom Singers, who later formed the musical group Sweet Honey in the Rock.

Courtesy of Cochran Studios/A. E. Jenkins Photography

Bernice Johnson Reagon

Bernice Johnson Reagon

Bernice Johnson Reagon was a member of the Freedom Singers, which formed in Albany during the civil rights movement. Reagon later founded two a capella ensembles of African American women singers—the Harambee Singers, in 1966, and Sweet Honey in the Rock, in 1973.

Photograph from Sweet Honey in the Rock album Give Your Hands to Struggle (1975)

Donald Hollowell

Donald Hollowell

Prominent civil rights attorney Donald Hollowell talks to WSB reporters during the desegregation of the University of Georgia in 1961. Hollowell represented Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter, the first African American students to gain admission to the university.

Courtesy of Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture

Donald Hollowell

Donald Hollowell

Civil rights attorney Donald Hollowell, a native of Kansas, was instrumental in the movement to desegregate public institutions throughout Georgia during the 1950s and 1960s. He established a law practice in Atlanta in 1952 and remained a resident of the city until his death in 2004.

Courtesy of Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture

Donald Hollowell

Donald Hollowell

Donald Hollowell (third from the right) served in the U.S. Army's segregated Tenth Cavalry Regiment, better known as the Buffalo Soldiers, from 1935 to 1938. He was recalled to active service in 1941, when the United States entered World War II.

Courtesy of Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture

Louise and Donald Hollowell

Louise and Donald Hollowell

Louise and Donald Hollowell are pictured at Cafe Zanzibar in New York City on August 13, 1944, during World War II. Hollowell served with distinction in Europe during the war, rising to the rank of captain by the war's end.

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

Albany Movement Leaders

Albany Movement Leaders

(Left to right) Attorney T. M. Jackson, chief counsel Donald Hollowell, Dr. William G. Anderson, and attorney C. B. King stand in front of the Albany federal courthouse and post office.

Courtesy of Cochran Studios/A. E. Jenkins Photography

Donald and Louise Hollowell

Donald and Louise Hollowell

Donald and Louise Hollowell stand next to the Donald L. Hollowell Parkway in Atlanta. The former Bankhead Highway was renamed in 1998 in honor of the prominent civil rights attorney.

The Goat Man

The Goat Man

Charles McCartney, also known as the "Goat Man," was a traveling preacher who roamed central Georgia in a goat-pulled wagon in the mid-twentieth century.

The Goat Man

The Goat Man

Charles McCartney, also known as the "Goat Man," was a folk figure in Georgia for four decades in the mid-twentieth century. He likely inspired some of the characters in Flannery O'Connor's fiction.

Thomas Brewer

Thomas Brewer

Founder of the local NAACP chapter in Columbus, Thomas Brewer (pictured ca. 1950) is remembered for orchestrating the legal challenge to Georgia's all-white primary system.

Courtesy of Columbus State University Archives

NAACP Charter Application

NAACP Charter Application

The NAACP charter application for a Columbus branch was signed in 1939 by Thomas Brewer, a local physician and political activist.

Courtesy of Columbus State University Archives

Roy Harris

Roy Harris

A powerful Augusta politician, Roy Harris twice served as Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives. His support was deemed critical for those seeking the governorship. As the president (1958-66) of the segregationist organization known as Citizens' Councils of America, Harris was also a powerful figure regionally.

Baldowski Cartoon: Roy Harris

Baldowski Cartoon: Roy Harris

This cartoon (ca. 1958), drawn by political cartoonist Clifford "Baldy" Baldowski, depicts former state legislator and Board of Regents member Roy Harris. Harris plays "Roy's Tune" on an accordion. The caption reads, "Everybody now.... let's dance!"

Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Clifford Baldowski Editorial Cartoon Collection.

Mills B. Lane Jr.

Mills B. Lane Jr.

Mills B. Lane Jr., a native of Savannah, was president of Citizens and Southern National Bank, based in Atlanta, from 1946 to 1973. During his tenure Lane financed several major projects in the city, including the Atlanta Stadium, and worked to establish peaceful race relations in both Atlanta and Savannah.

Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium

Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium

An International League baseball game is played at the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium in 1965, the same year in which the facility was completed. In addition to sporting events, the stadium was used for concerts and other large gatherings before it was destroyed in 1997 to make way for Turner Field (later Center Parc Stadium).

Coretta Scott King

Coretta Scott King

Coretta Scott King, sitting beside Ralph David Abernathy (right) at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, speaks to the press after the assassination of her husband, Martin Luther King Jr., in 1968. For nearly forty years after her husband's death, King continued to promote their shared vision of equality and nonviolence.

SCLC Leaders Marching

SCLC Leaders Marching

Ralph David Abernathy (second from left) marches with Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King Jr. (center) in 1966 on the Georgia state capitol. All were influential leaders during the early years of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Preston King

Preston King

Preston King, pictured in 2012, is a member of a family known for its activism during the Albany Movement. King was convicted of draft evasion in 1961, after he refused to comply with orders from the Albany draft board addressing him as "Preston," rather than "Mr. King." King jumped bail following his trial and lived abroad until 2000, when he received a pardon and returned to Georgia. A prominent academic, today King lives in Atlanta.

Photograph from C-SPAN

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, both natives of Plains, have lunch in the White House's Oval Office in 1977. Carter was elected to the U.S. presidency in 1976 and served one term.

James Earl Carter and Children

James Earl Carter and Children

James Earl Carter, father of U.S. president Jimmy Carter, stands with his three oldest children, Gloria (left), Ruth (center), and Jimmy, circa 1930. A fourth child, Billy, was born in 1937.

Jimmy and Billy Carter

Jimmy and Billy Carter

U.S. president Jimmy Carter (left) and his younger brother, Billy, inspect a peanut crop in 1977 on the Carter farm in Sumter County.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, # sum097.

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Jimmy and Jack Carter

Jimmy and Jack Carter

U.S. president Jimmy Carter (left) walks with his oldest son, Jack, on the site of the future Gordon County Grain Company in 1977. At the time of this photograph, Jack was a resident of Calhoun, located in Gordon County, where he practiced law.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #gor236.

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Amy Carter and Parents

Amy Carter and Parents

Amy, Rosalyn, and Jimmy Carter smile and wave to the crowd at the 1976 Democratic National Convention in New York City. The youngest child of Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter, Amy was the object of much media attention during her father's tenure as president.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Carter Family

Carter Family

The Shahbanou of Iran (left) holds James Earl Carter IV, the grandson of U.S. president Jimmy Carter, during a visit to the White House in 1978. Beside her, from left, are First Lady Rosalynn Carter and the baby's parents, Caron and Chip Carter.

Carter Family

Carter Family

Governor Jimmy, Rosalynn, and Amy Carter during a celebratory parade in 1971.

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

Hosea Williams

Hosea Williams

Hosea Williams, a civil rights leader in both Savannah and Atlanta, speaks at a rally in 1974. In 1963 Williams joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and worked with Martin Luther King Jr. until King's assassination in 1968. Williams continued to work with the SCLC until 1979.

Hosea Williams

Hosea Williams

Civil rights activist Hosea Williams, wearing his trademark overalls and red shirt, poses in 1997 at the site of a demonstration march held ten years earlier in Forsyth County. Williams led the march to protest Ku Klux Klan activities in the area.

Hosea Williams

Hosea Williams

Hosea Williams folds T-shirts in 1996 for his Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless program. The program, founded by Williams in Atlanta in 1971, provides food, health care, and clothing to thousands in the Atlanta area each year.

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.

Jesse Hill

Jesse Hill

Jesse Hill was a prominent businessman and civil rights leader in Atlanta. He served as the president and chief executive officer of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, one of the nation's largest Black-owned companies, from 1973 until 1992. He also served on the boards of several leading Atlanta corporations, including Delta Air Lines and SunTrust.

Courtesy of Alexa Benson Henderson

Atlanta Life Insurance

Atlanta Life Insurance

Atlanta Life Insurance Company was founded by Alonzo Herndon, a prominent Black businessman in Atlanta, in 1905. After Herndon's death, leadership of the company passed to his son, Norris Herndon, in 1927 and then to Jesse Hill in 1973. The company is headquartered in Atlanta's Sweet Auburn district.

Photograph by Wally Gobetz 

Jesse and Azira Hill

Jesse and Azira Hill

Jesse Hill, the former leader of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, is pictured in 2001 with his wife, Azira. Hill became active in the civil rights movement upon his arrival in the city in 1949, while living at the YMCA on Butler Street. The street was renamed in his honor in 2001.

William Bootle

William Bootle

William Bootle served as a U.S. District Court judge in Georgia from 1954 to 1981. His rulings upheld decisions made by the U.S. Supreme Court in matters of school desegregation, including the desegregation of the University of Georgia in 1961.

Courtesy of Macon District Court

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.

Linda and Millard Fuller

Linda and Millard Fuller

Linda and Millard Fuller cut the ribbon at the dedication ceremony for the Fuller Center for Housing in Americus. The center, which opened in 2005, raises funds to support the efforts of organizations building affordable housing around the world.

Courtesy of Sumter Shots

Millard Fuller

Millard Fuller

Millard Fuller is pictured in 1976 at Koinonia Farm in Sumter County. That same year he and his wife, Linda Fuller, founded Humanity International, which had built more than 175,000 homes around the world by 2005.

Extra Mile Pathway Marker

Extra Mile Pathway Marker

Former U.S. president Georgia H. W. Bush (far left) stands with Linda and Millard Fuller in front of the bronze marker commemorating the couple's work to build housing for low-income citizens. The marker is erected along the Extra Mile Points of Light Volunteer Pathway, a national monument in Washington, D.C., that opened in October 2005.

Courtesy of Points of Light

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, pictured in the 1980s, participate in an annual "blitz build" with Habitat for Humanity as part of the Jimmy Carter Work Project.

Dorothy Rogers Tilly

Dorothy Rogers Tilly

Dorothy Rogers Tilly, a native of Hampton, began a lifetime of civil rights work in 1918 with the Women's Missionary Society of the Methodist Church. During the 1930s she worked with the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, traveling throughout Georgia to help diffuse violence against African Americans and prevent lynchings.

Committee on Civil Rights

Committee on Civil Rights

Dorothy Tilly, a civil rights activist from Georgia, stands to the right of President Harry S. Truman (center) and his Committee on Civil Rights, to which she was appointed in 1946. Three years later Tilly founded the Fellowship of the Concerned, a biracial group dedicated to educating white southerners as a means of overcoming prejudice.

Charles Weltner

Charles Weltner

Charles Weltner accepts the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 1991. An Atlanta native, Weltner served as both a U.S. congressman from Georgia and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia. His career was marked by an ardent opposition to segregation during the 1950s.

Courtesy of John F. Kennedy Library Foundation

Hamilton Holmes

Hamilton Holmes

In 1961 Hamilton Holmes (center) became one of the first African American students to gain admission to the University of Georgia after a two-year legal battle, led in part by Donald Hollowell (left). Holmes's father, Alfred "Tup" Holmes (right), was an Atlanta businessman.

Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter-Gault

Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter-Gault

Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter-Gault, the students who desegregated the University of Georgia in 1961, returned in 1992 to speak at the first annual Holmes-Hunter lecture. Holmes, a prominent orthopedic surgeon in Atlanta until his death in 1995, was named the first African American member of the university foundation's board of trustees in 1983.

Courtesy of University of Georgia Photographic Services

Vernon Jordan

Vernon Jordan

Vernon Jordan, an Atlanta native, rose to national prominence during the 1960s and 1970s as a lawyer and civil rights activist. As part of the legal team responsible for forcing the University of Georgia to admit African Americans, Jordan escorted Charlayne Hunter, the first Black woman enrolled at the university, to the admissions office in 1961.

Courtesy of National Urban League

Vernon Can Read!

Vernon Can Read!

Vernon Can Read!, the autobiography of civil rights activist Vernon Jordan, was published by PublicAffairs in 2001. Cowritten with law professor Annette Gordon-Reed, the book chronicles Jordan's years with the NAACP, the United Negro College Fund, and the National Urban League.

W. J. Usery in Coal Mine

W. J. Usery in Coal Mine

W. J. Usery (far right), in his role as director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, talks to workers in a West Virginia coal mine during the 1970s. Usery served as director of the service from 1973 to 1974.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, W. J. Usery Papers, Southern Labor Archives.

W. J. Usery Jr.

W. J. Usery Jr.

W. J. Usery Jr., a native of Hardwick, was the first Georgian to serve as the U.S. secretary of labor. Appointed to the position by U.S. president Gerald Ford in 1976, Usery resolved major labor disputes in the rubber and trucking industries during his tenure as secretary.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, W. J. Usery Papers, Southern Labor Archives.

W. J. Usery at Cape Canaveral

W. J. Usery at Cape Canaveral

W. J. Usery (right) inspects the Atlas missile launch vehicle with colleagues at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Test Facilities. Usery served as the International Association of Machinists' Grand Lodge special representative to Cape Canaveral in 1956.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, W. J. Usery Papers, Southern Labor Archives.

W. J. Usery with Gerald Ford

W. J. Usery with Gerald Ford

W. J. Usery (left) attends a reception in 1978 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., with U.S. president Gerald Ford. In 1976 Ford appointed Usery, who had extensive experience in resolving labor disptures, as the first U.S. secretary of labor from Georgia.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, W. J. Usery Papers, Southern Labor Archives.

Mary Frances Early

Mary Frances Early

Mary Frances Early was the first African American to graduate from the University of Georgia. Early transferred from the University of Michigan as a music education graduate student in 1961 and earned her master's degree from UGA the following year.

Courtesy of University of Georgia Photographic Services

Mary Frances Early

Mary Frances Early

Mary Frances Early, the first African American to graduate from the University of Georgia, sits in her Center Myers dorm room, which also housed Charlayne Hunter-Gault, the first African American woman to be admitted to the university. A riot erupted outside of this room two days after Hunter arrived on campus in 1961.

Courtesy of Mary Frances Early

Cornelia Bailey

Cornelia Bailey

Cornelia Bailey gathers silver grass and life everlasting, an herb used by her grandfather to make medicinal tea, on Sapelo Island. Bailey received a 2004 Governor's Award in the Humanities for her efforts to preserve the island's Geechee culture.

Photograph by Richard Cheppy. Courtesy of Cornelia Bailey

Cornelia Bailey and Mother

Cornelia Bailey and Mother

Cornelia Bailey, the "griot" of Sapelo Island, preserves the oral history of the Geechee culture through educational tours and storytelling. This portrait of Bailey with her mother appears in Bailey's 2000 memoir, God, Dr. Buzzard, and the Bolito Man.

Photograph by Richard Cheppy. Courtesy of Cornelia Bailey

Cornelia Bailey with Jimmy Carter

Cornelia Bailey with Jimmy Carter

Cornelia Bailey welcomes U.S. president Jimmy Carter to Sapelo Island in 1979 with an oyster roast in his honor. After living on St. Simons Island for many years, Bailey returned to her childhood home in 1966 and began working to educate the public about Sapelo's Geechee culture.

Photograph by Richard Cheppy. Courtesy of Cornelia Bailey

Swearing in of A. T. Walden

Swearing in of A. T. Walden

Atlanta mayor Ivan Allen (right) swears in A. T. Walden as judge of the Atlanta Municipal Court on February 3, 1964. Walden, the first Black judge appointed in Georgia following Reconstruction, served as president of Atlanta's NAACP branch from 1924 to 1936.

A. T. Walden

A. T. Walden

Attorney A. T. Walden, a key participant in the effort to increase Black voter registration during the 1940s, served as one of the first cochairs of the Atlanta Negro Voters League executive committee.

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

Elbert P. Tuttle

Elbert P. Tuttle

Elbert P. Tuttle works in his Atlanta office in 1982, shortly after the creation of the Eleventh Circuit.

Elbert P. Tuttle

Elbert P. Tuttle

Elbert Parr Tuttle heard a number of significant civil rights cases as chief judge of the Fifth Circuit during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1968 he stepped down as chief judge and entered semiretirement as a senior judge, serving on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals from its creation in 1981 until his death in 1996.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection, 1920-1976.

Joseph Lowery

Joseph Lowery

Joseph Lowery stands before the SCLC headquarters in Atlanta. In 1977 Lowery succeeded Ralph David Abernathy as president of the SCLC, which has been based in Atlanta since its inception in 1957.

Lowery at Lockheed Martin Protest

Lowery at Lockheed Martin Protest

Joseph Lowery voices his dismay on February 22, 2000, over alleged racial discrimination practices at Lockheed Martin. Behind him are Lockheed workers who came to lend support to the protest.

Benjamin Mays

Benjamin Mays

Benjamin Mays was the president of Morehouse college from 1940 until his retirement in 1967.

Benjamin Mays

Benjamin Mays

Benjamin Mays, president of Morehouse College from 1940 until 1967, attends a birthday party in his honor on August 11, 1973.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Benjamin Mays

Benjamin Mays

Benjamin Mays speaks with Atlanta mayor Ivan Allen Jr.

Maynard Jackson’s Inauguration

Maynard Jackson’s Inauguration

Elected mayor of Atlanta in 1973, Maynard Jackson was the first African American to serve as mayor of a major southern city. Jackson served eight years and then returned for a third term in 1990. During his tenure, Jackson increased the amount of city business given to minority-owned firms and added a new terminal to the Atlanta airport, later renamed Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in his honor.

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.

Maynard Jackson

Maynard Jackson

Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson appealed for calm on the steps of City Hall after mass violence and vandalism erupted in downtown Atlanta in response to the Rodney King verdict on April 30, 1992. Jackson was shouted down several times before the crowd finally moved off toward Peachtree Street.

Ralph David Abernathy

Ralph David Abernathy

Civil rights leader Ralph David Abernathy speaks on April 9, 1968, at a press conference held during the week of Martin Luther King Jr.'s funeral in Atlanta.

Photograph from Corbis

Ralph David Abernathy’s Home

Ralph David Abernathy’s Home

Abernathy (right) stands on the porch of his home following a Klan bombing. Freedom Rider David Fankhauser recalls, "Rev. Abernathy worked very closely with Martin Luther King Jr., and because of his civil rights activities . . . had his home bombed."

From The Civil Rights Movement: An Illustrated History, by B. Wilkenson

Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph David Abernathy Lead Civil Rights March

Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph David Abernathy Lead Civil Rights March

Ralph David Abernathy (right) walks with Martin Luther King Jr. (left) as they lead civil rights marchers out of camp to resume their walk from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. The march took place March 21-25, 1965.

Courtesy of New York World-Telegram

Poor People’s Campaign March

Poor People’s Campaign March

Demonstrators participating in the Poor People's March at Lafayette Park and on Connecticut Avenue, Washington, D.C.

Image from Warren K. Leffler

Ralph David Abernathy and Martin Luther King Jr.

Ralph David Abernathy and Martin Luther King Jr.

Ralph David Abernathy (right) and Martin Luther King Jr. were central organizers of the Montgomery bus boycott, which demanded that Black passengers be treated fairly on public transportation. 

Courtesy of David Fankhauser

Lester Maddox

Lester Maddox

Lestor Maddox locks the doors to the Pickrick restaurant rather than integrating it in 1965. Toward the end of his life, Governor Lester Maddox expressed few regrets and made no apologies for his segregationist beliefs or any of the other political stances he had taken over his career.

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

Lester Maddox Riding Bicycle

Lester Maddox Riding Bicycle

Governor Lester Maddox performs his signature trick: riding a bicycle backward.