Timeline
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Phase One - Gradualism and Negotiation
1940
Although African Americans account for 30 percent of the population of Atlanta, less than five
percent are registered to vote. Voter apathy is caused by the poll tax, “whites only” primaries, and
the fear of racial violence against African Americans.
Benjamin Mays comes to Atlanta as the new president of Morehouse College (1940-1967).
During his tenure, he becomes known as the “schoolmaster of the civil rights movement” because
he helps to mold the intellect and character of many of the students destined to be leaders in the
fight for social change, including Martin Luther King, Jr. and Julian Bond.
A citywide bond is defeated by African American voters because only $100,000 of the $1.8
million proposed would go to black schools.
1942
As African Americans fight abroad in World War II, the Black Press launches the Double-V
Campaign calling for victory over the axis power in World War II and the defeat of racial
prejudice in the United States. The Atlanta Daily World is a vigorous participant in the campaign.
The Atlanta Citizens Committee for the Equalization of Teacher Pay, the Atlanta branch of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and Atlanta Life
Insurance Company, an Auburn Avenue business, support the fight for equal pay for black and
white teachers. When William Reeves, a junior high school teacher, files a lawsuit to demand
equal pay, Atlanta Life offers to pay the salary of any teacher who loses a job because of protest.
Norris Herndon, the head of the company, will continue to provide funds for civil rights activities
in Atlanta.
Mayor William Hartsfield works to annex the predominantly white Buckhead community to
Atlanta, warning that unless the city’s boundaries are expanded, the city could eventually be
controlled by African Americans.
1943
April: W.E.B. DuBois, head of the Sociology Department of Atlanta University, convenes the
26th Atlanta University Conference. He attempts to bring together Negro Land Grant Colleges
around the country to develop an ongoing common research program to gather empirical data on
the social and economic condition and status of African Americans. His plan is dashed when he is
retired by Atlanta University supposedly because of his age, 76, but possibly because of his
militant integrationist politics and his teaching of socialist ideology.
Grace Towns Hamilton is appointed the Executive Director of the Atlanta Urban League.
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1944
January: The Southern Regional Council (SRC) is formed by members of the Commission on
Interracial Cooperation (CIC) to revitalize the effort for social reform in the South. The members
of the interracial organization include college and university presidents, labor leaders, church
ministers, and newspaper editors from 13 Southern states. The organization works for progress by
collecting facts about racial problems in the South and making them available through
publications to private citizens and public officials. SRC also encourages community activism.
April: The U.S. Supreme Court’s Smith v. Allwright decision declares white primaries
unconstitutional. Black leaders in the city immediately pledge to go to the polls to vote in the
upcoming July 4 election.
May: The Fulton County Citizens Democratic Club is established by Attorney A.T. Walden and
John Wesley Dobbs, a retired postal clerk and leader in the Prince Hall Masons. Walden helped to
establish 11 Democratic Clubs for African Americans across the state. Grace Towns Hamilton,
executive director of the Atlanta Urban League, initiates a survey of the demographics of black
Atlanta to be used to aid in voter canvassing efforts.
June: The Georgia Democratic Party vows to continue to prohibit African Americans from
voting in the July 4 primary. A group of black leaders decide they will go to the polls and attempt
to vote in preparation for filing a lawsuit against the Georgia Democratic Party for violating the
15th Amendment to the United States Constitution. But party leaders advise the African
American community not to try to vote, to avoid confrontations with poll officials and racist
white voters.
During this year, Mayor William Hartsfield solicits the chairman of the U. S. House of
Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities to probe the NAACP because he believes
the organization supports professional white agitators.
July 4: When African Americans in the city attempt to vote in the Democratic primary, they are
told their names are not on the registration lists. The Fulton County Citizens Democratic Club
calls for a federal investigation of the Democratic Party’s violation of voters’ rights.
1945
In this year, several laws and practices that had restricted African American participation in the
voting process are erased in the state, boosting the efforts of the voter registration campaign.
February: Georgia is the fourth state to abolish the poll tax, which had been a deterrent to black
voter registration since Reconstruction.
August: The state lowers the required voting age from 21 to 18.
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October: Georgia's “whites only” primary is declared unconstitutional by Judge T. Hoyte Davis.
The United Negro Veterans Organization sponsors a March from Ebenezer Church on Auburn
Avenue to City Hall to protest the city's refusal to hire black policemen. It is led by the Rev.
Martin Luther King, Sr.
1946
January: After Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District seat is vacated abruptly, African American
leaders step up their voter registration campaign. They increase the number of registered black
voters from about 7,000 to 21,000 by the July election.
The All-Citizen’s Registration Committee, a coalition of a number of community organizations
under the banner of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP),
leads the voter registration campaign. Atlanta University History Professor Clarence Bacote is the
head of this umbrella entity. It includes the Fulton County Citizens Democratic Club established
by A.T. Walden and John Wesley Dobbs as well as fraternal organizations and women’s
organizations such as social activist Ruby Blackburn’s To Improve Conditions (TIC) Club. Ten
thousand black women and men register in time to vote in the upcoming election.
July: The plan to strengthen black voting power to exert influence in the mid-term election is
ultimately successful. Nineteen white candidates throw their hats in the ring, but only one, Helen
Mankin, responds to black leaders’ request for a meeting. She meets secretly with this leadership,
garnering their support of her candidacy. Mankin wins the election because of black votes. She is
derisively called “the Belle of Ashby Street” by Governor Eugene Talmadge.
The lynching of two African American couples at Moore’s Ford Bridge in Monroe, Georgia,
stuns Atlanta and the nation. In response to the murders, an 18-year-old Morehouse College
student named Martin Luther King, Jr. writes a letter to the Atlanta Constitution saying that
African Americans “are entitled to the basic wants and opportunities of American citizenship.”
The Atlanta Urban League spearheads efforts to address the shortage of housing for African
Americans by establishing a Temporary Coordinating Committee on Housing (TCCH). The
committee identifies land and plans for building new residential neighborhoods for African
Americans.
1947
In the wake of the show of voting power in the Mankin race (1946), black leaders press Mayor
William Hartsfield to hire African American police officers. The Atlanta Board of Aldermen
holds public forums to gauge public sentiment. For various reasons, some white groups support
the campaign. The city approves the recruitment of eight African American men to become the
city’s first black police officers.
Brothers James and Robert Paschal open a small luncheonette on Hunter Street (now Martin
Luther King, Jr. Drive). Later, they build the restaurant across the street that in the 1950s and
1960s would become known as “the kitchen of the civil rights movement” because Martin Luther
King, Jr., and other black leaders frequently meet there. The Paschal brothers often post bail for
arrested civil rights demonstrators, serve free meals, and stay open late so families have a place to
greet relatives when they get out of jail. Just a block away, Frazier’s Café Society Restaurant
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would become another civil rights movement meeting place.
1948
The city hires eight young men to be Atlanta’s first black police officers. Seven of them are
World War II veterans. The precinct for the officers is housed in the Butler Street YMCA, in the
Auburn Avenue community. They patrol only in the African American community and are not
allowed to arrest white suspects.
1949
The Atlanta Negro Voters League is established as a non-partisan organization by attorney A.T.
Walden and civic leader John Wesley Dobbs.
Phase Two - Retrenchment and Redirection
1950
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) attorneys Thurgood
Marshall and A.T. Walden file a desegregation lawsuit against the Atlanta Board of Education.
They argue that inequality between black and white public schools violates the 14th Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution. The suit is unsuccessful.
1951
Ruby Blackburn establishes the Georgia League of Negro Women Voters. Her To Improve
Conditions (TIC) Club was instrumental in rallying African American women to register to vote
and placed many black women in jobs as clerks in chain stores in Atlanta.
A group of black Atlantans files a law suit to have the city’s golf courses desegregated. There is
opposition.
1952
The West Side Development Committee, a special bi-racial committee appointed by Mayor
William Hartsfield, begins to seek remedies to the housing problems of African Americans, in
part by orchestrating plans for gradual racial transition of previously all-white neighborhoods.
1953
Atlanta University President Rufus Clement is elected as the first African American to serve on
the Atlanta Board of Education after successfully battling charges that he had been affiliated with
several Communist-influenced organizations.
1954
The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, which provides
a legal precedent for desegregation of schools, barely makes a ripple in Georgia. Under the
administration of Governor Herman Talmadge, integrated schools are illegal. A follow-up
statement by the Supreme Court demands that the nation’s schools be integrated with “deliberate
speed.”
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1955
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) holds a national
meeting in Atlanta and issues “The Atlanta Declaration,” which calls for branches in the South to
petition local school boards to comply with the desegregation order.
In retaliation, the state, under Governor Herman Talmadge and then again when Governor
Marvin Griffin, institutes legislation making it a state offense for Georgia schools to comply with
the federal mandate to desegregate.
The Montgomery bus boycott begins in Alabama. The insurance for the cars used to transport that
city’s black residents is purchased by Atlanta businessman T.M. Alexander.
November: The U.S. Supreme Court reverses a June decision of the lower court and orders the
desegregation of public golf courses in Atlanta and throughout the nation. In spite of demands by
many white Atlantans to close the courses rather than integrate, Mayor William Hartsfield
complies with the Supreme Court decision and orders the integration of the golf courses. As a
concession to conservative whites, the shower facilities of these recreational facilities are closed.
1956
Governor Ernest Vandiver continues the state ban on integration of public schools.
Auburn Avenue is called “the richest Negro street in the world” by Fortune Magazine because of
its many successful African American businesses.
The Chautauqua Club, an organization of prominent African American women founded in 1912,
continues to actively seek to educate African American women on important social and political
issues and groom them for leadership positions. In later years its membership would include
Shirley Franklin, destined to be the Mayor of Atlanta, and Leah Sears, who would become a
judge.
1957
January: A group of 100 ministers form the “Law, Love, and Liberation” movement. Six of the
members sit in the ‘whites only’ section of a city bus and are arrested. The protesters are: William
Holmes Borders, Robert H. Shorts, A. Franklin Fisher, Howard Busey, B.J. Johnson, and R.H.
Williams. Local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
President Samuel Williams files a desegregation law suit on the group’s behalf. The city’s public
transportation is desegregated two years later.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is established in Atlanta by the Revs.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph David Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, and Bayard Rustin. This
organization solidifies the network of African American ministers comprising the leadership of
the movement locally and nationally. Ella Jo Baker is named the assistant director and attempts to
bring her ideas about collective governance to SCLC. The Atlanta Chapter of SCLC is headed by
the Rev. John A. Middleton, pastor of Allen Temple A.M.E. Church.
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Students in the Spelman College Political Science Club, advised by white professor Howard
Zinn, attempt to sit in the “whites only” section of the galleries in the state capital. They are
ordered to leave by the Speaker of the House. They continue the sit-in protests, which contribute
to the later desegregation of the galleries.
1958
January: Calhoun v. Latimer becomes the first school desegregation law suit in Georgia since
the U.S. Supreme Courts’ Brown decision; it is filed against the Atlanta Board of Education. A
number of Auburn Avenue leaders do not support this action. Atlanta National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Chapter Director John Calhoun is one of the few
in favor of pushing ahead with school desegregation. Governor Ernest Vandiver reaffirms his
pledge to prevent school desegregation. Atlanta threatens to close its schools rather than
desegregate.
Young black professionals, dissatisfied with the gradualist approach of the “old guard” black
leadership, establish the Atlanta Committee for Cooperative Action (ACCA). They include
Whitney Young, dean of the Atlanta University School of Social Work, and Jesse Hill, Atlanta
Life Insurance executive and staunch supporter of civil rights activities in the city.
November: The “Atlanta Manifesto” is published by a coalition of liberal white clergy. It calls
for local schools to remain open rather than close to avoid desegregation.
Martin Luther King, Jr. writes Stride Toward Freedom, a book describing the Montgomery bus
boycott and explaining his views on nonviolent direct action as the ideal strategy for the
movement.
1959
SCLC, headquartered in Atlanta, is led for the next two years by veteran activist Ella Jo Baker.
Students and faculty from Spelman and Morehouse try to use the Downtown Carnegie Library.
They are aided by black leaders and the Atlanta Council on Human Relations.
May: The Carnegie Library desegregates after the threat of a law suit.
The white liberal group Help Our Public Education (HOPE), under the leadership of Frances
Pauley, attempts to provide a moderate climate in which to resolve the school desegregation issue
in Atlanta.
A court order desegregates Atlanta’s public golf courses, paving the way for the desegregation of
municipal golf courses nationally.
Phase Three - Direct Action & Desegregation
1960
January: Martin Luther King, Jr. moves back to Atlanta to join his father in the pulpit of
Ebenezer Baptist Church. He also oversees the work of the Southern Christian Leadership
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Council (SCLC). The “old guard” leadership of the city, including his father, asks that he not
usurp the city’s existing leadership and focus his civil rights activities primarily on regional and
national initiatives.
February: Disturbed by the false image of Atlanta as “a city too busy to hate,” the Atlanta
Committee for Cooperative Action (ACCA), a coalition of younger African American leaders
including Jesse Hill, Grace Towns Hamilton, and Whitney Young, produces a survey of
conditions for black people in Atlanta called A Second Look: The Negro Citizen in Atlanta. The
survey, published by the Southern Regional Council, is applauded by the “old guard” leaders.
After reading about the sit-ins by college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, Atlanta
students Lonnie King, Julian Bond, Herschelle Sullivan, Carolyn Long, and others organize the
Committee on Appeal for Human Rights (COAHR). Their plan is to conduct sit-ins at lunch
counters in local stores. Students participate in nonviolence workshops and take an oath of
nonviolence.
March: Public hearings are held in Atlanta and around the state by General Assembly Committee
on Schools to gauge public opinion about school desegregation. Called the Sibley Commission
because Governor Ernest Vandiver appoints John Sibley as chair, the commission recommends
that Georgia’s public schools stay open and that local school systems make their own choices
about whether to desegregate. The objective is to institute token integration while preserving
segregation in the schools.
March 9: “An Appeal for Human Rights,” is published in the Atlanta Daily World, the Atlanta
Constitution and Atlanta Journal. It is written by Students of COAHR and is eventually published
in the New York Times as well. It outlines a new approach to the fight for civil rights; one that
advocates direct action through sit-ins, demonstrations, and demands rather than negotiation for
desegregation.
March 15: Against the advice of “old guard” leaders, over 200 Atlanta University Center (AUC)
students participate in the first of many sit-ins at lunch counters and cafeterias throughout the
spring and protest the lack of black employees at an A&P grocery store. Of the 200 participating
students, 77 were arrested. Later a judge added the names of the eight students who signed “An
Appeal ... “ to the 77 arrested and charged them all with 1) breaching the peace, 2) intimidating
restaurant owners, 3) refusing to leave the premises, and 4) conspiracy. The students were never
tried.
April 15-17: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is established at Shaw
University in Raleigh, North Carolina.
May: On the sixth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown decision, approximately
1,500 Atlanta University Center students march to Wheat Street Baptist Church. William Holmes
Borders, the pastor of Wheat Street, and Martin Luther King, Jr. speak at the rally.
July: Atlanta University Center students establish The Atlanta Inquirer as a movement newspaper
because of their dissatisfaction with the conservative stance of the Atlanta Daily World. The
Empire Real Estate Board and Atlanta Life Insurance remove their ads from the World and give
their business to the Inquirer.
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October 14-16: Students of the newly created Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC) sponsor a conference at the Atlanta University Center for students from all over the
country. The goal is to discuss strategy and tactics for promoting social reform. Those present
include black students and white students, such as Constance Curry, director of southern
programs for the National Student Association. Curry later becomes a member of SNCC.
October 19: COAHR stages the first large-scale demonstrations at downtown Atlanta’s
segregated stores. Martin Luther King, Jr. and student protesters are arrested. King was sent to
Reidsville Penitentiary for violating his probation for a minor traffic offense -- failure to change
his license registration from Alabama to Georgia. Presidential candidate John Kennedy calls
Coretta Scott King to express his support and concern. That act boosts Kennedy’s campaign.
A coalition is established between the “old guard” leaders of the movement and the student
activists to combine direct action and the traditional strategies of negotiation and litigation.
The AUC students are supported by small groups of students at Emory, Agnes Scott College, and
Georgia Institute of Technology, who hold their own demonstrations against segregation.
1961
January: Aided by Atlanta attorney Donald Hollowell, Atlanta students Charlayne Hunter and
Hamilton Holmes desegregate the University of Georgia. White students riot in protest.
May: The Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) launches the 1960s Freedom Rides in which
civil rights activists ride Trailways and Greyhound buses throughout the South to test compliance
with federal interstate transportation desegregation law. During the first of these rides (May 415), the buses stop in Atlanta. A Morehouse College student, who joins the riders, later is brutally
beaten with fists and pipes by a white mob when the buses are forced to stop near Anniston,
Alabama. The second Freedom Ride (May 17-25) occurs as an act of defiance and is spearheaded
by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Council (SNCC), at the time headquartered in Atlanta.
By the end of the summer, in a show of support for the protests, hundreds of black and white
activists have risked their lives by riding on buses through the South. Later, the Freedom Rides
Coordinating Committee is established in Atlanta to guide and support this form of protest. It is
composed of representatives from such organizations as the Southern Christian Leadership
Council (SCLC), CORE, and SNCC.
The desegregation of Atlanta Public Schools is initiated with the enrollment of nine African
American students in previously all-white public schools. This token integration does not lead to
real desegregation of the Atlanta school system.
May: Student leaders of the Committee On Appeal For Human Rights (COAHR) filed a federal
law suit against discrimination in all city-owned facilities such as parks, swimming pools, tennis
courts, the municipal auditorium, and the municipal courts. On August 27, 1962, the Federal
Court ruled in the students' favor.
September: The Georgia Institute of Technology desegregates voluntarily and without incident.
October: Committee on Appeal for Human Rights (COAHR) and the National Association for
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the Advancement for Colored People (NAACP) demand the desegregation of Grady Hospital.
John Wesley Dobbs, called “the mayor of Auburn Avenue,” dies. This pioneering civil rights
activist also dubbed the African American thoroughfare “Sweet Auburn” because of the wealth of
black businesses and institutions on the street.
December 10: SNCC organized a Freedom Ride from Atlanta to Albany on the Central of
Georgia Railroad to test the recent ruling of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to end
segregation in intrastate buses, airlines, and trains. The eight Riders were arrested. Most spent ten
days in jail in Albany. The Ride was a great inspiration for the Albany Movement.
1962
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) establishes Operation Breadbasket and
the Citizenship Education Program (CEP). Operation Breadbasket combines direct action and
negotiation techniques to secure jobs for African Americans. CEP instructs adults on such things
as voting rights, literacy, and community organizing.
The Southern Regional Council, headquartered in Atlanta, establishes the Voter Education
Project, providing assistance to organizations attempting to increase the number of African
American voters in southern cities.
Civil rights organizations form the Council of Confederated Organizations (COFO) to prevent
conflict over Voter Education Program funds and coordinate their efforts. Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Council (SNCC) provides the personnel and most of the resources for COFO's
operation.
Mayor Ivan Allen erects a metal barricade at Peyton Road to ensure the continued separation of
white and black neighborhoods in southwest Atlanta. It was called the city’s “Berlin Wall” by
black citizens. Allen has the barricade dismantled after the black community protests and a judge
rules it unconstitutional and orders it to be removed.
By the end of this year Atlanta has more integrated movie theaters than any other Southern city.
June: Ruby Doris Smith from Spelman and seven other plaintiffs filed a federal law suit against
Grady Hospital in Atlanta charging that the hospital practiced racial discrimination and
segregation. The suit was brought on behalf of Ruby Doris who had applied for admission to the
Grady Hospital nursing school. The suit failed.
1963
As restaurants and other businesses attempt to find ways to re-segregate their establishments,
black students continue to sit-in and protest.
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March: President John Kennedy asks Mayor Ivan Allen to travel to Washington to testify on
behalf of passage of the Civil Rights Act. Allen is the only elected official from the South who
gives such testimony. Kennedy is assassinated before the Act becomes a reality.
March 13: Five Atlanta University students -- one white and four black -- appeared at Henry
Grady Hotel in downtown Atlanta with confirmed mail reservations for the coming night. The
white student was Anna Jo Weaver, an exchange student at Spelman, and the four black students
were Gwendolyn Iles, a Spelman senior, Willie P. Berrien from Clark, and Amos Brown and
Timothy Wilson from Morehouse. Anna Jo was admitted; the other four were denied admission.
The students staged a “lie-in” in the hotel lobby. They opened their suitcases, removed pillows
and blankets, and made themselves comfortable on the sofas. When the students were asked to
leave, Berrien and Brown refused to do so and were arrested.
August 28: A number of Atlanta civil rights activists participate in the March on Washington,
where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers his “I Have A Dream” speech. John Lewis, national
director of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), is persuaded to tone down
the militant stance of his speech.
The Atlanta Summit Leadership Conference is formed in October to unite more than 80
organizations representing all segments of the African American community. The organization
also included some white support.
The city integrates its municipal swimming pools.
1964
January 13: Mardon Walker, a white exchange student at Spelman was arrested at a Krystal
restaurant downtown. A jury convicted Mardon and Judge Durwood Pye sentenced her to the
maximum sentence for a misdemeanor offense -- six months in jail, twelve months on the public
works and a $1,000 fine. Mardon appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court which upheld her
conviction. She then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court which on May 24, 1965, in a 5-4 vote,
reversed the Georgia Supreme Court's decision.
After the assassination of President John Kennedy, President Lyndon Johnson announces plans
for the “Great Society,” which includes federal programs for a “war on poverty.” Atlanta is one of
the first cities to establish an anti-poverty program.
Student activists from Atlanta participate in the Mississippi Freedom Summer, which brings
hundreds of white and black college students to the South to help with voter registration and
community development.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is passed. It makes racial discrimination in public places, such as
theaters, restaurants and hotels, illegal. It also requires employers to provide equal employment
opportunities. Projects involving federal funds could lose their support if there is evidence of
discrimination based on color, race, or national origin. In terms of ensuring African American
voting rights, the Civil Rights Act prohibits literacy tests and other illegitimate attempts to keep
blacks from voting.
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At the age of 36, Martin Luther King, Jr. is the first African American and the youngest person
ever to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1965
January 29: A dinner honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize is
held at the Dinkler Hotel with 1500 integrated guests in attendance.
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) begins working with residents of
depressed areas of Vine City and other inner city neighborhoods to improve their communities.
The 1965 Voting Rights Act is passed.
After Malcolm X is assassinated in New York City in February, SNCC leader John Lewis says
Malcolm had been able, more than any other, “to articulate the aspirations, bitterness, and
frustrations of the Negro people.” Malcolm X had called SNCC his favorite civil rights
organization and had talked with that organization’s leaders about working together to forge
closer ties with those involved in liberation struggles in Africa.
Eleven African Americans successfully run for seats in the Georgia Legislature. Julian Bond,
Grace Towns Hamilton, Ben Brown, William Alexander, Julius Daughtery, Horace Ward, and
Leroy Johnson are elected after reapportionment raises the number of districts in Fulton County
from one to seven.
The A. Philip Randolph Institute (APRI) is established by civil rights and labor activists Bayard
Rustin and A. Philip Randolph. APRI is created to spearhead the “Black-Labor Alliance,” and
begins to build black community support for the trade union movement and convey to labor the
needs and concerns of black Americans.
Phase Four - The Quest for Black Power
1966
The General Assembly refuses to give Julian Bond the oath of office as a member of the Georgia
House of Representatives because of his anti-Vietnam War stance.
The term “Black Power” has become the rallying cry for young activists in Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The term is first introduced by Atlantan Willie Ricks and
taken up by Stokely Carmichael during the Alabama “march against fear.”
The Atlanta Project, headed by SNCC activist Bill Ware, begins an aggressive program to push
for improvement action in Vine City for more influence in the local political system, and to
encourage black consciousness in the black community.
The militancy and Black Nationalist stance of the Atlanta Project permeates SNCC and
nationally, thus it is a harbinger of the wave of Black Nationalism sweeping the country.
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September: A rebellion occurs in the African American community of Summerhill after a man is
shot by a white police officer. Sixteen people are injurer and 75 arrested.
The Atlanta Voice newspaper is founded by J. Lowell Ware with a defined vision and mission
which has been the publication’s motto and driving force ever since — “A People Without A
Voice Cannot Be Heard.” It, like the The Atlanta Inquirer, is meant to be an alternative to the
conservative Atlanta Daily World newspaper.
1967
January: Julian Bond is finally sworn into office as a member of the Georgia House of
Representatives after winning his seat for the third time (necessary because the legislature kept
voiding his election because of his anti-Vietnam stance).
Eliza Paschall, a white activist who had been president of the League of Women Voters, is
appointed executive director of the Community Relations Commission, an agency charged with
investigating and reporting racial discrimination and with mediating human relations conflicts.
African Americans sit-in at the office of the superintendent of Atlanta public schools, protesting
the slow process of desegregation and double sessions in black schools and calling for black
appointments to top administrative positions.
June: A racial rebellion occurs in Dixie Hills, a black community, after a man and woman
complain of police brutality. After a Molotov cocktail is thrown at a police officer, several police
officers fire into a crowd. One person is killed and a 9-year-old boy is one of three wounded.
1968
April: The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. shakes the civil rights movement and
reinforces the sense of disillusionment among African Americans in Atlanta and the nation.
For two days before Martin Luther King, Jr.'s funeral his body lay in state in Sisters Chapel on
Spelman's campus. During the hours the Chapel was open, 80,000 people passed by the open
casket.
After her husband’s death, Coretta Scott King establishes the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for
Nonviolent Social Change to continue his mission.
The Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, King’s friend and advisor, heads the Southern Christian
Leadership Council (SCLC) after the death of King.
June: The assassination of presidential candidate Robert Kennedy is viewed by many as another
attempt to end the move towards a more liberal and just nation.
1969
Maynard Jackson, the grandson of civil rights activist John Wesley Dobbs, is elected the first
African American Vice Mayor of Atlanta. The victory signals the beginning of the political
transition of the city from predominately white to black control.
The Atlanta Community Relations Commission urges the Atlanta Board of Education to apply for
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U.S. Office of Education Title IV grant funds to help the process of integration, but the board
refuses.
1970
This year and throughout the early 1970s, more African Americans are elected to public office in
the city. Atlanta is becoming predominantly African American in large measure as a result of the
movement of whites in large numbers out of communities when African Americans began to
move in. Now more than ever Atlanta is considered a “Mecca” for African Americans.
Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, former President of Morehouse College, is elected to the Atlanta Board of
Education and becomes its president.
The influence of Auburn Avenue is in decline in part because integration has pulled African
American patronage to formerly whites only stores and because of the building the 75/85
Interstate connector divides the street. African American civil rights leadership across the city
still exists, but is dispersed in various communities. The Atlanta University Center remains an
important force in the black community, although students in this decade are not as politically
active as in the 1960s.
Works Cited
Carson, Clayborne. In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1981.
Harris, Norman. The Sixties: A Black Chronology. Atlanta: The Black Resource Center, 1990.
Harmon, David. Beneath the Image of the Civil Rights Movement and Race Relations, Atlanta,
Georgia, 1946-1981. New York: Garland, 1996.
Mason, Herman. Politics, Civil Rights, and Law in Black Atlanta, 1870-1970. Atlanta: Arcadia,
2000.
Tuck, Stephen. Beyond Atlanta: The Struggle for Racial Equality in Georgia, 1940-1980. Athens:
University of Georgia Press, 2001.
©2004 Atlanta Regional Consortium for Higher Education / Contact ARCHE at [email protected]
www.atlantacivilrights.org
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