Protests & Demonstrations

Long before workers at Starbucks and Amazon began fighting for the right to collectively bargain, workers at Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills fought to unionize, creating a blueprint for those in the present-day.

The rebellion which reverberated from New York City down to Atlanta and the subsequent five days of protests jumpstarted the gay rights movement.

This summer, along with history and civics organizations across the country, we invite you to join in a program dedicated to the Civic Season.

In 1962, Mayor Ivan Allen, Jr. ordered the construction of a barricade served to sever the main line connecting the white and Black sections of the Cascade Heights neighborhood.

For more than fifty years, Ethel Mae Matthews worked tirelessly for greater welfare rights for Atlanta’s poor and disabled.

For a brief and tumultuous few weeks in 1946 and 1947, Georgia had three governors. What followed is the stuff of political legend.

Atlanta is often called the cradle of the modern Civil Rights Movement. A strong infrastructure created by the organizations and businesses of “Sweet Auburn” Avenue combined with the city’s historically black colleges and universities helped establish positive change during the 1950s and 1960s.

As Atlanta moved into the twentieth century, it was two separate cities, one white and one black, reflecting inherent inequality. Separate was not equal, as expressed in the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision Plessey v. Ferguson.

Future Georgia Governor Lester Maddox opened the Pickrick Restaurant in 1947 on the edge of the Georgia Tech campus.

Atlanta ’96 tells new stories and expands on memories of the city’s Olympic and Paralympic history.

The story of any Olympic Games includes the efforts of civic activism on the part of residents of the host city. Atlanta was no different.

Through digital storytelling, writing prompts, art activities, and supplemental interactives, this Civil Rights Toolkit provides something for all ages.

Our city’s LGBTQIA+ history is nuanced and vast—and too complex to be contained in a single story. While this article provides an overview of more than half a century of activism in our city, it is by no means exhaustive.