Atlanta

Building the Beloved Community

 April 2023

  

In April 2023, the Black Legacy Project travels home to Atlanta, exploring the rich history of race-relations in what many historians consider the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement, dating as far back as 1880. The city lives and breathes Black and civil rights history and is or was home to some of the most influential icons and organizations of the U.S. civil rights movement, including Ambassador Andrew Young, Congressman John Lewis, and Ralph D. Abernathy to name just a few. Atlanta’s historic ‘Sweet Auburn’ district, was named “the richest Negro street in the world” byFortune in 1956. Sweet Auburn is the birth and resting place of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, the home of Dr. King’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, the headquarters of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and WERD - the first Black owned radio station in North America. The Southern School Book Building, constructed in 1910, housed the offices of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), chaired by future Congressman John Lewis and currently hosts the offices of Music in Common and the Black Legacy Project.  The direct throughlines of Dr. King, the civil rights movement, and interracial solidarity to the Black Legacy Project’s mission and to the history of U.S. race-relations as a whole makes Atlanta a powerful location for the Black LP. Read more here.