Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, and a portion of the city extends into neighboring DeKalb County. With a population of 498,715 living within the city limits, Atlanta is the eighth most populous city in the Southeast and 38th most populous city in the United States according to the 2020 U.S. census. It is the core of the much larger Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to more than 6.2 million people, making it the eighth-largest U.S. metropolitan area. Situated among the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains at an elevation of just over 1,000 feet (300 m) above sea level, Atlanta features unique topography that includes rolling hills, lush greenery, and the densest urban tree coverage of any major city in the United States.
Georgia, officially the State of Georgia, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the northwest, North Carolina to the north, South Carolina to the northeast, Florida to the south, and Alabama to the west. Of the 50 United States, Georgia is the 24th-largest by area and 8th most populous. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, its 2023 estimated population was 11,029,227. Atlanta, a global city, is both the state's capital and its largest city. The Atlanta metropolitan area, with a population of more than 6 million people in 2021, is the 8th most populous metropolitan area in the United States and contains about 57% of Georgia's entire population. Other major metropolitan areas in the state include Augusta, Savannah, Columbus, and Macon. Georgia has 100 miles (160 km) of coastline along the Atlantic Ocean.
Fulton County is a county in the north-central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 1,066,710, making it the state's most populous county and its only one with over one million inhabitants. Its county seat and largest city is Atlanta, the state capital. About 90% of the City of Atlanta is within Fulton County; the other 10% is in DeKalb County. Fulton County is part of the Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Roswell, GA Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Decatur is a city in, and the county seat of, DeKalb County, Georgia, United States, part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. With a population of 24,928 in the 2020 census, the municipality is sometimes assumed to be larger since multiple ZIP Codes in unincorporated DeKalb County bear Decatur as the address. The city is served by three MARTA rail stations. The city is located approximately five miles northeast of Downtown Atlanta and shares its western border with both the city of Atlanta and unincorporated DeKalb County. The Druid Hills neighborhood is to the northwest of Decatur.
Roswell is a city in northern Fulton County, Georgia, United States. At the official 2020 census, the city had a population of 92,883, making Roswell the state's ninth largest city. A close suburb of Atlanta, Roswell has an affluent historic district.
Sandy Springs is a city in northern Fulton County, Georgia, United States, and a suburb of Atlanta. The city's population was 108,080 at the 2020 census, making it Georgia's 7th most populous city. It is the site of several corporate headquarters, including UPS, Newell Brands, Inspire Brands, Focus Brands, Cox Enterprises, and Mercedes-Benz USA's corporate offices.
Avery Franklin Brooks is an American actor, director, singer, narrator and educator. He is best known for his television roles as Captain Benjamin Sisko on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, as Hawk on Spenser: For Hire and its spinoff A Man Called Hawk, and as Dr. Bob Sweeney in the Academy Award–nominated film American History X. Brooks has delivered a variety of other performances to a great deal of acclaim. He has been nominated for a Saturn Award and three NAACP Image Awards. Brooks has also been inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre and bestowed with the William Shakespeare Award for Classical Theatre by the Shakespeare Theatre Company.
The Sweet Auburn Historic District is a historic African-American neighborhood along and surrounding Auburn Avenue, east of downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The name Sweet Auburn was coined by John Wesley Dobbs, referring to the "richest Negro street in the world," one of the largest concentrations of African-American businesses in the United States.
Johns Creek is a city in Fulton County, Georgia, United States. According to the 2020 census, the population was 82,453. The city is a northeastern suburb of Atlanta.
The Harmon Foundation was established in 1921 by white real-estate developer William E. Harmon (1862–1928). The Foundation originally supported a variety of causes, including playgrounds and nursing programs, but is best known for having funded and collected the work of a large group of African-American artists, many of whom would go on to become widely recognized. After 1947, the foundation expanded its work in the arts to include supporting African and Afro-diasporic artists. The foundation was among the first organizations in the United States to support opportunities for contemporary African-American and African artists to travel between the United States and Africa to study, exhibit their work, and meet other artists. Mary B. Brady was the director of the foundation from 1922 until 1967.
The culture of Georgia is a subculture of the Southern United States that has come from blending heavy amounts of English and rural Scots-Irish culture with the culture of African Americans and Native Americans. Since the late 20th century areas of Northern, Central, and the Atlanta metropolitan area of Georgia have experienced much growth from people moving from the mid-west and northeastern parts of the U.S. and along with many immigrants from Latin America. Southern culture remains prominent in the rural Southern and the Appalachian areas of the state. Georgians share a history with the other Southern states that includes the institution of slavery, the American Civil War, Reconstruction, the Great Depression, segregation, and the civil rights movement.
The Rialto Center for the Arts is an 833-seat performing-arts venue owned and operated by Georgia State University and located in the heart of the Fairlie-Poplar district in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. The venue is home to the Rialto Series, an annual subscription series featuring national and international jazz, world music, and dance. The Rialto also routinely presents Georgia State University School of Music performances, the annual National Black Arts Festival, and many others.
Northview High School is a public high school in Johns Creek, Georgia serving grades 9–12. The school is a part of the Fulton County School System. Its students primarily reside inside the city of Johns Creek, though the school also serves part of Alpharetta. All students from River Trail Middle School feed into Northview.
Black Atlantans form a major population group in the Atlanta metropolitan area, encompassing both those of African-American ancestry as well as those of recent Caribbean or African origin. Atlanta has long been known as a center of black entrepreneurship, higher education, political power and culture; a cradle of the Civil Rights Movement.
The arts in Atlanta are well-represented, with a prominent presence in music, fine art, and theater.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Atlanta, Georgia, United States.
Maren Hassinger is an African-American artist and educator whose career spans four decades. Hassinger uses sculpture, film, dance, performance art, and public art to explore the relationship between the natural world and industrial materials. She incorporates everyday materials in her art, like wire rope, plastic bags, branches, dirt, newspaper, garbage, leaves, and cardboard boxes. Hassinger has stated that her work “focuses on elements, or even problems—social and environmental—that we all share, and in which we all have a stake…. I want it to be a humane and humanistic statement about our future together.”
Edwin Augustus Harleston was an American artist and founding president of the Charleston, South Carolina, branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He is known for his realistic portraits inspired by classical paintings. He was excluded from the whites-only artistic movement known as the Charleston Renaissance.
Jim Alexander is an American documentary photographer, photojournalist, activist, and teacher who is best known for being a "Participant Observer" and his photographs of human rights and black culture. In 1995, he was the first artist selected in the annual "Master Artist" program conducted by the City of Atlanta Department of Cultural Affairs. He would later be inducted into The HistoryMakers in 2006.
Frank Hunter is an American documentary and fine-art photographer and university educator. He is known for his photographic landscapes and his mastery of the platinum/palladium process. His interest in photographic processes includes the technical process of exposure and development as well as the psychological and spiritual aspects of creating photographic work. "Hunter has always been famed for transforming the utterly familiar to something rich and strange."
