The history of Atlanta dates back to 1836, when Georgia decided to build a railroad to the U.S. Midwest and a location was chosen to be the line's terminus. The stake marking the founding of "Terminus" was driven into the ground in 1837. In 1839, homes and a store were built there and the settlement grew. Between 1845 and 1854, rail lines arrived from four different directions, and the rapidly growing town quickly became the rail hub for the entire Southern United States. During the American Civil War, Atlanta, as a distribution hub, became the target of a major Union campaign, and in 1864, Union William Sherman's troops set on fire and destroyed the city's assets and buildings, save churches and hospitals. After the war, the population grew rapidly, as did manufacturing, while the city retained its role as a rail hub. Coca-Cola was launched here in 1886 and grew into an Atlanta-based world empire. Electric streetcars arrived in 1889, and the city added new "streetcar suburbs".
Thomas Edward Watson was an American politician, attorney, newspaper editor and writer from Georgia. In the 1890s Watson championed poor farmers as a leader of the Populist Party, articulating an agrarian political viewpoint while attacking business, bankers, railroads, Democratic President Grover Cleveland, and the Democratic Party. He was the nominee for vice president with Democrat William Jennings Bryan in 1896 on the Populist ticket.
The history of Georgia in the United States of America spans pre-Columbian time to the present-day U.S. state of Georgia. The area was inhabited by Native American tribes for thousands of years. A modest Spanish presence was established in the late 16th century, mostly centered on Catholic mission work. The Spanish were largely gone by the early 18th century, though they remained in nearby Florida, and their presence ultimately left little impact on what would become Georgia.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is the only major daily newspaper in the metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia. It is the flagship publication of Cox Enterprises. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is the result of the merger between The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution. The two staffs were combined in 1982. Separate publication of the morning Constitution and afternoon Journal ended in 2001 in favor of a single morning paper under the Journal-Constitution name.
Henry Woodfin Grady was an American journalist and orator who helped reintegrate the states of the Confederacy into the Union after the American Civil War. Grady encouraged the industrialization of the South. He was praised by contemporaries and by authors Shavin and Galphin as a civic promoter, political strategist and captivating speaker, and by Atlanta journalist Frederick Allen as a visionary. However, in current times, Grady's arguments for the need for white supremacy in the post-Civil War South have resulted in his legacy being seen nowadays as anywhere from positive, to both positive and negative, to racist and therefore negative. Grady's name has been removed from several schools including Atlanta's former Grady High School. Grady was the father-in-law of Federal Reserve Chairman Eugene Robert Black and grandfather of banker and World Bank President Eugene R. Black Sr.
James Furman Bisher was a newspaper sports writer and columnist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in Atlanta, Georgia.
William Arnold Hemphill was an American businessman and politician who served as Mayor of Atlanta from 1891 to 1893.
James G. Woodward was an American newspaperman and politician, having served as the 36th, 39th and 43rd Mayor of Atlanta, Georgia.
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. A National Historic Landmark District was designated in 1976, covering 19 acres (7.7 ha) of the neighborhood, significant for its history and development as a segregated area under the state's Jim Crow laws.
The Atlanta Massacre of 1906 was an attack by armed mobs of white Americans against African Americans in Atlanta, Georgia, which began the evening of September 22 and lasted through September 24, 1906. The events were reported by newspapers around the world, including the French Le Petit Journal which described the "lynchings in the USA" and the "massacre of Negroes in Atlanta," the Scottish Aberdeen Press & Journal under the headline "Race Riots in Georgia," and the London Evening Standard under the headlines "Anti-Negro Riots" and "Outrages in Georgia." The final death toll of the conflict is unknown and disputed, but officially at least 25 African Americans and two whites died. Unofficial reports ranged from 10–100 black Americans killed during the massacre. According to the Atlanta History Center, some black Americans were hanged from lampposts; others were shot, beaten or stabbed to death. They were pulled from street cars and attacked on the street; white mobs invaded black neighborhoods, destroying homes and businesses.
Clark Howell was a Pulitzer Prize winning American newspaper man and politician from the state of Georgia. For fifty-three years, he was editorial executive and owner of The Atlanta Constitution.
The Omaha Daily Bee was a leading Republican newspaper that was active in the late 19th and early 20th century. The paper's editorial slant frequently pitted it against the Omaha Herald, the Omaha Republican and other local papers. After a 1927 merger, it was published as the Bee-News until folding in 1937.
John Wesley Edward Bowen was born into American slavery and became a Methodist clergyman, denominational official, college and university educator and one of the first African Americans to earn a Ph.D. degree in the United States. He is credited as the first African American to receive the Ph.D. degree from Boston University, which was granted in 1887.
The 2014 United States Senate election in Georgia was held on November 4, 2014, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of Georgia, concurrently with the election of the Governor of Georgia, as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections.
The Phoenix election riot occurred on November 8, 1898, near Greenwood County, South Carolina, when a group of local white Democrats attempted to stop a Republican election official from taking the affidavits of African Americans who had been denied the ability to vote. The race-based riot was part of numerous efforts by white conservative Democrats to suppress voting by blacks, as they had largely supported the Republican Party since the Reconstruction era. Beginning with Mississippi in 1890, and South Carolina in 1895, southern states were passing new constitutions and laws designed to disenfranchise blacks by making voter registration and voting more difficult.
In Forsyth County, Georgia, in September 1912 two separate attacks on white women resulted in black men being accused as suspects. One white woman accused two black men of breaking into her home in Big Creek Community and one of raping her. Another teenage woman was fatally beaten and raped in the Oscarville Community. Earnest Knox was linked to the Oscarville murder along with his half brother by a hair comb sold to him at the Oscarville store. When confronted, he confessed to the Sheriff and implicated his half brother and mother’s livein boyfriend. His mother testified against the sons during the jury trial which sentenced both To hanging. 21 days later the sentence was carried out.
A special election to determine the member of the United States House of Representatives for Georgia's 6th congressional district was held on April 18, 2017, with a runoff held two months later on June 20. Republican Karen Handel defeated Democrat Jon Ossoff in the runoff vote, 51.8% to 48.2%. Handel succeeded Tom Price, who resigned from the seat following his confirmation as United States Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Trump Administration. The runoff election was necessary when no individual candidate earned the majority of votes in the election on April 18. Ossoff received 48.1% of the vote in the first round, followed by Handel with 19.8%.
Berry Washington was a black man who was lynched in Milan, Georgia, in 1919.
The Henry W. Grady statue is a monumental statue of Henry W. Grady in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Built by Alexander Doyle in 1891, the statue lies at the intersection of Marietta Street and Forsyth Street in downtown Atlanta and was unveiled shortly after Grady's death in 1889. The statue has recently been the subject of debate, as several groups have called for its removal due to Grady's support of white supremacy.
Edna Cain Daniel was a writer, columnist, newspaper editor, and publisher in Georgia for over 50 years. She was the first woman reporter to work for The Atlanta Constitution. For many years she edited the weekly Free Press in Quitman, Georgia. She has been called the "grand lady of journalism in Georgia" and "one of the South's best all-around newswomen." In 1984 she was inducted into the Georgia Newspaper Hall of Fame.
