There are so many stories from American history that, while not centered solely in Atlanta, have connections to this city. This week, I sharing the story of the U.S. Marine Corps first Black Marines, from the lens of those that enlisted in Atlanta. A dozen Black Marines served in the Revolutionary War, but from 1798 until 1942, enrollment in the corps was denied to Black men. In May of 1942, the Secretary of the Navy announced plans for the recruitment of 900 Black Marines to begin in June of th...
Jan 27, 2023•7 min•Ep. 202
With support from the National & Georgia Trusts for Historic Preservation, Mailchimp, and the Department of Community Affairs, Historic Atlanta and the City of Atlanta kicked off an initiative in early 2022 to create an LGBTQ Context Statement, which will identify, document and ultimately lead to preservation of neighborhoods, public spaces and individual buildings associated with Atlanta’s LGTBQ+ community. New South Associates has been engaged to complete this study, and I had the pleasure...
Jan 20, 2023•36 min•Ep. 201
With support from the National & Georgia Trusts for Historic Preservation, Mailchimp, and the Department of Community Affairs, Historic Atlanta and the City of Atlanta kicked off an initiative in early 2022 to create an LGBTQ Context Statement, which will identify, document and ultimately lead to preservation of neighborhoods, public spaces and individual buildings associated with Atlanta’s LGTBQ+ community. New South Associates has been engaged to complete this study, and I had the pleasure...
Jan 13, 2023•35 min•Ep. 200
This week, we’re talking about the history of the telephone - when and where it arrived in Atlanta, the buildings that were built, the different technologies, long distance and area codes. Can you imagine a time when calling Decatur was long distance? Or when every county in the state of Georgia shared the 404 area code? Tune in for these stories and many more! atlantatelephonehistory.org Want to support this podcast? Visit here Email: [email protected] Facebook | Instagram | Twitter...
Dec 09, 2022•14 min•Ep. 199
Replaying this episode from February of 2021, as the City of Atlanta has restarted public meetings to discuss updating our zoning. Atlanta’s Office of Housing & Community Development recently created a revised zoning plan and I got to interview director Josh Humphries to find out some history, the new plan's details and next governmental steps. By 2050 Atlanta expects our population to (more than) double and right now, we're the 316th densest city in the US...so there is room to grow and it’...
Dec 02, 2022•25 min•Ep. 198
This week, we’re talking about Atlanta’s earliest surveyors and map makers. If you do enough historic research, you'll see the names of engineers and surveyors at the bottom of plat maps, bridge plaques, or newspaper articles, so this episode idea was a great way to honor the people whose work was important and yet unnoticed. Want to support this podcast? Visit here Email: [email protected] Facebook | Instagram | Twitter...
Nov 18, 2022•12 min•Ep. 197
Franklin Miller Garrett, Atlanta’s only, ever official historian, was born in 1906 and moved to Atlanta in 1914. You can’t “do” Atlanta history without running across Garrett’s name and volume of work. I own almost all the books he has written, and the more I began learning about him and his life, I realized a similarity we shared - being an "enthusiast". Franklin Garrett didn’t have a history degree, but he came to Atlanta and let his curiosity lead the way - a way that brought over eight decad...
Nov 11, 2022•15 min•Ep. 196
The Crackers may sound familiar, but what about the Osceolas, Atlantans, Firecrackers, Windjammers, Deppens, Cubs and Panthers? This week, I’m talking about the parallel worlds of white and Black baseball in Atlanta, all of the club iterations, where these games were played and how local baseball connects to Henry Grady and Coca Cola. Book mentioned Want to support this podcast? Visit here Email: [email protected] Facebook | Instagram | Twitter...
Nov 04, 2022•26 min•Ep. 195
The 1956 Sugar Bowl was played in New Orleans, LA, pitting the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets against the University of Pittsburgh Panthers. It was the first integrated bowl game in the Deep South. College football reigns supreme in the South, but if you’ve listened to previous episodes about sports, or stadiums, you know that nothing exists in a vacuum. Amateur and professional sports in Atlanta are intricately tied into class, race, boosterism, and the infamous Atlanta Way. This short episode hig...
Oct 28, 2022•10 min•Ep. 194
For this Halloween, Liz Clappin ( Tomb With A View ) and I are are talking about Atlanta’s most prestigious funeral home, Spring Hill Mortuary, it’s creator, Hyatt Patterson, but also the history of funeral homes in general, the practice of embalming, the architecture, historic preservation, the transformation of HM Patterson into the modern age and the SCI model and so much more. Follow Tomb With A View on IG Want to support this podcast? Visit here Email: [email protected] Facebook | ...
Oct 21, 2022•48 min•Ep. 193
The “numbers game” is a form of illegal gambling where the bettor attempts to pick three digits to match what will be chosen the next day. In Atlanta, we called it "playing the bug", and it was HUGE in the 1930s. “Writers'', “Pick up men”, “Bankers”, “Bolster” or “runner” and the “Digits Barons” raked in $30K a day in bets between 1937-1938. At one point, twelve syndicates, or banks, operated in the city. In 1935, kingpin Eddie Guyol was murdered in his driveway. You can read more about the comp...
Oct 14, 2022•20 min•Ep. 192
This weekend is Pride in Atlanta and while I would have loved a new episode, I couldn’t resist sharing one from two years ago this month, where I interviewed Charlie Paine and learned about Atlanta’s LGBTQ history through the lens of the Atlanta Eagle, which in itself tells us the story of Ponce de Leon’s transition from grand residential street to commercial corridor. There were stories about vibrating mattresses, Italian restaurants, punk rock, RuPaul and Red Dog raids. Shortly after the episo...
Oct 07, 2022•32 min•Ep. 191
This week’s mini episode is all about Antoinette Farnsworth Drew, the little we know about her life, her artwork and the story of her unsolved murder. History is often unkind to women, and at best has simply forgotten their names and achievements. This is especially true for women that don’t reach national fame and/or those that don’t have descendants to carry on their memory. Both of these are true for Antoinette. Want to support this podcast? Visit here Email: [email protected] Facebo...
Sep 30, 2022•10 min•Ep. 190
This month marks FOUR years of podcasting. Not to get too sappy, but this has been the most rewarding experience of my adult life - other than family related stuff, of course - and the people I have met, the places I’ve toured, the stories I’ve heard - they have truly made me a better human being. I sincerely thank you all for the listens, the follows, the emails, the DMs, for sharing it with you family, friends or neighbor and for making my dream come true - the dream that I could make somethin...
Sep 23, 2022•25 min•Ep. 189
This September 22nd marks the 116th anniversary of the Atlanta Race Massacre. If you’re a long time listener, you may remember I covered this in Episode 19. But what you may also remember, is that I called it the 1906 Race Riot. That has been the accepted nomenclature since the event happened in 1906, but today, I want to revisit the story, add more history and detail and share the updated language and why it’s so important. To do that, I have a very special guest, Ann Hill Bond. She talks about...
Sep 16, 2022•39 min•Ep. 188
This week, we’re talking about Mozley Park, a neighborhood in SW Atlanta, bordered by I-20 along the South, MLK Jr Drive on the North, and the Atlanta Beltline on the East. Its place in Atlanta’s history is being the first neighborhood in Atlanta to experience white flight, but today we’re covering so much more - from the Civil War, to Battle Hill, to its namesake, the KKK, domestic terrorism, demographic shift and its famous residents. Want to support this podcast? Visit here Email: thevictoria...
Sep 09, 2022•18 min•Ep. 187
Even after the ability to legally drink, moonshine has always maintained its popularity. In 1951, that would turn deadly. A white Gainesville bootlegger named John “Fat” Hardy supplied a large order to a Black neighborhood for the weekend. What no one knew was that he replaced ethanol with methanol. Within hours, Grady hospital’s emergency room was packed. Thirty eight people died, four blinded and some paralyzed. Over 400 people total were affected. This week’s mini episode is about that traged...
Sep 02, 2022•9 min•Ep. 186
This week, I am sharing the latest oral history that I was able to do with Ms. Mary Ann Hightower, who grew up amidst the dairy farms of East Atlanta. We talk about her parents, her childhood, school at John B. Gordon, Murphy and Girls High, movies at the Madison Theater, going "downtown" to Rich's and why her grandkids call her "Coach". Want to support this podcast? Visit here Email: [email protected] Facebook | Instagram | Twitter...
Aug 26, 2022•25 min•Ep. 185
Atlanta has had 59 mayors, including our most recent, Andre Dickens and I thought it would be fun to look back from the first and learn about who these men and women were, what they stood for, how they were elected, and what they accomplished for the city and its people during their term. Community Conversations: King Williams & Victoria Lemos Want to support this podcast? Visit here Email: [email protected] Facebook | Instagram | Twitter...
Aug 19, 2022•12 min•Ep. 184
This week’s mini episode is all about Sherwood Forest. No, no, not the mythical woods from Robin Hood, but the mid-century, Atlanta neighborhood tucked next to Ansley Park, just off Peachtree Street. A true “hidden gem”, where you can see one of the oldest homes in Atlanta, along with a catalog of 1950s ranches. Want to support this podcast? Visit here Email: [email protected] Facebook | Instagram | Twitter...
Aug 12, 2022•11 min•Ep. 183
This week, I’m excited to share my interview with Dr. Mandy Swygart-Hobaugh, as she describes the late 1800s red light district of Collins Street, prostitution in early Atlanta, the madams, the prostitutes, the "houses of ill repute", the scandalous headlines and what brought the district down in 1910. Historic Harlots Want to support this podcast? Visit here Email: [email protected] Facebook | Instagram | Twitter...
Aug 05, 2022•53 min•Ep. 182
In more modern history, Atlanta is known as an epicenter of Black tattoo artists, but I was looking to see how far back our story with tattooing went - and surprisingly it wasn’t very far and it centered around one man and one shop. https://doi.org/10.57709/8896714 Want to support this podcast? Visit here Email: [email protected] Facebook | Instagram | Twitter...
Jul 29, 2022•9 min•Ep. 181
The Butler Street YMCA (22 Jesse Hill Jr Drive) is my favorite building in Atlanta. Why? Because this one building has Black history, Jewish history, white history, and it’s the embodiment of The Atlanta Way - created by a bi-racial, upper class coalition that wanted this building to serve as a symbol of Atlanta’s progress and an answer to the issues of crime in the poor Black Atlanta class. It was funded and built in the midst of WWI, the Great Atlanta fire of 1917 and a whole host of other iss...
Jul 22, 2022•21 min•Ep. 180
This week’s mini episode is about a forgotten, short-lived chapter of the early 1900s reform movement - a group called the Men and Religion Forward Movement. Between 1911-1912, 76 major US cities, and 1,083 small towns began chapters of this group…so what was it all about? Who formed it in Atlanta? What did they do here? Want to support this podcast? Visit here Email: [email protected] Facebook | Instagram | Twitter...
Jul 15, 2022•10 min•Ep. 179
It has been a wild week, where I have over-committed myself in all realms of my life - so I am re-releasing an episode that I did just over two years ago, all about Atlanta’s small Chinese Community. In 1890, the entire state of Georgia had only 1.78% of residents with foreign patronage, so I wondered what brought Chinese men to Atlanta in the 1880s? What work did they do? What were their names? How did the South embrace them? Today, we’re covering all those questions and more. Want to support t...
Jul 08, 2022•18 min•Ep. 178
This week I am sharing the first oral history recording I did, which happened in June of 2021. At the time of this recording, Wesley Johnson was 89 years old and his wife Patricia, a year younger. He was born and raised in South Atlanta, taking the streetcar, attending Booker T Washington and later David T Howard and then college at Morris Brown before joining the Air Force. Patricia joined us later in the conversation and gave us the juicy bits - like how they started dating and some incredible...
Jul 01, 2022•26 min•Ep. 177
Just over one month after NYC’s Stonewall Riot, Atlanta had its own version, when, on August 5, 1969, a movie at the Ansley Mall Mini-Cinema was raided by police. In this week’s mini episode, I’m covering what led to the raid, the details of the event and what it inspired going forward. Gayle Dose Podcast Smithsonian Article Atlanta History Center Documenting Queer History Archives Want to support this podcast? Visit here Email: [email protected] Facebook | Instagram | Twitter...
Jun 24, 2022•9 min•Ep. 176
The Dixie Hills Riot, a days-long community uprising, born out of the frustrations of a whole host of issues that we’ll cover, happened exactly 55 years ago today. In 1950, Dixie Hills residents were without running water, paved roads and proper sewers. By the 1960s, 45% of the city’s population was Black, yet were only legally allowed to live in 22% of it’s housing. There was overcrowding, segregation, income inequality, unemployment, poverty - so many of the exact same issues we have today. Wa...
Jun 17, 2022•20 min•Ep. 175
Hey everyone! I am currently taking my yearly podcast summer break and using this time to finish new episodes, work on new ideas and record some amazing interviews. In the meantime, catch up on previous episodes and we'll be back on June 17th!
May 13, 2022•1 min•Ep. 174
Forward Atlanta was a multi-million dollar marketing campaign launched by the City of Atlanta in the 1920s that is still influencing the city in 2022. I hope by the end of this short episode you can understand how important this campaign was, how it ties into the reason that Atlanta today is so quick to forget and suppress its past, and how we are still in the big business of selling our city to outside industry. Want to support this podcast? Visit here Email: [email protected] Facebook...
May 06, 2022•8 min•Ep. 173
