ATLANTA — At the corner of Downtown Atlanta sits a treasure trove of knowledge - the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History is home to stories and tales of the mighty past of Black history in Atlanta.
"This is a repository of not only the Black history of Atlanta and the Black history of Georgia, but Black history nationwide," Georgia State University professor and author Dr. Maurice Hobson said.
Hobson wrote "The Legend of the Black Mecca: Politics and Class in the Making of Modern Atlanta" and has spent countless hours there studying the past and its impact on today.
He said the history goes as far back as General William Sherman's burning of Atlanta. Hobson said newly freed enslaved people established themselves in the city following that pivotal event.
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Along with white missionaries, those now free people laid the groundwork for Atlanta to become an educational capitol for Black people through several historically Black colleges and universities.
"This became a place where freedmen could come and get an education," Hobson said. "What education meant, is that is that they could create their own contracts, they could operate in their own best interests."
He said this, in turn, helped lead to the Sweet Auburn District, a Black business thoroughfare, which further advanced the progress of Black people in Atlanta.
"We have Black education, we have Black economics, the third aspect of that was the rise of Black empowerment in electoral politics," Hobson said.
Full interview with Dr. Bernice King
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Following the federal court case of King v. Chapman, Hobson said all white voting primaries in Georgia, which blocked Black voters from taking part in the initial selection of candidates, were banned. That opened the door for hundreds of thousands of Black voters in Georgia.
"Of course, they're concentrated here in Atlanta, Georgia," Hobson said of those newly empowered Black voters. "So, when John Wesley Dobbs and Austin T. Walden found the Atlanta Negro Voters League, what it does is any politician or someone seeking office who is statewide, they have to come to Atlanta and court the Black vote."
As more Black people began to make gains, shaping and being elected to political office, it gave them another avenue to transform their lives and communities.
Dr. Bernice King, daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and a civil rights leader herself, said Black leaders in Atlanta would then frequently work with business leaders and other people of influence to make change.
With historically Black institutions of higher education, Black businesses like Atlanta Life Insurance and Citizens Trust Bank, which both still exist today, the faith community and scores of Black entrepreneurs, King said the legacy of that work decades ago still lives today.
"We have been a city that literally was too busy to hate and did not let anything like hatred and racism stand in the way of rising to an occasion," King said.
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Atlanta's Black leaders forge change through collaboration | A look at history
Elisabeth Omilami, daughter of civil rights activist Hosea Williams and CEO of Hosea Helps, points to that work brokering deals as part of Atlanta's more recent Black history legacy as well.
"People say Atlanta is the cradle of civil rights, and it's according to how you look at it because you never had to have a march or anything violent or anything like that in Atlanta," Omilami said. "They had a system where they would negotiate, go in the back room, make the deal, and things would rather happen that way."
She said while those efforts worked and can still provide a blueprint for today, there's still work to be done, especially for those who have been left behind on a humanitarian level, a message for future change-makers, young and old.
"Don't look for anybody else," Omilami said. "You be that leader and you can make a difference."
11Alive invites you to embark on a journey of unapologetic stories that have shaped Atlanta's past, present and future this Black History Month. Check out our collection of stories: "DREAM x DISRUPT: Black Atlanta's Bold Movement" at 11alive.com/blackhistory.