Westside Park is the largest greenspace in the city, at 280 acres, with a 350-foot reservoir that holds 2.4 billion gallons of emergency water reserves. As Atlanta celebrates this new park, I think it’s incredibly valuable to understand the history of the land and what led to it becoming what it is today. One part is the story of a working class Black community from the turn of the 20th century that was displaced by urban renewal and the other, the story of one of Atlanta's numerous stone quarries and the prison labor that was sent to mine it.

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This week I am covering the history of an Atlanta icon - the Fox Theater! From its beginning as a mosque, to opening as a premiere movie theater, to its place as the catalyst of the city’s historic preservation movement.

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This week’s mini episode is about the history of Georgia’s white-only primary. White primaries were primary elections held in the South in which only white voters could participate and they were established by the Democratic Party and/or state legislatures in South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Georgia. Atlanta first established their white primary in 1892, and by 1900 almost every city in the state had followed their lead.

King Williams

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In 1881, not even two decades out of slavery, a group of Atlanta's African American washerwomen started the "Washing Society" and launched the fight for higher wages, respect and acknowledgement of Black women's important role in the New South economy. One of best lesser-known 'herstories' of the city.

Further Reading: To Joy My Freedom

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This week’s mini episode is about bicycle messengers, a topic that came from Atlanta Courier Collective. From the first messenger company in 1894, through the stories of strikes, arrests and speed records. 

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This week I am sharing my interview with Clayton Trutor, author of "Loserville: How Professional Sports Remade Atlanta - And How Atlanta Remade Professional Sports", which is available on February 1st. We talked about why the South lacked professional sports teams, who and what changed that, the origin stories of the Braves, Hawks, Falcons, Flames and Chiefs and the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and Omni Complex.

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Ida Elliott was a young working class girl from Bellwood, today the area along Marietta Street, from 8th North Avenues. Mule-drawn trolleys came to the area in 1882, electric streetcars in 1894 and was annexed into Atlanta in 1897. 

In 1896, a sensational news story landed the neighborhood on the front page of the local papers. Since so much of our history is always about the successful, the rich, the prominent, and it’s not often that we know about the lives of the poor, or working class, or just regular everyday people from Atlanta’s past. 

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This week, we’re talking about three people, Dr. Grafton Gardner, Dr. Rosa Monnish and Otis Lee, that performed abortions in Atlanta, from the 1880s through the 1940s. Who they were, where they lived and work and what consequences they paid for their advocacy. 

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Fernbank Forest is a 65-acre, old-growth forest with white oaks, tulip poplars, loblolly pines, American beech, different oaks, hickory and maples, some that are several hundred years old. This week, I'm talking about the land, the family that once owned it and the push to preserve it for future generations.

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This week, we're talking about Grove Park, which with the new Quarry Park and Microsoft headquarters announcement, has been thrusted into the headlines recently. Named for patent-medicine-magnet Edwin Grove, it was platted first as West Atlanta Park, then later Fortified Hills, before being known as Grove's Park. I am covering the earliest school building, churches, community theater and integration issues of the 50s. 

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