Archive Atlanta

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". 
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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
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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.
 
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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
 
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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
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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 issues.
This week, I’ll also share the story of Atlanta's African American YMCA, it’s first offices, the promises of funding a new building, the campaign to raise the money, the architecture, the utility and the many, many famous programs and people that have worked and played inside it’s walls. 
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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? 
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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.
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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 stories about the Fox, Lincoln Country Club and the Waluhaje. 
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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
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