The photo of Hank Aaron’s record-breaking home run in 1974 is so literally iconic it hangs in the Baseball Hall of Fame: the Hammer running the bases while two teens who sneaked onto the field congratulate him. It’s one of many historic moments captured by metro Atlanta photographer Ron Sherman in more than a half-century […]
Category: John Ruch
Posted inColumns
New Georgia Trust leader takes charge in a special moment for historic preservation
The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation has its first new leader in 15 years — a transition that comes as Atlanta, the nonprofit’s hometown, is shifting its notoriously anti-preservation attitude amid such pressures as housing affordability. It’s the sort of challenge that appeals to W. Wright Mitchell, the Georgia Trust’s new president and CEO. He’s a local […]
Posted inColumns
Preservationists seek $65K to save and move log cabin that may be Cobb’s oldest building
Preservationists are racing to save and move a log cabin that may be the oldest structure in Cobb County, with a $65,000 fundraising campaign underway. The Power-Jackson Cabin on Post Oak Tritt Road in East Cobb — likely dating to sometime before 1840 — is threatened by lack of maintenance and a recently withdrawn development […]
Posted inColumns
Atlanta Public Schools seeks to rebuild trust on future of historic properties
Officials from Atlanta Public Schools and the Atlanta Preservation Center standing side-by-side, taking questions from the public about a chummy historic preservation plan, would have been unimaginable less than two years ago. That’s when APS, out of the blue, announced a demolition of the highly historic Lakewood Elementary in Lakewood Heights. This is how things typically go in […]
Posted inColumns
Girl Scouts mural joins Auburn Avenue’s gallery of Civil Rights icons
Another Civil Rights history mural has joined the growing collection on Auburn Avenue, adding to renewed preservation momentum. The mural on the former Atlanta Daily World building at 145 Auburn celebrates District V, Atlanta’s first Black Girl Scouts troop, by highlighting Roslyn Pope, the long-unsung Civil Rights activist who grew up in it. Sweet Auburn’s vital […]
Posted inJohn Ruch
In Southwest Atlanta, they’re praying for the preservation of a historic religious camp ground
Nearly two centuries ago, Methodists established a religious camp in the woods of what is now Southwest Atlanta as part of a historic Christian revival movement that established the Bible Belt and shaped Georgia’s future. Today, an effort is underway to preserve Mt. Gilead Camp Ground, or at least its roughly 140-year-old “arbor,” a roofed, […]
Posted inColumns
Marker honoring Westside community reformer is another step to spotlighting Atlanta’s underrepresented history
The new movement to spotlight Atlanta’s underrepresented history took another step forward on Oct. 21. A marker to Lugenia Burns Hope (1871-1947), a community organizer and social reformer whose national and local work for African Americans prefigured the Civil Rights Movement, was unveiled in Washington Park. The marker is part of a nationwide program called National Votes […]
Posted inColumns
Pioneering LGBTQ+ history report lays the groundwork for preserving Atlanta spaces and places
A pioneering report on the city’s LGBTQ+ history is complete, laying the groundwork for further research and future preservation efforts. The “Atlanta LGBTQ+ Historic Context Statement” covers the period of 1895 to 2000. It was created by consultant New South Associates on behalf of the City and the nonprofit Historic Atlanta, which advocates for underrepresented […]
Posted inColumns
In Lakewood Heights, new Atlanta Public Schools land-sale process raises concerns and support
In many ways, Lakewood Heights is where Atlanta Public Schools’ (APS) new surplus-property disposition process began. It’s also likely to be the first test case in determining whether that process will build trust and plan from the community level upward. Lakewood Heights has struggled with disinvestment, crime and commercial vacancies in the decades since a […]
Posted inColumns
Trio targeted in ‘Cop City’ RICO charges have a history of exposing police ‘misdeeds’
Like a bad airplane-reading thriller, the controversial RICO indictment against “Defend the Atlanta Forest” protesters spins its yarn about anti-police conspirators around a core trio of characters from a local bail fund, who are presented as shadowy behind-the-scenes figures caught in the spotlight of justice. It’s a tale that leaves out its own biggest plot twist. The […]
Posted inJohn Ruch
Federal agency is under pressure to restart pollution-monitoring device shuttered for ‘Cop City’ protest concerns
A federal agency is under pressure to restart a water pollution monitoring device it has kept shuttered for over seven months due to disputed safety concerns about the Atlanta public safety training center protests. Internal emails show USGS based the shutdown on speculative concern about “paid” protesters and declined a police officer of escorts. Prior […]
Posted inColumns
In Central State Hospital demolition decision, ‘in-depth’ historic preservation study was a single phone call
The state agency planning to demolish historic buildings at Milledgeville’s Central State Hospital said an “in-depth” exploration of preservation alternatives it claimed to have conducted consisted of a single, undocumented phone call with an unnamed expert. For weeks, the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities (DBHDD) did not respond to SaportaReport questions about the supposed analysis and […]
Posted inColumns
Lawyer in Trump election case warns of RICO cases’ ‘dire’ First Amendment impacts
Georgia’s two nationally spotlighted RICO prosecutions – respectively targeting Trump’s election scheme and “Cop City” protesters – are being cheered or jeered by political partisans, depending on whose agenda is served. But a prominent civil liberties attorney defending one of Trump’s advisors said both cases show how racketeering laws are a “dire” threat to the […]
Posted inColumns
Settlements in New York’s major police misconduct cases include at least two protesters with Georgia ties
At least two protesters with Georgia ties are among hundreds eligible for more than $20 million in settlements from two New York City police misconduct class action lawsuits – a legal strategy that has yet to be used here despite some similarities with “Cop City” and Black Lives Matter cases. One of the class-action protesters […]
Posted inJohn Ruch
Governor’s Office pre-written terrorism claim shows how ‘Cop City’ arrests get political spin
The May 31 arrests of bail-fund operators was a watershed moment in the “Cop City” protests, generating unprecedented backlash as chilling free speech – especially Gov. Brian Kemp’s statement equating them with a “criminal organization” helping “domestic terrorism.” What the public didn’t know, documents obtained by SaportaReport reveal is that Kemp’s commentary about the arrests […]
Posted inColumns
From Trump to ‘Stop Cop City,’ a historic week in answering who runs Atlanta
What a week for fans of history and democracy in Atlanta. First, former President Trump was indicted on Aug. 14 for, among other things, attempting to “find” roughly 12,000 votes in his scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Then “Vote to Stop Cop City” announced it gathered more than 104,000 signatures to allow a […]
Posted inColumns
Atlanta’s historic Grant Mansion gets a new doorway from the past to the present
The grand front doorway of Atlanta’s historic L.P. Grant Mansion has been freshly reconstructed in the embodiment of preservation metaphors about portals to the past. The project “creates that natural gateway from the past to look at the future,” says David Yoakley Mitchell, executive director of the Atlanta Preservation Center (APC), which calls the 1856 […]
Posted inColumns
Atlanta’s inspector general seeks tips to head off more corruption scandals
The City of Atlanta’s main corruption investigation agency is seeking to raise its public profile and attract more tips to head off more problems. After six years investigating corruption in New York City government, Shannon K. Manigault came to Atlanta in 2020 as the City’s first-ever inspector general – heading an office created in the […]
Posted inColumns
Midtown’s mysterious new roundabout followed a road of private, secret plans
The mysterious appearance of a new roundabout and exit on a state highway ramp in Atlanta’s bustling Midtown sparked concern early last year from neighbors who wondered why Georgia transportation officials would build such a thing without public input. The truth turned out to be much stranger. Despite remaking public roadways, the roundabout on the […]
Posted inColumns
In DeKalb’s protest politics, ‘park reopening’ doesn’t mean what you think it means
Even in the creative political wordplay that abounds in the “Defend the Atlanta Forest” and “Cop City” protest controversies, it’s pretty special when the words “park reopening” don’t mean what you think they means. DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond last month announced a $1.8 million “plan to reopen” Intrenchment Creek Park, which he ordered closed […]
