What a journey!
Our 2020 Leadership Atlanta class on Saturday traveled to Montgomery and Selma to confront the more sordid aspects of our nation’s shameful past and present – while asking ourselves the question civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. asked 53 years ago: “Where do we go from here?”
Update: The Atlanta Housing Authority met on Feb. 26 after this column had been published, and it voted unanimously to approve an amended settlement with Integral and its partners. After the vote, AHA Chair Chris Edwards said: “Hopefully we’ll get out of the lawsuit business. It stops millions of dollars currently being spent on expensive litigation.”
Bashing business has become a popular sport these days.
And some of that bashing is well deserved.
But we also must celebrate companies when they act in the best interests of their employees, stakeholders, their communities and the world.
By Maria Saporta Last week, Leadership Atlanta alums presented several “Big Ideas” for the region to kick off the organization’s 50th anniversary. The “Big Ideas” covered a spectrum – from teaching inmates the plays of William Shakespeare to nonprofit journalism to tracking health disparities. All the ideas stimulated thought and introspection. But one idea sparked […]
My favorite Anne Cox Chambers story dates back to the presidential campaign of 2008.
Her close friend, Veronica Biggins, told me how Chambers and a small group of Atlantans had gone knocking door to door for then-candidate Barack Obama in Ohio, South Georgia, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, Louisiana and Texas.
What a mess.
Back in November, I wrote a column about a couple dozen of high visibility trees in Midtown that were in danger of being cut down.
By Maria Saporta “The Dream Continues” That was one of the placards carried by one of the marchers at the 2020 King Week Holiday March on Monday afternoon. The King Holiday provides us all an opportunity to check in with the values and messages that Martin Luther King Jr. shared with us during his too […]
Life can be so fleeting.
That was the first thought that came to mind when Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Meria Carstarphen called me early Saturday afternoon to tell me Alvah Hardy had been killed in car accident Friday night.
Hardy was the executive director of facilities services for APS, and he was responsible for all the capital improvements underway at numerous schools across the city.
World-class cities have world-class New Year’s Eve celebrations – free events in public places where people can celebrate – out with the old and in with the new.
Sadly, Atlanta was absent this year as we saw the calendar turn from 2019 to 2020.
By Maria Saporta For the past several weeks, I’ve been absorbed with the story of Richard Jewell – thanks to a book and movie that have resurfaced controversial memories of more than 23 years ago. Jewell was the security guard at Centennial Olympic Park the night of the bombing that caused the death of two […]
By Maria Saporta For the past several weeks, I’ve been absorbed with the story of Richard Jewell – thanks to a book and movie that have resurfaced controversial memories of more than 23 years ago. Jewell was the security guard at Centennial Olympic Park the night of the bombing that caused the death of two […]
Plain and simple. Ted Turner deserves more.
On Dec. 6, WarnerMedia brought its top brass to Atlanta to dedicate the media company’s Techwood campus to Ted Turner. They also unveiled a mural and a plaque describing Turner as “the original maverick pioneer in the media industry” and as a “champion of the environment.”
It’s a story of rebirth – the human kind and the physical kind.
A benefit concert for the Westside Singing Ambassadors on Nov. 29 at 960 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard provided a symbolic spark of what once was and what could be again.
Recently it has felt as though I’ve been spending too much of my energies complaining and worrying about the current state of affairs.
So, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I began to count our blessings, and I realized there are so many that they won’t all fit in one column.
The tapestry of Atlanta’s civil rights history is getting a colorful new thread with the addition of the new Ivan Allen Jr. Legacy Bridge.
An official dedication of the bridge will be held on Monday, Nov. 25, and it will highlight the contributions of one of Atlanta’s greatest mayors. Allen served as Atlanta’s mayor between 1962 and 1970, one of the most tumultuous times in the city’s history.
Atlanta residents are speaking loud and clear. Trees matter.
For nearly two years, the city and its consultants have been working on a new tree ordinance. Countless community meetings have been held. And the public has been promised draft legislation of a new ordinance since June.
It is not a good time to be a tree in Midtown Atlanta.
Trees are being cut down at three high-profile sites along Peachtree Street – and what’s most amazing is that in each of these cases, these trees have been in public hands – either the city of Atlanta or the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
Here we go again.
The Georgia Department of Transportation on Oct. 22 hosted a public presentation to present three possible corridors for high-speed rail service between Atlanta and Charlotte.
Some days living in Atlanta is depressing.
Last Thursday (Oct. 17), was one of those days – marked by two events back-to-back.
Atlanta-based Purpose Built Communities is gaining traction with a $6 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a total of seven new community members in its network.
Those two significant developments were announced at Purpose Built Communities 10th annual conference, meeting in Atlanta Monday through Wednesday at the Loew’s Atlanta Hotel in Midtown.
