The history of Atlanta can be summed up by one word: progress. Hard-fought and hard-earned, progress is the reward of years, decades of dogged persistence.

Atlanta has been many things in its short history, including the cradle of the Confederacy, the  City  Too Busy To Hate and even Hotlanta, but even through it all it has always been progressive.  Here are many of the stories that have shaped its history.

 

Herndon honored with historical marker

The colossus: alonzo herndon

Alonzo Herndon, born into slavery in 1858 in rustic Walton County, Georgia, had a dream while many African-Americans were still living a nightmare. A mulatto born of a white man, Frank Herndon, who never acknowledged him, and black slave named Sophenie, Herndon set out after Emancipation to make something of himself.

The funeral of Atlanta author Margaret Mitchell

The women at Margaret Mitchell’s graveside

The reminders of Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell are all around Atlanta, including the author’s longtime home in Midtown.

A lasting image of women, many of them people of color, stands as a public witness to the author’s racial legacy.

A historical report from the New York Times:

Margaret Mitchell, author of “Gone With the Wind,” died today at Grady Hospital of injuries received when she was struck down by a speeding automobile on Peachtree Street last Thursday.

Not once since the accident had the 49-year-old Miss Mitchell fully regained consciousness, according to hospital attaches. At infrequent intervals, she had murmured vague, incoherent responses to spoken questions.

Shortly after Miss Mitchell died, the driver of the auto which struck her surrendered voluntarily to police and Atlanta Police Chief Herbert Jenkins said an “immediate murder indictment” would be sought. Hugh D. Gravitt, 29, the driver, had been out on bond of $5,450, after having been arrested at the scene of the accident and charged with drunken driving, speeding and driving on the wrong side of the street.

Gravitt, an Atlanta taxi driver, was off duty and driving a private car when Miss Mitchell was struck as she and her husband, John R. Marsh, were crossing Peachtree at Thirteenth Street on the way to a neighborhood movie. Mr. Marsh was the “J.R.M.” to whom “Gone With the Wind” was dedicated.

Mitchell is buried in Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta.

Slave auction house on Whitehall Street SW

The Slave auction on Whitehall Street SW

“War is hell.” That familar phrase was reportedly first uttered by Union General Tecumseh Sherman during the Civil War. Sherman commanded more than 100,000 troops as destroyed the American South town by town in the infamous “March to the Sea.”