Get On The Bus for Civil Rights Tours Atlanta

On this beautiful late autumn Saturday, that wonderful "right place at the right time" feeling kicked-in for about 30 fellow Georgians and this blogger, who each held a ticket to the day's Civil Rights Tour Atlanta.

This new arrival on the city's attractions scene -- which takes visitors on a three-hour coach bus tour of numerous and important urban landmarks -- opened earlier this year, and I was overdue for the experience. 

Man, was it ever a great day to finally get on the bus!

Today's tour included several friends met during nearly 20 years of living in the city, one of my professional mentors and her family, a client and his son, and other V.I.P. passengers including a former Atlanta mayor and the city's District Two councilman. 

The tour headliner/special guest: U.S. Congressman John Lewis, who represents the Georgia district in which I reside.

What a treat it was to hear the Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient's first-hand accounts of Atlanta and Civil Rights history woven into the excellent tour narrative provided by the experience creator and weekly host, Tom Houck. At 11 a.m. the bus embarked from The King Center and passengers were quickly immersed in Atlanta's story as the cradle of the Civil Rights Movement.

Organized in eight sections with three stops, a typical tour includes Houck's in-person storytelling and a mix of video presentations featuring other Atlanta icons including Ambassador Andrew Young, Julian Bond and Valerie Jackson, among others. During today's special tour, Houck shared the mic with Lewis as honorary "fact checker" and narrator who shared his own memories along the ride. 

The first tour section includes some house-by-house/building-by-building details about the streets surrounding Auburn Avenue (where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. got started and was later laid to rest). I found it fascinating to learn specific offices, night clubs, markets, churches and other landmarks provided the venues for big decisions (i.e. the choice to march in Selma) and moments (selection of SCLC leadership) in the movement. 

It is also amazing to see the progress made in and around Sweet Auburn, which has come a long way since my early visits to the city during the 1990's, and I can't wait to return to try the new restaurants and historic markets in the area.

A dose of Olympic history arrived during the tour's second section, which focused on City Hall and the first black Atlanta mayor, Maynard Jackson, elected during the 1970's and re-elected as the city presented and won its bid to host the 1996 Olympic Games. Houck and Lewis also recalled Muhammad Ali's first professional fight held in Atlanta after the boxer's ban for opposing the Vietnam War. 

Meandering through downtown and the campuses of Atlanta's collection of historic black colleges (the third tour segment), our group made its first stop at 234 Sunset, the home where the King family resided before MLK Jr. was assassinated. 

On the front steps and lawn, Houck shared details about his many visits to the home, where he, then a twentysomething, got a job as Dr. King's driver and where the King children affectionately nicknamed him "Uncle Tom" during a game of catch in the front yard. 

On a more somber note, Lewis and Houck explained that in the week following Dr. King's murder in Memphis, the home hosted Vice President H.H. Humphrey, Jackie Kennedy, several heads of state and Senator Robert F. Kennedy only months before he was assassinated in Los Angeles (Lewis was in the Ambassador Hotel on that fateful night).

Civil Rights Tours Atlanta provides its second tour stop at a Vine City neighborhood shopping center surrounded by several dining destinations including the original Paschal's (an updated version now operates a few blocks closer to downtown) and the Busy Bee Cafe. 

I marveled at the early 1900's residential architecture and the campus buildings at Clark Atlanta University, and learned about The Herndon Home and Atlanta Student Movement for the first time. 

On our trek further south to see South-View Cemetery (the original resting place for MLK Jr.), passengers learned the lyrics and sang along to several gospel and/or protest songs. 

Later tour views included more gorgeous red brick homes with huge lawns, each juxtaposed as neighbors to the Atlanta Federal Prison built in 1902. We also passed Oakland Cemetery and the original mattress factory where MLK Jr. briefly worked as a young man. 

Similar to our stop at 234 Sunset, when participants disembarked from the bus at South-View, Lewis and Houck shared somber details from Dr. King's funeral, pointing out pock marks on his crypt (where King Sr. now rests) from vandal bullets fired at its marble. 

I highly recommend Civil Rights Tours Atlanta for locals, visitors and anyone interested in an excellent, thorough and entertaining look at Atlanta history. In less than a year of operation, Houck's team hosted more than 3,000, a number that's sure to increase in 2016. Admission includes the three-hour tour and access to the new National Center for Civil and Human Rights. 

And for Georgians fortunate to reside in his district, if you're heading to Washington, D.C., be sure to contact Lewis' office in advance for access to the U.S. Capitol and White House tours. 

Photos by Nicholas Wolaver

Dreamers & Believers Celebrate 25 Years Since Atlanta's Olympic Wishes Came True

Twenty-five years ago -- Sept. 18, 1990 -- Atlanta won its Olympic bid to host the 1996 Games.

Tonight the bid's originator, William Porter "Billy" Payne, hosted a classy anniversary event to say thank you and celebrate the "Dreamers & Believers" who shared his five-ringed vision as early as 1987.

In a tent filled with about 400 friends at Centennial Olympic Park, Payne proudly explained his remarks for the evening were "25 years in the making" before rolling a video unveiling two new monuments coming soon to the urban park he created.

The additions include custom marble benches honoring key Atlanta business leaders (Jim Kennedy, Bill Dahlberg, Bob Holder, Bennett Brown, Herman Russell and Ivan Allen III) first to embrace the Olympic bid. A new marble column featuring the names of the "Atlanta Nine" volunteers who led the bid committee will also join the statue of Payne installed in 1997. 

Though more details remain to be announced, Payne briefly mentioned a capital campaign in the works to provide other park improvements in time for next year's 20th Anniversary of Atlanta's Games, which will take place on the eve of the Rio 2016 Olympics. 

Introduced by Payne as the keynote speaker of the evening, bid partner Ambassador Andrew Young put into perspective several Atlanta milestones of the 25 years since the city's Olympic victory.

Young referenced the city's rapid growth (more than 25 percent, according to a state representative who spoke earlier in the evening), successful collaborations (to build the world's busiest airport, create MARTA, and to pursue then host the Games) and details of his initial conversations with Payne when Young was Atlanta's mayor. Young said Montreal's $750 million debt from the 1976 Games made his staff members reluctant for Young to meet with the 34-year-old Payne. 

"[But] I heard Billy got this [Olympic bid] idea after church," said Young. "I'm a preacher and I know now the Lord works on you, and when an aging jock in midlife crisis gets religion ... that's the way the Spirit works." He took the meeting and the rest, as they say, is history. 

Other party presenters included WSB's Monica Kaufman, who was in Tokyo covering the 1990 vote, and Charlie Battle, the Atlanta attorney credited with visiting more nations during the bid and for helping forge the most friendships with voting IOC members. Other VIP attendees included former Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games CFO A.D. Frasier, Cohn & Wolfe co-founder Bob Cohn, a longtime Olympic collector whose firm provided early public relations counsel for the Atlanta bid team's domestic campaign, and University of Georgia football coaching legend Vince Dooley, for whom Payne played years before his Olympic feats and current role as chairman of Augusta National Golf Club.

During his remarks detailing the bid committee milestones of 1988 to 1990, Battle called out several volunteers including Atlanta Marriott Marquis concierge Albert "Smitty" Smith who charmed many IOC leaders and staff.

"[Smitty] is one of the first people IOC friends ask about when I travel and see them," said Battle.

Battle also mentioned the bid team's early events that wooed the U.S. Olympic Committee away from competing bids from San Francisco, Minneapolis and Nashville. He detailed the scrappy manner through which Atlanta created an "Atlanta House" in Seoul during the 1988 Olympics and around the 1989 IOC Session held in Puerto Rico. 

Forging friendships across the Olympic Family echoed as key to the win, according to remarks from Battle, Payne and Young. Since the rules of Olympic bidding now forbid voting IOC member visits to candidate cities, its likely Atlanta's networking techniques were a first- and last-time option for Olympic bid committees of the 2010s and beyond.

Young said Atlanta proved to have a lot more Olympic connections than anticipated, including then-USOC Treasurer Dr. Leroy Walker as a local high school graduate, and Edwin Moses as a top Olympian of 1976 and 1984. 

Young attributed divine intervention, through his U.S. Ambassador assignments from President Jimmy Carter, as federal duties that helped him renew existing connections to up to 55 voting IOC members on behalf of Atlanta. In Young's mind, things started adding up that "The city was ready for it" and "we did it."

During a media Q&A prior to the event, I asked Young if he could recall waking up in Tokyo on Sept. 19 after reality over the victory may have set in for the team.

"The first thought I had was, 'Damn! We won this thing and we're broke,'" said Young. "They [the IOC] gave us a letter saying that we won, but it was also a bill for $1.5 million for the victory party. I said, 'Thanks, you gave us the Olympics and a bill to start with?" 

Like tonight's gathering, that was one party worth every penny.

Photos by Nicholas Wolaver

Atlanta Loses An Olympic Contributor

It was troubling to learn that one of my clients and new friends of the last year, Holly Mull of Holly Mull & Associates, suffered a major stroke last week.

Very sad to learn today she died Thursday, just a couple of weeks after her team produced the successful Midtown Festival of the Arts, which more than 20,000 people attended.

It was only through the Atlanta Journal-Constitution obituary, Maria Saporta's blog post and numerous Facebook messages of condolences that I learned of Holly's many connections spanning Atlanta's Olympic bid (all the way back to the late 1980s through September 1990 -- note, the AJC.com hyperlink takes you to an archived report which incorrectly lists Denver as the home of the U.S. Olympic Committee, which has always been based in Colorado Springs -- this uncorrected error from 1996 led to a factual error in today's AJC.com obituary -- where are the copy editors of 1996, and 2010?) and eventual work with the Centennial Olympic Games.

Holly mentioned her Olympic work from time to time, but never the full extent of her five-ringed contributions. Holly was just a couple of years younger than my mother, and seeing Holly in action at meetings and events reminded me of witnessing my mom's work with community events back home.

I will miss working with Holly. Condolences to her family and many friends and associates.

Photo via AJC.com, which attributes the photo to the family. This photo also appeared on the Holly Mull & Associates website