The Training Ground

Business, religious, and social institutions founded by African Americans on Auburn Avenue provided a training ground for social, economic, and political advancement during the post-World War II era. They offered opportunities to gain the skills, training, and courage necessary to contend for justice and equality, exposed children to life lessons, and reinforced beliefs that would prepare them to better a nation in need of social and political repair. By 1960, students from the Atlanta University Center began to challenge Atlanta's social order through a series of direct-action demonstrations that forced city officials and business leaders to end racial segregation in public schools, lunch counters, movie theatres, and other public facilities. With assistance and guidance from their predecessors, this new generation of civil rights leaders established offices on Auburn Avenue, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Atlanta Inquirer, a newspaper formed by members of the Committee on the Appeal for Civil and Human Rights "to seek out the truth and report it without fear or favor." Many of the young men and women of the modern Civil Rights Movement later became national political leaders and human rights activists.

Atlanta, Georgia · United States