Historical events are place-based. Conferences offer historians the opportunity to explore the places of history with fellow historians, who can offer them an interpretive context for reading the landscape around them. The Local Arrangements Committee has organized the following tours and events to introduce AHA members to the historical landscape of the Atlanta area.

Dowload the preregistration form to sign up for a tour. Advance registration is highly recommended. Tour tickets are non-refundable. Tour participants must be registered for the AHA meeting.

Tour 1: 1906 Race Riot
Thursday, January 4, 12:00–1:00 p.m.
Meeting site: Join a walking group leaving from the Hilton’s Newton Room at 12:00 p.m.
Description: The Coalition to Remember the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot will sponsor a walking tour of downtown riot-related sites. Research for the centennial of the riot has unearthed details about the event that are missing from published accounts. The tour will treat the context, developments, and legacy of the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot.
(Limit:50 people. Fee: $5 per person.)
Tour leader: Cliff Kuhn, Georgia State University.

Tour 2: Walking the Color Line in Atlanta: An Overview Tour
Thursday, January 4, 1:30–4:30 p.m.
Meeting site: Hilton’s Newton Room at 1:00 p.m. for a round trip by bus.
Description: In The Souls of Black Folk, as he reflected on the history of the South and the nation at the dawn of the 20th century, W. E. B. Du Bois stated: “The Problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line.” Now that the twentieth century has concluded, it is clear that Du Bois was right. The Atlanta writings of Du Bois from his base at Atlanta University will be the starting point for an interpretive historical tour of the color line in Atlanta. Sites to be visited include Piedmont Park—location of Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Compromise speech; the Fox Theater, Atlanta City Hall, State Capitol, and Rich’s Department Store, all sites of segregation and protest; Mosley Park, where the residential color line was broken after World War II; Auburn Avenue, the site of the city’s black business district; and the Martin Luther King National Historic Site.
(Limit: 35 people. Fee: $5 per person.)
Tour leader: Tim Crimmins, Georgia State University.

Tour 3: Sweet Auburn: Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site and Exhibit— Red was the Midnight
Friday, January 5, 9:00–10:30 a.m.
Meeting site: Hilton’s Newton Room at 8:30 a.m. for a bus to the historic site.
Description: Under the ownership of the National Park Service, the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site includes a headquarters building with permanent exhibits and meeting space; the historic neighborhood district, including the boyhood home of Dr. King; the King Center, where the tombs of Dr. King and Coretta Scott King are located; and historic Ebenezer Baptist Church. The recently installed exhibition, “Red was the Midnight” will tell the history of a significant, though (in the U.S.) little-known event, the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot. (Limit: 35 people. Fee: $5 per person.)
Tour leader: Melissa English-Ria and Dean Rowley, National Park Service.

Tour 4: Bell Aircraft Plant, Building 1
Friday, January 5, 9:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Joint tour with the Society for the History of Technology.
Meeting site: Hilton’s Newton Room at 9:00 a.m. for a bus to the plant.
Description: Site of the future Aviation Museum (in planning stage) located on the grounds of the Lockheed-Martin plant. Building 1 was home of the WWII era “Bell Bomber” assembly plant, the largest of its kind in the Deep South. In 1942 the War Department awarded a contract to the Bell Aircraft Company to build B-29 bombers in Marietta at a plant that the Corps of Engineers would soon construct. Bell transformed the local economy, helping to bring the area out of the Great Depression. By 1945 some 28,000 employees (37 percent women and over 90 percent native southern) had become experienced industrial workers, capable of producing an average of one of the 4-engine, 62-ton, long-range bombers each day. The Bell operation closed shortly after the end of World War II, but many of the Bell employees returned to work when Lockheed reopened the plant during the Korean War in 1951. Lockheed-Georgia’s greatest success over the next several decades was in building transport planes (the C-130, C-141, and C-5). These engineering marvels exemplify the crucial role of research and development in the Cold War years, as Lockheed scientists continuously innovated new technologies to make bigger and better airplanes that went further and faster. (Advance registration required. Limit: 25 people. Fee: $5 per person. Tour participants must submit a visitor information form by Wednesday, January 3 to obtain security clearance. Forms are available on the AHA web site. Send completed forms to tour organizer Tom Scott via e-mail at tscott@Kennesaw.edu or fax to his attention at 770-423-6432.)
Tour leaders: Rick Ramsey, Lockheed Martin; Bob Ormsby, Lockheed Martin (president, 1975-84); Tom Scott, Kennesaw State University.

Tour 5: Sweet Auburn: The Old Fourth Ward—Sweet Auburn and the Martin Luther King National Historic Site
Friday, January 5, 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.
Meeting site: Hilton’s Newton Room at 10:30 a.m. for a bus to the King site.
Description: A walking tour of a historically significant locale in the region’s African American past. The Old Fourth Ward tour will begin with the Sweet Auburn district, once a bustling commercial, social, and residential district in historically black Atlanta, now undergoing revitalization. It will include the historic churches where Civil Rights rallies were held; the historic neighborhood where the King family lived; the King Center; the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site and District; and the restored Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King’s father preached. (Limit: 35 people. Fee: $5 per person.)
Tour leaders: Melissa English-Ria and Dean Rowley, National Park Service.

Tour 6: The Atlanta University Center
Friday, January 5, 12:00–2:00 p.m.
Meeting site: Hilton’s Newton Room at 11:30 p.m. for a bus to the Atlanta University Center.
Description: From their earliest founding, beginning in 1837 with the establishment of what is now Cheney State University (PA), historically black colleges and universities offered all who entered an opportunity to learn and to earn a living, to develop a sense of self and heritage, and to serve humanity in their own communities and throughout the world. The first of the Atlanta black colleges was Atlanta University, founded in 1865, followed by Morehouse College in 1867, Clark University in 1869, and Spelman and Morris Brown Colleges in 1881. By the turn of the century, these five institutions were recognized as an important source of leadership training for hundreds of African-Americans who significantly impacted communities throughout the nation. (Limit: 35 people. Fee: $5 per person.)
Tour leaders: Alexa Henderson, Clark Atlanta University; Jeanne Cyriaque, Georgia African American Historic Preservation Network; and Alton Hornsby, Jr., Morehouse College.

Tour 7: Behind the Scenes at the New “World of Coke” Museum at Centennial Park
Friday, January 5, 2:30–4:30 p.m.
Meeting site: Hilton’s Newton Room at 2:00 p.m. for a bus to the museum.
Description: Coca-Cola, an Atlanta-based company, is the world’s best known corporate brand. Naturally, its history is intertwined with the story of international marketing and Atlanta’s rise in the twentieth century. With a ground-breaking in 2006, the new World of Coca-Cola Museum is scheduled to be opened to the public in mid-2007. Tour participants will receive a “behind the scenes” look at the building, and hear about interpretive and exhibit plans for the new museum. (Limit: 35 people. Fee: $5 per person.)
Tour leader: Phil Mooney, Archives of the Coca Cola Company.

Tour 8: Behind the Scenes at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum
Friday, January 5, 3:00–4:30 p.m.
Meeting site: Hilton’s Newton Room at 2:30 p.m. for a bus to the library.
Description: Jay Hakes, Director of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, will lead a behind-the-scenes tour of the library and museum. The library is part of the presidential library system administered by the National Archives and Records Administration and contains both an archives and a museum. The archives is a repository of approximately 27 million pages of Jimmy Carter’s White House material, papers of administration associates, including documents, memoranda, correspondence, etc. There are also 1/2 million photographs, and hundreds of hours of film, audio, and video tape. Highlights of the tour include a screening of clips of the 1978 Camp David meetings and stories about events in the life of the former president. (Limit: 35 people. Fee: $5 per person.).
Tour leader: Jay Hakes, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum

Tour 9: History and Memory at the Georgia Capitol: A New Building History
Saturday, January 6, 9:00–10:30 a.m.
Meeting site: Hilton’s Newton Room at 8:30 a.m. for a bus to the Capitol.
Description: A walking tour of the capitol building (architecture, portraits, statuary, and chambers) and its grounds. Atlanta became Georgia’s capital in 1868. The current Capitol was completed in 1889 and served as a battleground for struggles to expand and contract the franchise. This tour will interpret the building’s contested history through its artifacts, tracing the state’s history as an exemplar of Jim Crow South to its modern emergence as a “temple of democracy” with Jimmy Carter’s inaugural address on the Capitol’s steps in 1971. (Limit: 35 people. Fee: $5 per person.)
Tour leader: Tim Crimmins, Georgia State University.

Tour 10: Behind the Scenes at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum
Saturday, January 6, 11:30 a.m.–1:00 p.m.
Meeting site: Hilton’s Newton Room at 11:00 a.m. for a bus to the library.
Description: Jay Hakes, Director of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, will lead a behind-the-scenes tour of the library and museum. The library is part of the presidential library system administered by the National Archives and Records Administration and contains both an archives and a museum. The archives is a repository of approximately 27 million pages of Jimmy Carter’s White House material, papers of administration associates, including documents, memoranda, correspondence, etc. There are also 1/2 million photographs, and hundreds of hours of film, audio, and video tape. Highlights of the tour include a screening of clips of the 1978 Camp David meetings and stories about events in the life of the former president. (Limit: 35 people. Fee: $5 per person.)
Tour leader: Jay Hakes, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum.

Tour 11: 1906 Race Riot
Saturday, January 6, 12:00–1:00 p.m.
Meeting site: Join a walking group leaving from the Hilton’s Newton Room at 12:00 p.m.
Description: The Coalition to Remember the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot will sponsor a walking tour of downtown riot-related sites. Research for the centennial of the riot has unearthed details about the event that are missing from published accounts. The tour will treat the context, developments, and legacy of the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot.
(Limit: 50 people. Fee: $5 per person.)
Tour leader: Cliff Kuhn, Georgia State University.

Tour 12: Atlanta’s Historic Neighborhoods
Saturday, January 6, 1:30–4:30 p.m.
Meeting site: Hilton’s Newton Room at 1:00 p.m. for a bus to the start of the walking tour.
Description: A bus and walking tour of significant white and African American neighborhoods near the downtown, dating to the late nineteenth century, and including the Sweet Auburn residential district, the Victorian Inman Park, Frederick Law Olmsted’s planned Druid Hills neighborhood, and others. (Limit: 35 people. Fee: $5 per person.)
Tour leader: Richard Laub, Georgia State University.