ATLANTA _ A few weeks ago, the downtown streets of Atlanta roiled in anger. Thousands marched to protest the death of yet another Black man at the hands of police 1,100 miles away in Minneapolis, many answering the social media post of a 19-year-old Atlanta woman who'd never organized anything before.
Amid a worldwide pandemic, many marchers wore masks and kept their distance. The masks covered their faces, but did not silence their voices. They chanted the names of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, pleaded for an end to the killing of Black Americans, and demanded policing change.
One night became two and, during the first 48-hours, the passionate pleas and non-violent rallies were overshadowed by damaged storefronts and harsh confrontations between police and young people. An Atlanta police car burning against the red CNN letters downtown made worldwide news. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms imposed nightly curfews. Gov. Brian Kemp summoned the National Guard.
But the protesters _ Black and white, Asian and Hispanic, young and old _ returned to the streets again and again, chanting and listening to speeches. The marches stayed overwhelmingly peaceful. Bottoms lifted the curfews a week after they began.
The protests spread and their complexion reflected the diversity of metro Atlanta. People of all skin tones joined together in Decatur, Dunwoody, Johns Creek, Roswell, Lawrenceville, Duluth, Athens, Woodstock, Cartersville, Brunswick and Savannah. The shooting death of Rayshard Brooks June 12 by a white Atlanta police officer only served to quicken the movement. More and more people took up the call to stop police brutality, end racism and make good on the promise of equality for Black Americans. Their voices shook Atlanta City Hall, suburban governments, small towns and, finally, the state Capitol.
Few could have predicted how far and wide the movement would spread, or how many lives it would touch. The tangible impacts across the region and around the state have come at such a speed and from so many directions as to leave veteran activists dizzy.
Atlanta's police chief resigned. Officers were fired after allegations they used excessive force against demonstrators, including Spelman and Morehouse students who were yanked from their car and hit with Tasers. Bottoms and others moved to overhaul the department and adopt long-sought reforms.
A crane operator under an order from a DeKalb County judge plucked away Decatur's Confederate monument in the dead of night. Kennesaw leaders voted to remove the Confederate battle flag from the city's war memorial.
Prominent Georgia businesses donated millions of dollars toward racial justice. Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan seeded a GoFundMe campaign for the Black community with $500,000 that has now raised more than $1.2 million.
At UGA games, the Redcoat Band vowed to drop the "Tara Theme," played since 1959. Lady Antebellum, which has Georgia roots, became, simply, Lady A.
And Gov. Brian Kemp has signed hate crimes legislation that hadn't advanced for 16 years. Georgia had been one only four states without a hate crime law, and the Legislature acted after thousands marched on the state Capitol two weeks ago.
"I don't think that you would see the changes that you are seeing happening at such rapid speeds under any other circumstances," Bottoms told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an interview, crediting the protesters. "People are being heard. People are speaking their anger and their frustration and their hurt and pain. And, just as importantly, people are listening in a way that I have not ever experienced in my lifetime."
Civil rights gains typically come slowly for Blacks, even when courts and legislation give reforms the force of law. Blacks in Montgomery, led by Martin Luther King Jr., boycotted the city's bus system for 381 days before a court ruled that segregated buses were unconstitutional.
Thurgood Marshall, the lead attorney in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education desegregation case and later the first black Supreme Court justice, often told people that "all deliberate speed...meant S-L-O-W," as he watched the decades it took some school systems to integrate.
In Atlanta, activists have asked the city's Black leadership for reforms to end police brutality for nearly half a century, while demands to remove Confederate symbols in Georgia have met fierce resistance in recent years.
"I never expected anything like this to happen," said Dre Propst, 51, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter Atlanta and a longtime organizer. "I thought it would be probably later on when the younger generation would be at the front of the fight. I thought I wouldn't see it."
While the early anger over Floyd's death focused on policing reforms, the movement is evolving into a broader examination of systemic inequality, white privilege, the ongoing wealth gap between Black and white America, and the health disparities Black Americans are experiencing during the coronavirus pandemic.
In Atlanta, the protest movement has come at a cost. Riot-clad police armed with tear gas and rubber bullets squared off against young people, some armed with rocks, bottles and fireworks. More than 500 people were arrested in the early days of the marches. At least six officers were fired or disciplined for excessive force. And now many officers have been shaken by the charges filed against the two officers involved in Brooks' shooting. One of them is charged with murder.
"The morale is probably the worst it has ever been," said Vince Champion, the southeast regional director for the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, which represents about 1,200 Atlanta police officers. Bottoms "wanted to bow down to the rioters and possibly get rid of good cops."
The mayor said she values the Atlanta police and recognizes their morale is suffering, but she added it is "is equally important that our officers be cognizant of the morale of the country right now."
"Things are shifting in our country," she said. "As a leader, it is my responsibility to take action when I think that something has not been done appropriately."
