I arrived in Atlanta on a steamy July day in 1969, fleeing a disastrous newspaper job in Mississippi. After a another disastrous six weeks as copyboy for The Atlanta Constitution, I became a freelance photojournalist and staff reporter for two black-owned weekly newspapers. Each paper had a direct connection to the civil rights movement and Dr. King personally. For three years, I was news editor for Atlanta's most militant black weekly newspaper which hired me despite my raggedy white ass. I did photography on the side and counted Time, Newsweek and Cosmopolitan as clients. Sometimes, you're well and truly blessed when you get fired.
This work was followed by becoming first news editor of Creative Loafing in the mid 70s; a three month van trip from Atlanta to Cody, Wyoming and back documenting America during the Bicentennial; freelance NPR southern correspondent and WABE's news director for 17 years; two years writing anchor scripts for CNN's prime time newscasts; a final two years to realize that journalism was no longer my life's calling and finally, becoming a middle school English teacher in a delightful Los Angeles barrio called Sun Valley.
In going through boxes during several moves, I kept coming across interesting artifacts of my previous life as an Atlanta journalist in pictures and sound going back more than forty years. There was also my work from East Tennessee, Memphis and Meridian, Miss. There were dusty cases of photo negatives and slides, raw tape and produced radio stories and "illustrated audio salons" which I performed around Atlanta with an NEA grant in 1984. There were fully produced PowerPoint shows putting images with text I did for school, church and community. The Atlanta History Center is digitizing its collection of my photos and I'm still trying to find out what I have in the archival junkpile here in Los Angeles.
There are a lot of stories here and the first to roll out are the photos in this webzine
"Tales of Old Atlanta." It now sails out freely through the pipes and pneumatic tubes of the Internet. This will get interesting.
This Webzine and what it's all about
