By Maynard Eaton

“It is because of them that I grew up free.”

–Atlanta Councilman Michael Julian Bond.

Lonnie King was 23 years old when he and 4,000 other Atlanta University Center students ignited what became widely known as the Atlanta Student Movement, a series of non-violent lunch counter sit-ins and protests that resulted in the disintegration of legal apartheid in Atlanta.

Now, 50 years later, as he and more than two dozen of his colleagues conclude a week-long celebration of that momentous movement, King says, “It’s somewhat vindication of my being called an uppity upstart.”

Morehouse College students King and Julian Bond spearheaded the sit-in demonstrations along with dozens of bold and brash students who upset the racial status quo in Atlanta and throughout the South by exhibiting never-before brand ofbravery, perseverance and commitment to equality that forever changed the city of Atlanta, and left an indelible mark on our nation’s history.

“We had to fight not only the racist whites who were determined to put us in jail or kill us, but we also had to fight Negro leaders who had enjoyed a certain largesse because of their position as preachers and what have you,” recalled King, 71. “And, they were willing to continue the system as it was. But our question was simply this. When are we going to stand up and stop taking what’s going on here. When are we going to stop grinning and there wasn’t nothing funny? When you start talking that kind of language in 1960 you end up being a troublemaker. We were troublemakers, but we were troublemakers for justice; we were troublemakers for peace.”

The Atlanta students were part of the spirit of the movement. Black students at North Carolina A&T University in Greensboro began with four students sitting at a “whites only” lunch counter in a downtown Woolworth’s, which grew into a national movement and is credited with helping spur the passage of the1960 Civil Rights Bill. Among those inspired by the Greensboro incident were students at Florida A&M University, 5 of whom spent 49 days in jail for ordering food at a Tallahassee Woolworth’s lunch counter.

On March 15, 1960, some 200 nattily-attired students stealthy fanned across Atlanta to infiltrate dozens of popular lunch counters that had traditionally been barred to blacks.

“There were a lot of people who were afraid to participate out of fear of retribution but we had 4,000 students to appear in March of 1960,” said Carolyn Long Banks, who was jailed along with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others while protesting at Rich’s Department store that month. “We were determined not to wear blue jeans so we dressed up in our Sunday go-to-meeting [clothes] and marched in high heel shoes and suits and ties. We had about 11 different places that we had decided to integrate.”

Ironically one of those places was the City Hall cafeteria. Twenty years later, Banks would begin a 19-year career as Atlanta’s first black City Councilwoman. Former NAACP Chairman Julian Bond was jailed at Atlanta City Hall that March 15th. His son, Michael Julian Bond, is now an Atlanta at-Large City Councilman.

“All these men and women were teenagers when they started,” said Councilman Bond. “They didn’t really know much about life itself, yet they were changing the world; changing reality for hundreds of thousands of people who will never know their names.”

On March 15, Councilman 2010 Councilman Bond and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed co-hosted a gala in the City Hall atrium to salute the surviving Atlanta Student Movement members and their families. “All these folks went to school together, played together, grew up together, yet they were on the front lines of a war together—a war to end discrimination, a war to end racism, a war to end oppression—and they are the veterans and victors of it,” said Councilman Bond. “They are the great catalyst that changed our society. It changed Atlanta for sure. As great as ‘The City Too Busy to Hate’ is and was, their movement was the only major movement in this city. They were the David to the Goliath of racism in this town.”

“Only in Atlanta can you have events like this one for people who actually made history,” said Fulton County Commissioner Emma Darnell. “There’s not another city in America where you would have people in a room where you have the people like we have in here who changed everything. To me it’s more than about history, we have our children here, we have grandchildren here and they are a part of this, and I think that’s what is important. Not only what they did in the ‘60’s, but the fact that they are still among us, inspiring us by their example but by their knowledge and experience. There’s not another city in this country where you could have a gathering like this.”

Reed, Atlanta’s 41-year-old Mayor, passionately thanked the Atlanta Student Movement alumni for paving the path for him and other political leaders of his generation. “My hope is that one day I will live a life that is as honorable as the lives that you have lived so that one day I can stand up and I can feel the pressure of somebody’s heels on my shoulders because I lived a life that was honorable and worthy of being able to be the person that the next generation stands on their shoulders,” he told the audience of some 350 people. “That’s what you all have provided. That’s why you and people like you launched a Movement from the city of Atlanta that changed the country and has changed the world.”

State Rep. Alisha Thomas Morgan, 30, was equally impressed after meeting former Georgia State Senator Leroy Johnson, who became the state’s first black lawmaker in 1962, and was instrumental in defending many of the student protestors in court.

“When he was in the Legislature in 1962 he was one, and now there are 54. So it is about the legacy they have created,” said Morgan. “These are the people whose shoulders I stand on—people who didn’t know I existed but they were fighting for me.”

Lonnie King laments that not enough young people are following the activist example of the Atlanta Student Movement. Rep. Morgan disagrees.

“I was 23, challenging all these old people, which is what I am now. “But I need somebody challenging me,” King said. “Where are the 23-year-olds? Wars are fought by young soldiers. Generals are the ones that make the strategy, but the wars are fought by the foot soldiers. And, the question is, where are the foot soldiers today?”

Morgan countered with, “I was 23 when I got elected and started long before that. There are a lot of 23 year-olds and younger who are on the front lines.”

King is still on the case, although his wife is ill. He has launched an organization, The Coalition for the New Georgia, which seeks to register 100,000 new voters by November and will work to fix failing local school systems.

“I’m 71,” King told a group of history teachers last summer, “but I’m ready for one more movement, I guess.”

In addition to this event, the Committee on the Appeal for Human Rights (COHAR), which was formed by Atlanta University Center students in 1960, commemorated the anniversary with a series of events including panel discussions with participants from the Atlanta Student Movement and notable experts; a keynote address by Spelman College alumna Marian Wright Edelman, the founder of the , Children’s Defense Fund who was active in the Atlanta movement and the broader Southern freedom struggle; and a seminar for students in the Atlanta University Center. A free exhibit with materials from the movement is on display in the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center through September.

Maynard Eaton is an 8-time EMMY Award winning TV newsman and political columnist who is also the moderator, executive editor and co-founder of NEWSMAKERS Live! and The NEWSMAKERS Journal in Atlanta, which embodies a unique “infotainment” concept that specializes in intense interviewing of prominent personalities and political figures.