Atlanta, Georgia is the capital of the state, as well as the most populated city, and the ninth most populous metropolitan area nationwide. Each year, the city hosts many Atlanta music festivals, plays, and other cultural events.
Atlanta’s rich history can be traced back to the time of the Civil War when Atlanta served as an important railroad and military supply hub. The city was the target of a major Union invasion in 1864, when General Hold evacuated Atlanta and General William Sherman ordered that Atlanta be burned to the ground. This fall of Atlanta was a major turning point in the Civil War, since it’s publicized fall gave much confidence to the Union army and lead to the re election of Abraham Lincoln, and later, to the surrender of the Confederacy a year later.
Gradually, the city was rebuilt, and in 1868, Atlanta became the fifth and final city to serve as the state’s capital. Beginning in about 1904, some of Atlanta’s more affluent residents began to build large mansions, many of which still stand today as declared historical landmarks. Racial tension, however, were far from dissipated. In 1906, the Atlanta Race Riot left at least 27 dead and many more citizens injured, and seven years later, in 1913, Leo Frank, a Jewish supervisor at an Atlanta factory was put on trial for the rape and murder of a thirteen year old white employee from nearby Marietta. Doubts about Frank’s guilt led to riots in 1915, culminating in his public lynching.
In the 1960s, after the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education case ruling, Atlanta was a major organizing center of the US Civil Rights Movement, with Dr. Martin Luther King and students from Atlanta's historically black colleges and universities playing major roles in the movement's leadership. On October 19, 1960, a sit-in at the lunch counters of several Atlanta department stores led to the arrest of Dr. King and several students, drawing attention from the national media and from presidential candidate John F. Kennedy. Despite this incident, Atlanta's political and business leaders fostered Atlanta's image as "the city too busy to hate". In 1961, Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. became one of the few Southern white mayors to support desegregation of Atlanta's public schools. While the city mostly avoided further confrontation, minor race riots did occur in 1965 and in 1968.