Morning, y’all! Today, Punxsutawney Phil will issue his annual winter forecast from Gobbler’s Knob in Pennsylvania. Everything about Groundhog Day sounds like a practical joke.
Let’s get to it.
HAPPY BLACK HISTORY MONTH!
This year marks the 100th anniversary of Black History Month. At the AJC, we’re celebrating with 28 days of fascinating, revealing, challenging, moving and insightful articles about Black culture and Atlanta’s role in Black American history.
Let’s start with a question: If you had to pick five watershed moments for Black progress in Atlanta, what would they be? The AJC’s Ernie Suggs decided on the following:
🐦🔥 1961: The University of Georgia admits its first Black students
🐦🔥 1968: Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated
🐦🔥 1973, 1974: Maynard Jackson becomes Atlanta’s first Black mayor; Hank Aaron breaks Babe Ruth’s home run record
🐦🔥 1994: OutKast’s debut album “Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik” is released
🐦🔥 2020: Racial justice protests and COVID test Atlanta’s strength
I was fascinated to see how Suggs wove these moments together to show the waves of progress, challenges and cultural growth in Atlanta and beyond.
🔎 TODAY’S MUST READ: Tracing race and power through Atlanta’s history
Still looking for a great Black History Month read? We got you. Pick up one of these pieces of creative storytelling to immerse yourself in the culture.
Not signed up yet? What’re you waiting for? Get A.M. ATL in your inbox each weekday morning. And keep scrolling for more news.
SNOW FLURRIES
Quick snow update for our northeast Georgia friends: Gwinnett County schools are closed today, as are schools in Banks, Dawson, Fannin, Gilmer, Habersham, Lumpkin, Pickens, Rabun, Stephens, Towns, Union and White counties. More info here.
I was genuinely really proud of Atlanta drivers for heeding the warnings of meteorologists, officials ... I was really encouraged by that and just generally proud of people for protecting themselves, protecting their neighbors.
Cox-Rosen covered her first Atlanta ice storm last weekend. She said, for all she’s heard about how much Atlantans fear winter weather, she was pretty impressed!
THE FIRST LIBERTY PROBE HEATS UP
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is going full speed ahead on a probe into First Liberty Building & Loan, even as his GOP colleagues try to curb his office’s investigative powers.
- Raffensperger tapped Jason Doss, a veteran securities fraud attorney, to lead the probe into the powerful, politically connected Georgia lender accused of running a $140 million Ponzi scheme. First Liberty, which collapsed in June, has financial ties to high-profile Georgia conservatives.
- “By appointing Mr. Doss as our investigative agent, we are ramping up our efforts to ensure justice is served,” Raffensperger said.
- Meanwhile, a group of senior Georgia House Republicans backed legislation that would stop Raffensperger’s office from overseeing securities and commodities and transfer that duty to a different department.
🔎 READ MORE: The latest on the investigation
MUST-KNOW POLITICS AND BUSINESS
🛼 Quite a picture: A large group of roller skaters, rollerbladers and skateboarders cruised through the bitter cold this weekend for a “Skaters Against ICE and War” rally.
⚖️ The man accused of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley wants a new trial, which would vacate his guilty verdict and life sentence. Last week, a judge heard testimony from a DNA expert retained by the Venezuelan man’s attorneys.
🔐 A partial government shutdown will drag on as Congress debates reining in the Trump administration’s immigration actions. House Speaker Mike Johnson says it will be a few days before the latest government funding package comes up for a vote.
BOBSLED WISDOM
Did you know the most decorated Black Winter Olympian in history is from Douglasville, Georgia?
- U.S. bobsled legend Elana Meyers Taylor is headed to her fifth Winter Olympics this month.
- She’s nabbed three Olympic silvers and two Olympic bronzes, plus a score of World Championship medals during her nearly two-decade career.
- You have to be made of strong stuff to willingly hurtle down a frozen track at what seems like light speed, but Taylor’s mettle doesn’t end there. She’s also the mother of two young children who are both deaf.
- She says she wants to show them anything is possible.
- “I want to be the living example of how even though people tell you no, that doesn’t mean you have to listen,” she says. “The good news is, if people tell them no, they can’t hear it.”
❄️ READ MORE: Taylor talks career, motherhood and why she chose bobsled of all things
NEWS BITES
Elderberry honey, raspberry jalapeno jam and more Southern-made eats to try
You had me at “cherry drinking vinegar.”
What to know about the 150th Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, which starts today
Trivia time! What breed has won the most Best in Show honors at the WKC show? Answer at the bottom.
We will allow the most cautious of optimism.
Why people share music with their dogs
Sometimes the “sharing music” is more like “making up increasingly absurd jingles using the dog’s nonsensical nicknames.”
ON THIS DATE
Feb. 2, 1946
Ground Hog sees shadow, goes out on a limb — like other weathermen. The Ground Hog got up early this morning, put on his britches, looked sourly at his wife who was sleeping with her knees scrounged up under her chin, and tiptoed timidly out front to face his annual task. To see or not to see — that was the question. It had been the question since some Smart Aleck of the long-ago had kidded a bunch of yokels with that gimmick about the adumbration of the Marmota Monax. (Don’t bother to look it up — it means Ground Hog spelled the hard way.) Why the Ground Hog was made the fall guy in this annual meteorological prognostication hoax has never been made clear.
I love reading stuff that sounds like it was really fun to write. This delightful paragraph also contains every letter of the alphabet except J and Z.
ONE MORE THING
Trivia answer: Wire fox terriers have won the most “Best in Show” accolades, followed by poodles of various sizes at 11.
Which leads me to wonder: When a toy poodle meets a standard poodle, does it sense any kinship? Obviously dogs don’t possess reflexive self-consciousness, so it’s not like they’re thinking, “Oh, that me is GIANT.” It still must be strange.
Thanks for reading to the very bottom of A.M. ATL. Questions, comments, ideas? Contact us at AMATL@ajc.com.
Until next time.
About the Author
AJ Willingham is an National Emmy, NABJ and Webby award-winning journalist who loves talking culture, religion, sports, social justice, infrastructure and the arts. She lives in beautiful Smyrna-Mableton and went to Syracuse University.
