Ernie Suggs
Reporter for Enterprise
Ernie Suggs has been a reporter at the AJC since 1997, currently covering a variety of breaking news and investigative stories for page A1. He previously reported for newspapers in New York City and Durham, N.C. A veteran of more than 20 years as a newspaper reporter, Suggs has covered stories ranging from politics to civil rights to higher education. A 1990 graduate of North Carolina Central University, with a degree in English Literature, Suggs was also a Harvard University Nieman Fellow. He is currently on the Nieman Board of Trustees and the former national vice president of the National Association of Black Journalists. His appreciation for Prince and the New York Yankees is unmatched.
Latest from Ernie Suggs
Mary Cecelia Robinson Spivey knew she belonged early on. Only 15 years old when she arrived on her college campus for the first time in 1929, she found herself surrounded in class by a group of boys who didn’t have any answers for the professor. Finally, she raised her hand. “I said, ‘Oh, I got this,’” she recalled...
It was life imitating art in the cruelest of ways. On July 17, 2014, in a scene captured on camera, Staten Island man Eric Garner was killed by members of the New York City Police Department who put him in a deadly choke hold. Garner would painfully repeat, “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.” Those three words became...

Kent Fite serves both Coke and Pepsi in his rural North Carolina restaurant, so he didn’t understand the hubbub. Neither did he care. Fite and his school teacher wife, Laura, drove to Atlanta for an all-expense paid trip to the Super Bowl – courtesy of Pepsi. “Pepsi was founded in North Carolina,” reminded Fite, who...
Before there was Halle, before there was Beyoncé, there was Lena. Or, as Fred Sanford lustily called her, “The Horne.” For more than seven decades, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s, no black female artist shined as bright as Lena Horne. And perhaps none had as much pressure. Only the second African-American performer...
Steve and Cindy Cariglio rose to their feet to watch in awe as Mercedes-Benz Stadium’s retractable, panoramic sliding roof opened Sunday. As pale skies turned dusty blue, the ebullient New England Patriot fans took their seats, full of anticipation for the big game. “This is so absolutely beautiful,” said Steve Cariglio...
Tapping into Atlanta's Civil Rights legacy, Andrew Young, John Lewis and Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., participated in the opening coin toss of the Super Bowl on Sunday. Bernice King had the honor of actually tossing the coin. The Patriots captain called head. The coin came up tails. The Patriots elected to defer....
On the eve of Super Bowl LIII, a solitary mural to Colin Kaepernick is no more. Artist Fabian Williams, who painted the mural of Kaepernick standing next to Muhammad Ali on the side of an abandoned building on the corner of Fair Street and Joseph E. Lowery Boulevard, said the building was torn down this week. >> Read more...

On the eve of Super Bowl LIII, a solitary mural to Colin Kaepernick is no more. Artist Fabian Williams, who painted the mural of Kaepernick standing next to Muhammad Ali on the side of an abandoned building on the corner of Fair Street and Joseph E. Lowery Boulevard, said the building was torn down this week. “I just happened...
It can be argued that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling that overturned the legal doctrine of “separate but equal” is one of the most monumental decisions in the history of American jurisprudence. So how was the case assisted by dolls? Years before NAACP Legal Defense attorney Thurgood Marshall...
When Maroon 5 canceled a planned press conference to discuss the band’s upcoming Super Bowl halftime performance, this much was made crystal clear: Despite the NFL’s efforts to move on, the controversy ignited by quarterback Colin Kaepernick and other players’ decision to kneel during the national anthem as a way to protest...
When Maroon 5 canceled a planned press conference to discuss the band’s upcoming Super Bowl halftime performance, this much was made crystal clear: Despite the NFL’s efforts to move on, the controversy ignited by quarterback Colin Kaepernick and other players’ decision to kneel during the national anthem as a way to protest...