The first Waffle House opened in 1955 in Avondale Estates, an eastern suburb of Atlanta. Since its founding, the company has expanded to occupy more than 1,400 locations, most of which are located in the Southeast. Courtesy of Waffle House The New Georgia Encyclopedia does not hold the copyright for this media resource and can neither grant nor deny permission to republish or reproduce the image online or in print. All requests for permission to publish or reproduce the resource must be submitted to the rights holder.

Georgia’s 126th county, Wilcox County comprises 380 square miles and was created in 1857 in the central part of the state from Dooly, Irwin, and Pulaski counties. Later, parts of Wilcox County were used to create Turner (1905) and Ben Hill (1906) counties. Historians disagree about the origin of Wilcox County’s name, some claiming that it is named after General Mark Wilcox, a soldier in the Indian Wars who later served in the Georgia General Assembly, and others believing that it is named for his father, Captain John Wilcox.

Between 1937 and 1988, the Reverend William Holmes Borders served as pastor of Wheat Street Baptist Church in Atlanta, where he campaigned for civil rights and distinguished himself as a charismatic spokesperson for the city’s poor and dispossessed. Borders was instrumental in the hiring of Atlanta’s first Black police officers in the 1940s, led the campaign to desegregate the city’s public transportation in the 1950s, and established the nation’s first federally subsidized, church-operated rental housing project in the 1960s.

William J. Simmons, seated during a 1921 investigation of the Ku Klux Klan by a U.S. House of Representatives committee, was inspired by D. W. Griffith's film, The Birth of a Nation, and the Leo Frank trial in Atlanta to reestablish the Klan in 1915. Simmons designed the hooded uniforms and secret rituals associated with the organization. Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division The New Georgia Encyclopedia does not hold the copyright for this media resource and can neither grant nor deny permission to republish or reproduce the image online or in print.

Adella Hunt Logan was an African American teacher, clubwoman, and suffragist known primarily for her activist work in education, public health, and women’s rights. Adella Hunt was born during the Civil War (1861-65) to a white planter and a free woman of African and Cherokee descent. After attending W. H. Bass Academy in Hancock County, she continued her education at Atlanta University, earning an upper normal division diploma in 1881. That same year, she began her teaching career at American Missionary Association in Albany.