ATLANTA — A new exhibition at the Atlanta History Center is offering visitors a fresh look at the most divisive moment in American history.
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The Civil War marked a turning point in the story of the nation, and key moments took place in Georgia. The exhibit, titled A More Perfect Union, uses images, artifacts and historical facts to help tell the story of the Civil War era through the people who lived it.
Historian Dr. La’Neice Littleton, Director of Community Collaboration at the Atlanta History Center, said the exhibit is designed to engage visitors through artifact-based storytelling.
“What we’re doing here is artifact-based storytelling, right? So this isn’t just telling a story; this is inviting folks to come in and engage with the artifacts from the era and beyond that era,” Littleton said.
She added that the exhibit encourages visitors to examine how life today is still influenced by the Civil War and the era surrounding it.
“And to really look at how our everyday lived experiences are influenced by the Civil War and the Civil War era today,” Littleton said.
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The exhibition takes visitors through military history while also exploring how everyday people in Georgia — both Black and white — lived during the period.
Sheffield Hale, president and CEO of the Atlanta History Center, said Atlanta played a pivotal role in the outcome of the war.
“I think for people in Atlanta, they really need to understand that the fate of the nation that we have today was decided here in Atlanta on September 2, 1864, when Sherman marched into the city to take it,” Hale said.
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“We influenced the entire history of the country here in September 1864,” Hale added.
Littleton said the exhibit also connects the city’s Civil War-era history to the Atlanta residents know today.
“So the Atlanta that we know today, the busiest airport in the world that we know today, is actually the vision of Atlanta’s founders in the mid-19th century, right? So where we’re living right now is the vision of the people who created Terminus, and then Marthasville, and finally Atlanta in the 1840s,” Littleton said.
Among the artifacts featured in the exhibit is an original pamphlet of a speech by Frederick Douglass — one of only 15 known copies in the world.
The exhibit is set to open Friday, July 10. For more information, click here.
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