Atlanta

Atlanta Public Schools celebrates 150 years with ‘Archives Museum’

ATLANTA — This year, Atlanta Public Schools is celebrating 150 years and the district’s history is on public display.

Channel 2’s Berndt Petersen was in downtown Atlanta, where the district has a collection of archives that tell the story from the beginning.

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Through the doors, down the stairs, and down the hall, there are thousands of artifacts in the district’s museum.

When Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Lisa Herring needs an extra dose of inspiration, she finds her way to a place known as the Legacy of Leadership.

“Those that came before you had the ability to lead. Certainly, you do as well. I have come down here in my own private time to just sit,” Herring said.

Every superintendent of Atlanta City Schools has a picture on the wall. It’s one section of the district’s Archives Museum.

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This year marks APS’s 150th year and the artifacts are just a small portion of more than 10,000 documents and photographs.

Some date back to just a few years after the end of the Civil War.

“The Freedmen’s Bureau actually started two grammar schools for Black children prior to 1872, prior to the district’s beginning. Our district absorbed those two schools,” Museum Archivist Erika Collier said.

Collier says the collection tells so many stories of a school system that rose out of the ashes of the Civil War, to the era of Civil Rights, to the members of the Legacy of Leadership who led the way.

“It is an extraordinary reality that brings us to pause and reflect from whence we came, to where we are, and where we are going,” Superintendent Herring said.

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Administrators hope the museum will be able to host a schedule of student field trips.

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