Commemorating the Movement
King understood that, at the start of the twenty-first century, it was critical to remember the specific people and places of the Atlanta Student Movement of the early 1960s, and he led efforts to memorialize the year of student sit-ins.
Atlanta newspapers republished Sullivan’s “An Appeal for Human Rights” on the 40th anniversary of its first publication alongside an updated “Second Appeal,” and King and other surviving members of the Atlanta University Center activists broke ground at numerous locations around the city to set up markers from the Georgia Historical Society.
Lonnie King himself was commemorated for his leadership and on-the-ground efforts in the Movement by Georgia’s House of Representatives, and in 2000 the Atlanta University Center Freedom Fighters Heritage Weekend was memorialized. Lonnie King, Jr., passed away in 2019 at eighty-three.
