From Juneteenth to the Fourth of July, Atlanta History Center commemorates Civic Season, a nationally recognized program that encourages museums to use the momentous occasion of America’s 250th anniversary to offer community, civics, and history programming to a new generation of young people.
This year, we have many fun programs planned over the next 2 weeks — movie screenings, trivia, games, and more— but something available for everyone is the opening of the Civic Season Bookstore at the Margaret Mitchell House. We will stock items from our Civic Season Reading list that provide some piece to the American Story.
Below are 5 books we think you should read this Civic Season.
Declaring Independence: Why 1776 Matters
by Edward J. Larson
We start our reading list with the moment itself — this brilliant examination of the pivotal year of independence by Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar Edward Larson.
This book chronicles the rise of a movement and identifies the factors that transformed the American colonists from advocates for their rights as British subjects in January to an independent republic by December. Unlike most histories of the American Revolution, Declaring Independence puts the monumental year in context—and shows how success was far from guaranteed.
Flee North: A Forgotten Hero and the Fight for Freedom in Slavery’s Borderland
By Scott Shane
Ahead of the opening of Atlanta History Center’s expansive exhibition on the Civil War Era More Perfect Union, we recommend this account of the extraordinary abolitionist, liberator, and writer Thomas Smallwood, a man who was born into slavery and then helped hundreds of others escape it through the Underground Railroad.
As told by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Scott Shane, Flee North is the first biography of Smallwood’s story.
Native Nations: A Millennium in North America
By Kathleen DuVal
Winner of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for History, Native Nations highlights the diverse indigenous nations that existed in North America long before anyone else arrived. Called “A magisterial overview of a thousand years of Native American history” (The New York Review of Books), this book offer thorough, thoughtful global context of the North American continent.
Civil Sights: Sweet Auburn, a Journey Through Atlanta’s National Trasure
By Gene Kansas
Throughout this year, Atlanta History Center is observing the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by reflecting on Atlanta’s place in the American story. One place where that is more apparent than in the rise of the Sweet Auburn neighborhood, a center of Atlanta’s Black business and social scene throughout the early to mid 1900s and the birthplace of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Civil Sights is a guidebook to the neighborhood, telling the stories of the neighborhood and the significance of the icons who came through it.
This volume includes illustrations from Atlanta architect Clay Kiningham, a foreword from New York Times best-selling author and journalist Gary M. Pomerantz, and an afterword from former dean of Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts Jacqueline Jones Royster.
A Night at the Sweet Gum Head: Drag, Drugs, Disco, and Atlanta’s Gay Revolution
By Martin Padgett
And finally, a must-have read as Pride Month ends, check out this book on Atlanta’s 1970s LGBTQ+ community.
A Night at Sweet Gum Head by journalist Martin Padgett (author of Many Passions of Michael Hardwick) chronicles Atlanta’s deep connections with queer history as a center for the LGBTQ+ community in the South.
Want to Learn More?
If you liked any of these or want other recommendations — each book featured in this list was featured as part of our Author Talk program. Join us to hear from some incredible authors and learn about books that you should include on your personal reading list.