January 15 – A Date that Changed Atlanta…and World

Each day on my personal Facebook page, I post a historic tidbit that always begins, “On today’s date…”

Today’s date, January 15, is a significant date for both Atlanta, both locally and globally.

On January 15, 96 years ago in 1929, Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia. The impact of the Baptist minister and Nobel Laureate on civil rights and racial reconciliation that he made in his short 39 years is impossible to summarize in a single post. While King’s efforts to highlight that separate is inherently not equal was to reform the Jim Crow South, his movement inspired others across the globe. Colin Bell’s nomination of King for the Peace Prize was simple, “for his work and witness which promotes the dignity and worth of the human person.”

He was also nominated by eight members of the Swedish Parliament who cited his more local efforts nominating him “for his efforts in a nonviolence campaign in favor of the civil rights of blacks in the United States.”

This week, there will be many reflections on his life and legacy, but in no place more than in his home of Atlanta.

On the day King was born, elsewhere in Atlanta, a local company was celebrating 40 years in business as 136 years ago in 1889, the Pemberton Medicine Company was incorporated in Atlanta.

John Stith Pemberton practiced medicine and surgery first in Rome and its environs and then in Columbus, where in 1855 he established a wholesale-retail drug business specializing in materia medica (substances used in the composition of medical remedies). “Doc” Pemberton would eventually establish a new company in Atlanta, but would pass away having sold his shares to Asa G. Candler before the Pemberton Medicine Company’s incorporation was approved. In 1892, the Pemberton Medicine Company would be reincorporated as The Coco-Cola Company.

Like King, it’s impossible to summarize the impact of the Coca-Cola Company on Atlanta and the world, though obviously in vastly different ways, mainly in how to market a global brand. Why does Santa now always wear a red suit? Thank Coke. While Coca-Cola wasn’t founded to help the poor, oppressed, and needy, today Coke works to provide clean water sources for communities in impoverished areas, contributed $1.6 billion in grants to support initiatives around the world. Coke also employs over 700,000 people around the globe.

Where these two intersect is in 1964 when invitations went out to a reception and dinner in Atlanta to honor King’s award of the Nobel Peace Prize. When none of Atlanta’s elite, white leaders responded to the dinner invitation, Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen approached former Coca-Cola President Robert Woodruff. Woodruff had stepped down as the head of Coca-Cola in 1955, but was still a driving force in Atlanta’s business community and retained an office at Coca-Cola. He was also an ally to Allen’s reform-minded policies. Woodruff quickly went to current Coca-Cola CEO J. Paul Austin with the issue.

According to NPR, The New York Times had published a front-page story about the tepid response King was getting in his own hometown, and Austin decided to flex Coca-Cola’s muscle.

Austin put his foot down and issued Atlanta an ultimatum: “Coca-Cola cannot stay in a city that’s going to have this kind of reaction and not honor a Nobel Peace Prize winner.”

NPR reports that nearly 1,600 ended up attending the event at Atlanta’s Dinkler Hotel, and King began his speech, “This marvelous hometown welcome and honor will remain dear to me as long as the chords of memory shall lengthen.”

As we recognize King’s legacy and celebrates his 96th birthday January 15, it is fitting in proper to raise a Coke to King’s memory.