Freedom of speech is a right enshrined in the Constitution, and boy did y’all use it this year.
Whether it was at the Capitol fighting for or against numerous bills, assailing city leaders over sewage overflows and water main breaks, illuminating people about the maternal mortality crisis in Georgia, advocating for kids caught up in Georgia’s foster care system, defending your candidate or calling for a local chemical plant to shut down, one thing was never in doubt — Atlanta had something to say.
So the floor is open. Here are 50 sentences that helped explain Atlanta in 2024.
Jan. 18: “You can help get Georgia Power to take the right actions in the essential timeframe. Actually, you’re the only five people in Georgia who can.”
-High school senior Evelyn Ford, speaking to the Public Service Commission about climate change in January. The PSC is the only government body with direct authority to regulate whatever Georgia Power does.
Jan. 26: “We cannot be confident because Mother Nature does not give us her game plan; what we are is prepared.”
-Natalie Dale, spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Transportation, reflecting on what the state has done in the 10 years since a snowstorm brought Atlanta traffic — and most everything else — to a halt in 2014.
Feb. 28: “We are in a moment when we have so much to lose. And that is why we have to show up. That is why we have to fight.”
–Bentley Hudgins, the Georgia state director of the Human Rights Campaign, on over 20 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in the 2024 Georgia General Assembly.
Feb. 29: “I can’t really find anybody that says what I’m doing is a terrible thing unless, you know, they own a tire shop.”
–Alex Benigno, known as the “Atlanta Magnet Man,” bikes around Atlanta with a hitched trailer that uses magnets to attract metal debris that poses a risk to people’s car tires.

March 5: “If these convenient resources are gone, how can I continue to live? How can I continue to provide for my family?”
–Ivori Schley, farmer and co-owner of AfroAgriculture on how the COVID-19 pandemic brought a lot of realizations about where our food comes from and how we can sustain it.
March 5: “This is not a natural disaster. This is not an act of God. This is an act of malfeasance by the City of Atlanta.”
–Attorney Meghan S. Jones represented Westside residents suing the City of Atlanta seeking damages for personal and real property and medical expenses over sewage overflows and flooding.
March 19: “Fixing policy in the face of unspeakable tragedy is not politics. It’s doing the right thing to ensure something like this never occurs again.”
–Republican state Rep. Houston Gaines, whose district includes Athens, where Laken Riley was killed, on HB 1105 which would require local and state police to identify, arrest and detain undocumented immigrants – responsibilities normally reserved for federal immigration enforcement. The bill passed and was signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp.
March 28: “The American Library Association are trying to poison the minds of our children with their radical agenda and their Marxist leader.”
–Republican state Sen. Larry Walker speaking on a bill he sponsored that would have outlawed the American Library Association from Georgia’s public and school libraries, making it illegal for them to accept ALA funding.

March 29: “The House has continued to deliver on those issues that matter most to the people of our state: cutting taxes, improving and investigating in our education, strengthening our public safety and improving the quality of life for each and every Georgian. You know, some folks choose politics, the House chooses results.”
–Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns after gaveling out the chamber on the last day of the Georgia General Assembly.

April 11: “There should be a committee in place here in Georgia where if a man is wrongfully convicted or woman … and they get out of prison, you should automatically compensate them people when they get out. They shouldn’t have to go through all this that they have to go through to get compensated.”
–Lee Clark, former Georgia inmate wrongly convicted of murder who spent 25 years in prison. In Georgia, compensation for the wrongfully convicted and jailed is handled like any other piece of state legislation: a single resolution for each person. Clark’s resolution for $1.6 million in compensation failed in the 2024 legislative session.
April 29: “I think we need to make clear that we need to address both social factors and medical factors. Because it’s not just one or the other.”
–Julie Zaharatos, a public health advisor on the CDC Maternal Mortality Prevention Team.

April 29: “We unequivocally denounce the brutal police response. The overreaction and the escalation of the police presence on campus was egregious and emblematic of what students gathered to protest — the use of state violence to displace and dispossess.”
–Alison Collis Greene, an associate professor of American religious history at Emory, on the university’s use of force to break up what witnesses described as a peaceful protest against the Israel-Hamas war.
April 29: “Atlanta is the perfect place … this is one of the top production hubs in the world, and even before that, it’s already a creative place as we see through our vibrant arts and culture community.”
–Chris Escobar, owner of the Plaza and Tara Theatres, on the potential of Atlanta to become the new home of the Sundance Film Festival.
April 30: “People rely on certain things and they start building their budget around it. When you start retiring things and doing all of that, it’s not so easy for them to pivot.”
–Richard Hicks, the CEO of Inspiredu, a digital equity and education nonprofit based in Atlanta, on 722,000 households in Georgia losing access to a monthly assistance program used to help low-income people get online.
May 7: “We believe in fighting for justice … and stand up for what’s right … we got to keep our daddy’s legacy going and don’t let his death be in vain.”
–Anitra Hollman on the $3.8 million settlement approved by the city of Atlanta for her father Johnny Hollman’s death. The 62-year-old church deacon died last fall after a struggle with a city police officer.

May 17: “If Morehouse cannot hold those tensions that threaten to divide our country, then no place on the planet can hold those tensions.”
–Morehouse President David Thomas on President Joe Biden delivering the commencement address at the HBCU despite students calling on the administration to rescind its invitation due to Biden’s support of Israel in the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
May 20: “The system, it’s failed me. Every time we go to court, they say, ‘No more postponing.’ You know, they have to come up with something. Well, they postpone it again.”
–Barbara Williams, mother of a man shot and killed in 2023. She says delays caused by the Young Thug trial, the longest in Georgia history, is keeping her family from getting closure.
May 29: “I really need some protection against a bankruptcy. I just can’t do it on the same basis again.”
-At an event celebrating the completion of two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle, Commissioner Tim Echols said further expansion would need to come with protections against runaway costs and other problems that plagued the last project. The reactors cost more than twice its original budget and ended years behind schedule.

May 29: “It really took a toll on my mental health because I felt like in some way that I was the one that had failed. Like, you know, you have one job, your body is set up to do this. What in the world happened? You walk in with this planned idea and you walk out with your life forever changed.”
–Heather Dobbs, a certified doula working at Morehouse School of Medicine. She survived severe complications during the birth of her daughter and now advocates for women to have more support during and after pregnancy.

June 1: “I will be candid that overnight, we did not do the best job of communicating. We could have done a better job over the past day. And for that, I apologize.”
–Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens on the city’s initial failure to communicate updates after water main breaks affected thousands of people.
June 11: “Imagine being an entity that goes in and removes a kid from their house and then not being the agency that’s chomping at the bit to make sure you get a housing voucher for that young person.”
–Ruth White, director of the National Center for Housing and Child Welfare questioning why the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) wasn’t more aggressive in bringing federal housing vouchers to former foster youth who qualify.
June 19: “I think the way that funding works for people who are trying to start companies, especially for Black founders, is just totally broken.”
–Toby Egbuna had to be resourceful to secure enough funding when starting his tech company called Chezie.

June 27: “It’s been a terrible thing, what you’ve done. We’re in a state where in six weeks, you don’t even know whether you’re pregnant or not, but you cannot see the doctor and have him decide on what your circumstances are, whether you need help.”
–President Joe Biden presses former President Donald Trump on his record on abortion during a debate in Atlanta.

July 2: “We are victors, we are not victims, we are victors.”
–Dave Hayward, co-founder and coordinator of Touching Up Our Roots, an LGBTQ story project that developed the Atlanta LGBTQ+ Story Tour. Hayward’s mission is to entertain and uplift his passengers while educating them on the history of Atlanta’s LGBTQ community.
July 10: “When they do stuff like this, it makes a big difference. They may not see it, but people don’t come up here for nothing.”
–Michael Duncan, who was at the Dorothy C. Benson Senior Multipurpose Complex in Sandy Springs on Tuesday to take advantage of the Georgia Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program. The program allows senior citizens to gain more access to fresh foods in their community.

July 30: “I don’t have to tell folks in Atlanta that generations of America lead the fight for freedom. And now the baton is in our hands.”
–Vice President Kamala Harris speaking at her first presidential campaign rally in Georgia.

Aug. 3: “They’re on fire. They’re doing a great job. Janice Johnston, Rick Jeffares and Janelle King, three people are all pitbulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory.”
–Former President Donald Trump praising the three Republican members of the Georgia State Election Board for attempting to pass a rule that could have allowed local election boards to refuse to certify election results.
Aug. 6: “I tell people all the time, the fact that you’re seeing more attacks on LGBTQ folks … it’s actually a sign of progress. It means that we’ve been winning, we’ve been doing the work of getting LGBTQ representation in children’s books in schools. That’s why they want to ban them.”
–State Sen. Kim Jackson, the first openly gay state senator in Georgia on a surge in legislation that could hurt the LGBTQ community.
Aug. 8: “If Congress doesn’t act, then you’re gonna see mom-and-pop small businesses in every little town in Georgia have federal tax rates that will be higher than the big international companies that are operating in Georgia.”
–Georgia Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Chris Clark discusses why lawmakers should prioritize extending the state’s small business tax credits.
Aug. 19: “If we exclude parts of Atlanta from access, we simply continue to build inequality into the fabric of our city … we cannot have equity without transit on this corridor.”
–Atlanta City Council President Doug Shipman discusses the need to extend the Atlanta Streetcar and access to the city’s public transit system.
Aug. 28: “I really do not understand why they could not provide just a few minutes to a Palestinian. It would have been a beautiful symbol to unite the party and they chose not to do it.”
–Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman on the decision of the Democratic National Convention to deny the request of Palestinian speakers offered up by uncommitted delegates to speak at the convention.

Sept. 4: “To put her in a position where she can’t afford to take care of those children and they would take the children away, makes no sense to me at all.”
–Judge Michael Key, chair of the Georgia Child Support Commission upon hearing the case details for Annalinda Martinez who lost her oldest children after the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services discovered they were homeless and is now demanding she pay back a portion of the costs from their time in foster care.
Sept. 24: “Sometimes you got to get back in the weeds to get the best ticks.”
-Emory researcher Arabella Lewis during tick collection and testing is part of an ongoing effort to get a better handle on Georgia’s tick population and the diseases they carry.
Sept. 5: “Until we center the people and start a serious, bipartisan conversation in Washington and state capitols across the country to advance popular, commonsense gun safety reforms, the sad truth is it’s only a matter of time before this kind of tragedy comes knocking on your door. Mass shootings as routine aren’t the cost of freedom, they’re the cost of blind obstinance. We don’t have to live this way. If we refuse to act while our children are dying, and in a moment when no one is safe from rampant gun violence, then shame on us.”
–Sen. Raphael Warnock after the deadliest school shooting in Georgia history at Apalachee High School in Barrow County.
Sept. 30: “A review of our higher courts’ interpretations of ‘liberty’ demonstrates that liberty in Georgia includes in its meaning, in its protections, and in its bundle of rights the power of a woman to control her own body, to decide what happens to it and in it, and to reject state interference with her healthcare choices.”
–Fulton Superior Judge Robert McBurney found Georgia’s abortion law unconstitutional and ruled that it cannot be enforced. Republican state Attorney General Chris Carr quickly appealed the ruling.
Oct. 3: “State leaders love to boast about how Georgia is number one as a place to do business in this country. But what does that mean when businesses of the day are poisoning the very people who live here?”
–Devin Barrington-Ward, managing director of the Black Futurist Group, spoke during a rally at the Georgia State Capitol to call for the shutdown of the BioLab chemical plant that caught fire on Sept. 29.
Oct. 8: “It is cruel that our patients’ ability to access the reproductive health care they need has been taken away yet again. Once again, we are being forced to turn away those in need of abortion care beyond six weeks of pregnancy and deny them care that we are fully capable of providing to change their lives.”
–Kwajelyn Jackson, executive director of Feminist Women’s Health Center on the Georgia Supreme Court reinstating the state’s abortion ban a week after a lower court blocked the law, briefly allowing providers to resume offering the procedure up to the previous legal cutoff of roughly 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Oct. 21: “I wouldn’t say my husband was freaking out, but he definitely was getting nervous. He kept saying, ‘I don’t want you to have this baby in the truck.’”
-First-time mom Hannah Cabe on having to drive an hour and a half to deliver her baby in Macon. Cabe lives in what researchers call a maternity care desert, defined as a county without OB-GYN providers or childbirth facilities.
Oct. 23: “We are overly prepared for what we do. Yet we still face those questions about ‘Does she know what she’s doing? Does she have the skill set to do this work?’ And that can be disappointing because I don’t think those questions have been asked of those who have sat in the seats before us. But I think we prove it every day.”
–Bianca Motley Broom, the first Black person and woman mayor of College Park.
Oct. 25: “I can’t explain why the tests from the plants that shows everything was fine and their tests showing that everything in the river was questionable aren’t in line.”
–David Clark, Fulton County director of Public Works, when asked why a spike in e.Coli found in June of 2023 by the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper went undetected by the county.
Oct. 28: “I don’t know how they can continue to afford that program, but we’ll see, we’ll see how long that lasts down in Georgia. But, but I will say, compare the values of this state to the values as it relates to workers and women’s rights. LGBTQ rights, civil rights, voting rights down in the state of Georgia. I think it’s a pretty damn easy decision.”
-California Gov. Gavin Newsom on his state expanding its film tax credit to compete with Georgia and other states.
Nov. 2: “I’ve learned from my mistakes, you know. I come from nothing and I’ve made something and I didn’t take full advantage of it. I’m sorry.”
–Rapper and Grammy winner Young Thug, whose given name is Jeffery Williams, after pleading guilty to gang, drug and gun charges, effectively ending the longest trial in Georgia history.
Nov. 6: “I think the major takeaway last night was that for whatever reason, and I think we’re going to be interrogating for months using academic survey data, the extent to which underlying racism and sexism might have hampered Kamala Harris’ ability to attract votes.”
–Emory University political science professor Andra Gillespie on Vice President Kamala Harris’s firm loss to former President Donald Trump despite many of the polls showing her ahead.

Nov. 12: “Election integrity doesn’t happen just in the 11th hour, as some fringe activists claimed to try to do this past month. It is planned years in advance.”
–Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on certifying the election, as fraud claims dissipate after Donald Trump’s win.
Nov. 14: “We cannot turn a blind eye to the inhumane, violent and hazardous conditions that people are subjected to inside the Fulton County Jail.”
–Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division
Nov. 20: “No foreign government is simply entitled as a matter of right to American weapons with no strings attached.”
–Sen. Jon Ossoff after voting in favor of a resolution led by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to block the sale of some weapons to Israel.
Nov. 22: “Georgia’s farmers have experienced unprecedented losses as a result of Hurricane Helene and the storms that followed it, and we’re taking decisive action on the state level to provide relief for them as quickly as possible.”
–Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp
Nov. 22: “By our calculations, the city stiffed itself by at least $3 milllion, probably closer to $3.7 million.”
–Sean Keenan, housing reporter for Atlanta Civic Circle, on the City of Atlanta missing out on millions of dollars for affordable housing money with the Gulch deal.

Dec. 3: “My whole campaign was premised off my students. They’re my North Star for quite literally everything I do, everything I would decide on.”
-23-year-old Bryce Berry will be the youngest lawmaker and the only active teacher in the legislature when he takes office in January.
Dec. 19: “While this is the rare case in which DA Willis and her office must be disqualified due to a significant appearance of impropriety, we cannot conclude that the record also supports the imposition of the extreme sanction of dismissal of the indictment under the appropriate standard.”
–The Georgia Court of Appeals removing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her office from the Georgia election interference case involving President-elect Trump. The court declined to dismiss the case. Fulton County prosecutors appealed the ruling to the Georgia Supreme Court.