Many books have been written about the civil rights movement in Atlanta. 

Many books about civil rights leaders have scenes set in Atlanta.

As its title suggests, Stephen G.N. Tuck’s powerful “Beyond Atlanta: The Struggle for Racial Equality in Georgia: 1940-1980” looks at the civil rights era through the events that happened in other Georgia cities.

Valdosta, for example, receives a couple of mentions. Neither reference reflects well on Valdosta. 

For example, there is this sentence referring to the 1948 election: “Cross-burnings were believed to have been the reason for the minimal turnout of black voters in the southeastern town of Valdosta.”

Valdosta is not alone.

Tuck chronicles the injustices and the wrongs as well as victories in cities and towns throughout Georgia.

He paints a picture of several Georgias from the prosperous black communities and the training grounds for civil rights leaders in Atlanta to the brutality of South Georgia cities such as Albany.

“Beyond Georgia” is an older book published in 2001 by the University of Georgia Press.

It is an informative, heart-breaking look at racial disparity in Georgia and how racial injustice “hampered economic and social progress for all Georgians.”