By Navdeep K. Jassal , Post News Group Ambassador

When I landed in Atlanta last summer my first stop was ‘Sweet Auburn’ Avenue. Caught the MARTA train over to Peachtree Center Station and walked down to Auburn Avenue.

I was so excited to walk down the avenue of Civil Rights giants known today as the Big Six. Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer, John Lewis, A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins and Whitney Young.

One of the closest stops to the beginning of Auburn Avenue was the APEX (African American Panoramic Experience) Museum so I stopped in to peruse the collection. What struck me about this museum was it started off the history of Africans as royalty in the world versus enslaved people as we are taught in our United States history classes.

There was also a life-size model of how human beings were taken to the ships, shackled and laid down, side-by-side, in very tight quarters to be shipped across the Atlantic to Western nations. These people could have been boxes full of dry goods or spices for all it mattered. They were a loaded up like a commodity and nothing else.

I learned that the largest numbers of enslaved people were brought to Brazil, and not to the United States. I also learned that Portugal was one of the biggest ports of entry for slavery.

There were two other very promising exhibits: one of African American inventors and patent holders, and the other on African American Women in STEM (Science/Technology/Engineering/Math) and their contributions for the prosperity of the world.

This museum’s president and founder is Dan Moore Sr., and I had the honor of meeting him twice during my stay in Atlanta.

In our first meeting, he took me for a ride in his pickup truck down Auburn Avenue and pointed out all the historic sites. He took me to his office to share some amazing books with me: specifically, “Why We Must Vote,” authored by Donna Briggins, Ph.D., because I told him I was in Atlanta to volunteer in voting rights.

We strolled past The Atlanta Daily World Building — the oldest daily Black newspaper founded in 1928; the unofficial ‘mayor’ of Auburn Avenue John Wesley Dobbs’ statue, “Through His Eyes”; Rep. John Lewis’ mural; the Southern Christian Leadership Council offices where a lot of organizing was done back in the day; Ebenezer Baptist Church – Senator Raphael Warnock’s current congregation and that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ; King’s and Coretta Scott King memorial, King’s first childhood home and museum (both of which I did not get to visit due to COVID restrictions), and the Behold Monument which commemorates the historic principles that guided the life and works of MLK Jr.

Two outstanding extras of that day were seeing the parking lot where one of the scenes where “Black Panther” was filmed (which I searched for in Oakland many times) and visiting a Madame C.J. Walker salon. Madame Walker was the first wealthiest woman in the United States — any woman, not just a Black woman.

It was a deeply moving and thought-provoking day for me. On the way back to MARTA, I walked around continuing to explore.

I spotted a sign for a street called Equitable Place NE. There were several detours getting to the small little alley-like street. Ironic, don’t you think? We continue to fight the struggle every single day.

Navdeep K. Jassal has lived in Oakland since 2002 and is a volunteer at the First Presbyterian Church Food Ministry.

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