More than a record
Hank Aaron is a Baseball Hall of Famer whose career connected the game to the movement. The New Georgia Encyclopedia describes him as continuing, both on and off the field, the struggle against segregation begun by Jackie Robinson in 1947.
The season the country watched
Contemporary accounts of Aaron's record-chasing season celebrate his grace amid racist taunts, threats, and jeers. That framing matters: the threats were the story, and so was his response to them. Aaron is a Georgia legend in the record books and in the state's civil rights history, and the two are not separate chapters.
What it means for Atlanta sports
Black Atlanta's relationship to its teams runs through people like Aaron — athletes who were asked to be symbols while being treated as problems, in a city that has always had to negotiate both at once.