City of Atlanta Land Acknowledgment

I created the following land acknowledgment on behalf of LEAD Atlanta and the City of Atlanta, respectively, in 2024. I also presented on how City of Atlanta, and by extension, the State of Georgia, have handled tribal relations throughout history. These presentations were heavily informed by experts from the Muscogee Nation and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative at Emory University. As a rule, I do not present or provide acknowledgments without at least a 30 minute presentation on the context and current work of Tribal Nations in Georgia — such as preventing the misinterpretation of Native history, the complicated relationship with the Braves franchise, or building Georgia’s first National Park at Ocmulgee Mounds.

We respectfully acknowledge that the City of Atlanta is located on the ancestral homelands of the Muscogee (Creek) people. We recognize the sustained oppression, land dispossession, and involuntary removals of the Muscogee and Cherokee peoples from Georgia and the Southeast. We commit to creating a city that is inclusive of this history and our Indigenous communities.