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Barry Goldwater was barnstorming around the country in a presidential campaign, and the fight over civil rights was sizzling around the South when a new newspaper, the Atlanta Times, was born.

Launched with considerable fanfare in 1964, the Times was intended to be a conservative voice that would appeal to readers offended by the supposedly more liberal Atlanta Constitution and Atlanta Journal.

“On that June day in 1964, when 175,000 copies of the hefty 128-page premier issue were printed, the Atlanta Times appeared likely to give the larger papers a spirited fight with its editorial positions against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and for Barry Goldwater,” the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Hank Klibanoff writes in a deep exploration of the Times and its times in the latest issue of Emory Magazine. “But its conservatism was to be broader, [the paper’s founder, former Congressman James C.] Davis said in a page-one editorial: ‘We will support freedom of religion, freedom of speech, the preservation of individual rights, and the rights of private property. We will support the principle of rule of the majority and the idea that proper diffusion of governmental power is the best preventive of socialism. We will stand for efficiency and economy in government.’ ”

Before the summer of 1965 would end, however, the Times was gone. What brought about the paper’s quick demise? Read Hank’s account, “Fifteen Months of Fame: The True Story of the Atlanta Times,” here: http://www.emory.edu/EMORY_MAGAZINE/2009/spring/times.html