Doug Shipman is settling into his new role as Atlanta City Council president. Since his swearing-in earlier this month, he’s appointed committee chairs, presided over a couple of council meetings, and met with state officials.

He’s also poring over hundreds of pages detailing city finances and funding distribution processes, all packed into three thick binders. It’s here where he says he can find ways to fix the city’s long-beleaguered HIV housing program.

“It’s really a tactical thing,” he says of finding a solution. “And often the devil is in the details.”

When a young 12-year-old boy, reportedly named Tyler, was ridiculed live on social media for being effeminate, Devin Barrington-Ward was one of the first community activists to reach out in support of the pre-teen.

He reached out, he told The Reckoning, because there is a lack of safety nets available to young people like Tyler.

“There are countless young people like Tyler who are Black and LGBT who need an advocate and someone to care.”

Barrington-Ward is one of a handful of LGBTQ+ individuals running for Atlanta City Council. He is looking to unseat the incumbent Councilmember Dustin Hillis for the District 9 seat.

Mike Russell easily admits he is not a politician.

He is a retired military officer with a background in law enforcement who moved to Atlanta, in large part, due to its civil rights history.

But last summer, after people took to the streets to march and riot in cities across the country, Russell found himself increasingly upset as he watched what has been described as an uprising in downtown Atlanta.

“It was really upsetting,” he told the Reckoning. “So much so that I started yelling at the television. My husband kept saying to me, ‘You do know they cannot hear you. If you are really this upset, get involved.’”

He did but started out slow.

“As I started expressing my ideas and frustrations on social media, people took notice and began suggesting that I run for office,” he said.

Jereme Sharpe is convinced that most people don’t know what to think of him, and he likes it that way.

Sharpe is among a handful of Black LGBTQ+ identified candidates for Atlanta City Council. He, along with three others, is seeking to unseat Michael Julian Bond for the Post 1 At-Large seat. The other candidates include educator Alfred Brooks, attorney Brandon Goldberg, and former Atlanta Board of Ethics member Todd Gray.

“From the outside, people tend to make all sorts of assumptions about me,” Sharpe told The Reckoning. “I don’t like being put in a box. I know the struggles of life. I have seen life’s highs and lows and been in places and situations that maybe I should not have been. But my experiences have taught me important lessons that help me to understand how to help people, regardless of who they are and where they come from.”

Keisha Waites wants to make one thing clear. “I am not a politician,” she told The Reckoning. “I am a problem solver and a public servant.”

A native of Atlanta and a former state legislator, Waites is vying to replace Andre Dickens, one of nearly a dozen candidates in Atlanta’s mayoral race, on the Atlanta City Council. She is one of five candidates running for the council’s post-3 at-large seat. It is a crowded, and in some respects, an impressive field of candidates that include familiar names like Jacki Labat, as well as Ralph Long, Sherry B. Williams, and Jodi Merriday. But of all the candidates in her race, Waites believes she is the one with the best chance of helping to move the city forward.

From his grandfather, Johnny Foreman, Larry Carter learned one important lesson—service first.

Foreman served as a former bishop in New York and Virginia for the United Methodist Church.

“He taught us that being of service is all about what is best for the community,” said Carter. “He used to always say, ‘You can't take things for granted. Life is fleeting, but it is also important to do what you can when you have the time’.”

Foreman’s guidance has been the driving force for Carter’s life and is at the root of his current endeavor—a campaign for Atlanta City Council.

Jason Hudgins began attending Westview Community Organization meetings well before he moved into the community.

He was house hunting and felt the best way to get an idea of what the community offered was to attend meetings and see firsthand.

“This is how it all started for me,” he told The Reckoning. “There was an older lady, Miss Hattie, who served as the organization chaplain. She stood up in one meeting and mentioned that someone who had recently left the community was supposed to paint her house.”

As Miss Hattie said, “he promised to paint my house,” it took no time for Hudgins to volunteer.

As Americans are laser-focused on the upcoming presidential election on November 3, there’s another local election that may have slipped under the radar for some, but like all down-ballot races, is equally important. Longtime Atlanta politician, Kwanza Hall (D-District 5), 49, a former member of the Atlanta City Council and a former mayoral candidate, is facing a runoff on December 1 against challenger Dr. Robert Franklin (D-District 5) after neither candidate secured fifty-percent of the vote during a special election in September to fill the District 5 congressional seat left vacant after the death of the late civil rights icon John Lewis.

The Reckoning spoke with Hall, who has been endorsed by Lewis’s son, John Miles-Lewis, about his campaign, his political platform, his allyship to the LGBT community, and his agenda for his short stay in Congress, if elected.