[2] Founded in 1966 by Ed Clayton and J. Lowell Ware,[3][4] the paper now distributes 40,000 copies via 600 metropolitan locations and offers digital content via a website and social media.

"[3] The Atlanta Voice is a member of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), a trade group of more than 200 Black-owned media companies in the United States.

[6] According to Ware's daughter, the paper was established "out of the Civil Rights movement," and is considered to be the only paper that regularly featured Martin Luther King Jr. and other Civil Rights activists.

[6] Ed Clayton had been a nationally-known journalist in Chicago who published a biography of Dr. King in 1964.

[6] Ware moved the offices for the Atlanta Voice to Mechanicsville in 1972, vowing to revitalize the community.