Founding editors included Tom and Stephanie Coffin, Howard Romaine and Gene Guerrero Jr.[3] The first issue appeared March 8, 1968, and within 6 months it was publishing weekly.

The office of The Great Speckled Bird at the north end of Piedmont Park (240 Westminster Drive) was firebombed and destroyed on May 6, 1972.

[4] In a letter to the editor of the New York Review of Books, Jack Newfield et al. noted that the bombing occurred after the paper published an exposé of the mayor of Atlanta.

[5] Writing in the Atlanta Magazine, Justin Heckert described The Bird's approach as one that treated objectivity as "a myth perpetuated by the capitalist press.

The paper focused on the war in Vietnam, black power, women's liberation, gay activism, red-baiting, Atlanta politics, labor, and environmental issues.