Three Key Takeaways
- Atlanta is a major FAMU pipeline: About 11% of FAMU undergraduates come from Georgia, most from metro Atlanta.
- Thousands of Rattlers call Atlanta home: FAMU’s Metro Atlanta alumni chapter estimates more than 5,000 graduates live and work in the region.
- Their influence is broad: FAMU alumni have become leaders in architecture, business, government, media, entertainment and civic life.
Atlanta's Black professional class is often traced to the city's own historically Black colleges and universities — Morehouse, Spelman and Clark Atlanta.
But the pipeline extends well beyond Georgia.
For decades, FAMU has drawn students from metro Atlanta to its campus in Tallahassee. Many eventually return to Georgia, bringing degrees, professional networks and entrepreneurial ambitions with them.
About 11% of FAMU's undergraduate students come from Georgia, according to university enrollment data, with most originating in the Atlanta metropolitan area.
The connection does not end at graduation.
The FAMU National Alumni Association's Metro Atlanta Chapter estimates that more than 5,000 FAMU alumni live and work in the region, making it one of the university's largest and most active alumni chapters.
The estimate is not an official census of FAMU graduates in Georgia. But it points to a sizable Rattler network embedded in one of the nation's most influential Black professional communities.
Five years later, he founded XMETRICAL, an Atlanta-based architecture and design firm. Today, he is one of Atlanta's most sought after architects, overseeing projects involving residential, multifamily and commercial urban development.
Atlanta Magazine recognized Avery among Atlanta's influential leaders in real estate and design.
His career illustrates a broader point about the FAMU-to-Atlanta pipeline.
He did not simply take a job in the city.
That distinction matters in a professional community where business ownership can extend an individual's influence well beyond a career.
Through XMETRICAL, Avery has helped shape and build Atlanta, all while creating another platform for professional and civic engagement.
Avery is part of a much larger FAMU presence in Atlanta.
The city's alumni chapters provides a formal network for graduates who have established careers throughout the metropolitan area. Its estimated 5,000-plus members span industries that include business, government, media, entertainment, education, health care and design.
Among them are graduates whose careers have taken them into highly visible positions.
Keisha Lance Bottoms became Atlanta's mayor, and former senior White House adviser, who is this year's Democratic nominee for Governor of Georgia.
Jason Carter founded One Musicfest, which grew into a major Atlanta celebration of Black music and culture.
Tirrell D. Whittley, a graduate of FAMU's School of Business and Industry, founded LIQUID SOUL, an Atlanta-based marketing and advertising firm that has worked with major corporations and entertainment companies.
Laura J. Downey, a FAMU journalism graduate, became the first Black president of the Society of Professional Journalists' Georgia chapter and later served as an executive editor at WebMD.
Jacoria Borders built a Georgia career focused on civic engagement, philanthropy and political organizing.
Their fields are different, but their stories share a common starting point: FAMU.
The relationship between Atlanta and FAMU is not simply an alumni story.
It begins with recruitment.
Georgia supplies a significant share of FAMU's undergraduate population, giving the university a steady stream of students from one of the country's largest Black metropolitan communities.
Those students then enter a national HBCU network before many return to Atlanta.
Some return immediately after graduation. Others arrive years later after graduate school or careers elsewhere.
Many remain connected through the university's alumni network.
That cycle helps explain FAMU’s larger-than-life presence in Atlanta, where the university’s influence is so pronounced that it has earned the tongue-in-cheek nickname “Georgia A&M University,” a playful nod to the now-defunct BET television series The Quad.
Morehouse, Spelman and Clark Atlanta have educated generations of Atlanta's Black doctors, lawyers, educators, executives, entrepreneurs, artists and civic leaders.
They remain central to the city's identity.
But Atlanta's Black professional class has always drawn talent from outside Georgia as well.
Howard, Hampton, North Carolina A&T and other HBCUs have supplied generations of graduates to the city.
FAMU is part of that national migration.
What distinguishes it is the size of the connection.
While FAMU does not publicly provide a comprehensive count of its Georgia alumni, the depth of its Atlanta footprint is difficult to quantify. What is clear is that FAMU’s influence extends far beyond enrollment, helping shape generations of Black professionals across Atlanta and Georgia. FAMU may be rooted in Tallahassee, but its impact on the state’s Black professional class is impossible to ignore.