Original publications from the BeltLine
Explore our catalog of books written and published directly by thebeltlinenews team. From deep dives into Atlanta's urban renaissance to community photo journals and local narratives, we document the evolving heart of our city.
Tales along the trail
A curated collection of human stories along the Atlanta BeltLine. Written entirely by our editorial staff, this book captures personal interviews, community histories, and the quiet moments that define our shared paths across Atlanta's diverse neighborhoods.
ALL THE LOST: Redlining, Evictions & How Black People Are Affected In Atlanta
by Noah Sanders | The BeltLine News Press | 194 pages
They didn't lose their homes by accident. They were taken — by maps, by highways, by banks, by courts, and by a system that was designed to work exactly the way it does.
In All The Lost, Noah Sanders traces how Black Atlanta was systematically stripped of its homes and its wealth: from the redlining maps of the 1930s that marked Black neighborhoods for death, to the highways that bulldozed them, to the subprime loans that robbed a generation, to the eviction courts running at full speed today — and the BeltLine paradox raising property values while pushing out the very people it was supposed to serve.
This is not a book about statistics. It's a book about people — the families behind the filings, the children behind the numbers, and the 80-plus percent of Atlanta's homeless population that is Black. Every figure is date-labeled. Every claim is sourced. Nothing is hyped.
Across nine chapters, Sanders moves from history to the present day and lands on the only question that matters: what do we do now? With policy solutions, tenant organizing blueprints, and a boots-on-the-ground action plan drawn from his own outreach work, All The Lost is both an indictment and an instruction manual.
If you want to understand why Atlanta looks the way it does — and what it's going to take to change it — start here.
I AM SEX, MONEY, MURDER: The Life of Peter Rollack
by Noah Sanders | The BeltLine News Press | 132 pages
He was one of the most feared men in America. Now he's spent over two decades in a concrete box, alone.
Peter Rollack — "Pistol Pete" — rose from the streets of the Bronx to lead Sex Money Murder, one of the most notorious street organizations in the country. In 2000, it all came crashing down: a federal racketeering conviction, multiple murder counts, and a life sentence. He has been in federal solitary confinement ever since.
In I Am Sex, Money, Murder, Noah Sanders tells the full story — the Bronx that made him, the empire he built, the fall that ended it, and the influence he has carried ever since, for good and for bad. Nothing is glorified. Nothing is hidden. The crimes are stated plainly. The harm is not erased.
But this book asks a harder question: what does justice require after twenty years in isolation? Drawing on the UN's Mandela Rules, medical research on solitary confinement, and the voices of people who believe no human being should be buried alive, Sanders makes the case that Peter Rollack should be allowed what every person needs — contact with family, with friends, with other human beings.
The final chapters are a toolkit: how to write him, how to support him, and how to add your voice to the call for his humane treatment.
This is not a book about excusing the past. It's a book about what we owe each other in the present — and whether redemption is real or just a word we say.