Joe Shifalo, political activist and ‘Mayor of L5P,’ dies

Among Atlanta lefties, Joe Shifalo was a role model. Blues musician. Founder and longtime director of the Little Five Points Community Center. Creator of WRFG’s “Good Morning Blues.” Defender of renters’ rights for low-income families.

Shifalo died last weekend of a heart attack at the age of 65. Here’s a bit from his obit in today’s AJC:

Mr. Shifalo was free-thinking, unconventional and unconcerned with how people dressed or looked, his wife said. He created folk art paintings and loved to study the exotic birds near his second home in Cedar Keys, Fla. He gravitated to science-fiction novels, she said, because they made him think about the future.

“Joe really believed in social change,” his wife said. “He thought by now we’d be further ahead than where we are, but he loved to talk about how much things had changed since his childhood.”