^Thurmond, Michael L.; Sparer, Dorothy (1978). A Story Untold: Black Men and Women in Athens History, Clarke County School District. OL21912464M. The Athens Blade was a short-lived newspaper. Only one year after it was founded, Pledger changed its name to the Atlanta Defiant and moved it to Atlanta. He brought the paper back to Athens two years later, but it lasted only a year or two more. Heard and his "radical pen" moved to South Carolina in 1883, and the following year the Blade disappeared from the scene.
