Maynard Jackson helped make Atlanta a Black mecca
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.

Maynard Jackson on the night of his election victory with his then wife, Bunnie. Photo: Bettmann/Contributor
In Jan. 1974, 35-year-old Maynard Holbrook Jackson Jr. became Atlanta's first Black mayor, and over three terms ushered in a wave of unprecedented and radical change.
Driving the news: For the next year, City Hall will celebrate Jackson and his efforts to open up the city's economy to minority- and women-owned businesses, uplifting long-underrepresented communities of color and cementing Atlanta's status as a Black mecca.
Catch up quick: In 1970, Atlanta was 51% Black, and yet white businesses historically held more than 99% of the city's contracts for decades. And City Hall's workforce was as homogenous as its contracts.
- Then came Jackson, who assumed office in 1974 during the implementation of the city's first new charter in a century, empowering Atlanta's executive branch unlike ever before.
Details: Jackson diversified City Hall and Atlanta's pool of contractors by reserving a percentage of deals for minority-owned businesses, what became a paradigm for affirmative action nationwide.
- By the beginning of the 1980s, minority and women-owned businesses participated in 30% of the city's contracts.
- City Hall's minority representation grew from 42% in 1973 to 61% in the decade, and the percentage of women in management roles nearly doubled to nearly 50%.
Amid his second term, 90% of all minority contracting at the nation's 25 major airports occurred at Atlanta's airport.
The big picture: Jackson's policies and decisions over three terms paved the way for Atlanta's legacy today.
- He steered the completion of the airport's expansion in the 1970s, creating an economic development engine that would connect Atlanta to the world, and vice versa.
- A strong advocate for the arts, he established a city department that incubated the talent behind the city's rap artists.
- His policies and prodding encouraged the city's powerful, white business community to diversify the city's economy, and helped Atlanta become a leading city for Black-owned businesses.
What they're saying: "Because of Maynard Jackson, we all say that 'If it's the South, it's us,'" former Mayor Kasim Reed said at a recent City Hall tribute to the former mayor.
Zoom out: By the time Jackson died at 65 on June 23, 2003, the so-called political novice was considered the patriarch of Atlanta's modern government.

