Maynard Jackson helped make Atlanta a Black mecca
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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.