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The Making and Unmaking of Modern Atlanta: Andrea Young and Maurice J. Hobson in Conversation Atlanta Studies

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00:51:11
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This conversation between Andrea Young and Maurice J. Hobson about Atlanta's changing fortunes as a "Black Mecca" between the 1960s and the 1990s was recorded at the Still the Black Mecca symposium that was held on Nov. 9, 2016. This symposium was organized by the James Weldon Johnson Institute at Emory University in tandem with Facing Race Local Host Committee, Georgia State University Department of Sociology, Clark Atlanta University Department of Sociology and Criminology, Candler School of Theology Moral Leadership Program at Emory University, Georgia State University Center for Neighborhood and Metropolitan Studies, Georgia State University Urban Studies Institute, and the Atlanta Studies Network.

https://www.atlantastudies.org/the-making-and-unmaking-of-modern-atlanta-is-the-black-mecca-eroding/


Maurice J. Hobson on 1970s Atlanta
delete Delete Are you sure?
Well, and - and just to add to that,
the snowstorm that took place a
couple of years ago that crippled
the city that had everything to do
that had more to do with race
than it had to do with ice.
Deals cut in the '60s and '70s
than actual ice.
But to speak to - to the 1970s
and to talk about Maynard Jackson
I will go on record right here
there is not a black politician that
did more for black people than
Maynard Holbrook Jackson, Jr.
[audience applause]
When, when Mayor Jackson
passed away in Washington, D.C.
in 2003, one of the things I argue
in my book that he died
prematurely because he gave so
much. And in saying this about
him, just to give you all a little,
I mean, I know you guys may know
him, but it’s interesting when you
do interviews with the people
that loved him and know him.
Maynard was a fifth-generation
Georgian on both sides.
Grandfathers were major pastors,
well, major people:
one grandfather was a pastor
of Wheat Street,
the other was John Wesley Dobbs,
the unofficial mayor of the
Sweet Auburn district, and so
he was the highest-ranking
Negro mason in all of Georgia.
He was the first male child born in
the Dobbs family in 50 years.
John Wesley Dobbs had
6 daughters.
And so, at the age of 15
his father passed away, so
John Wesley Dobbs, who helped
to create the Atlanta Negro Voters
League in 1946, which was a result
of the King v. Chapman case
where Primus King strikes down
the all-white Georgia primary
here in the state.
When Maynard Jackson decides to
become involved in politics it’s
because Grandpa Dobbs had done
so much work with him. Ok.
So, King is assassinated in 1968.
Maynard is back in the city as a
young lawyer. He understands this.
But when Robert Kennedy is
assassinated he’s in Lewisburg,
North Carolina with Bunny Jackson
who’s now Bunny Jackson
Ransom, showing off the new baby
to the in-laws. He comes back to
Atlanta to tell people that he’s
not running for a county seat.
He borrows money from
Leo Harris Ogden and
what happens is he ends up
running for the US Senate.
He loses but he carries Atlanta.
He never asks his wife anything
about it. So, basically he runs for
the Senate – yeah, do not,
married folk do not do that –
[audience laughter]
you get talk with your people.
He then runs for Vice Mayor,
he’s elected Vice Mayor,
in '73 he runs for Mayor and
he becomes the first Mayor.
And his whole, his arrival on the
political scene is he annoyed
the black political kingmakers.
He annoyed Jesse Hill and
all those guys because they felt
if there was going to be a
black mayor it should have been
Vernon Jordan or Leroy Johnson,
T.D Williamson was even thrown in
that mix, these were other
politicians.
But he was able to understand
the concept of what I call
the Black New South.
The Black New South is partially
looking at the American North and
Midwest due to the Great Migration
that shows that these areas were
not the land of milk and honey
for black folk, and so, many of
them that had migrated
were deciding to come back South
but they wanted to move to cities.
And so, you have that movement
coming back. You also have the
Atlanta University Center that’s
here and people are here being
educated and as a result
they stay in the city.
The sunbelt boom, the tech boom,
that moves us out of a cold war
kind of industrial conversation,
you see numerous tax breaks that
promote folk to move back South.
And so, with this, when Maynard
gets in office, he gives 35 percent
of all city contracts to minority
contractors. Maynard Jackson
makes a lot of black millionaires
in this city. I argue that
every slickster in the black world
decided to come to Atlanta.
[audience laughter]
Over the three terms as Mayor,
‘73-‘81 and ‘89 to ‘93,
there were about 8 billion dollars in
city contracts and he gives
35 percent of that 8 billion dollars
to minority contractors,
that’s about 2.8 billion dollars.
So, that is who he is.
But there were two things,
very quickly, that people were
extremely critical of him.
The first was the sanitation
workers. He fired the sanitation
workers because they were striking
against him and there is a
long conversation around that.
But the second is how it was
perceived that he mishandled
the Atlanta Youth Murders.
You all publicly know of -
of 28 to 29 victims
over a 2 or 3 year period.
Research suggests it was more
like a 10 year period and there
may have been about 373 victims.
That’s all well-researched
and you’ll see that a little bit later.
That was the critique of him.
But even today, Maynard Jackson
is a sacred cow in this city.
And so that’s what the 70s yielded.
It yielded an opportunity for Black
folk with Black political power.
Lastly, he does create the Bureau
of Cultural Affairs to bring Black
expressive art to complement
his black political empowerment.
And so, that’s where we are
in the 1970s.
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01-09-2025 00:00 - 01-09-2025 23:59