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Throughout his three terms as mayor, first from 1974 to 1982 and then from 1990 to 1994, Jackson advocated economic integration policies and sought to open opportunities for everyone. I tried. He mandated a minimum percentage of contracts with cities and airports go to minority businesses. He advocated the employment and advancement of black people.
The mandate he set (and the fierce battles he waged with the white business community to protect his decisions) laid the foundation for minority business that continues to this day.
“Maynard created an environment in Atlanta where it was acceptable and even desirable for Black businesses to have the opportunity to participate in the city’s economy,” said Egbert Perry, chairman of Atlanta-based developer Integral Group. told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Mr. Perry moved to Atlanta in 1980 and worked for H.J. Russell & Company, first as an assistant to the late Herman Russell and eventually as president of the firm, before retiring in 1993 to found Integral. . Perry said the inclusive environment Jackson created as mayor permeated every industry. .
“This was a very progressive era for Black professionals who were able to walk through doors that were intentionally and systematically closed to them forever,” Perry said.
Contracts and affirmative action
When he became mayor, Jackson said that only 0.5 percent of city contracts go to African Americans, even though the city is majority black. So during Jackson’s first term, he established the Minority Business Enterprise Program, which requires 35 percent of all city contracts to go to minority businesses.
Maurice Hobson, a Georgia State University professor and historian, said the mandate led to the creation of a minority of billionaires. And that drew more black people to the city, he said.
“[Jackson’s] It’s about getting people paid in Atlanta,” Hobson said. “He made Atlanta the most inclusive city in America.”
But perhaps the highlight of Mr. Jackson’s first two terms in office was the airport’s expansion, a huge project that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build the current domestic terminal. Mr. Jackson mandated that 25% of airport construction contracts go to women, black and other minority-owned businesses.
This mandate also created opportunities for existing black businesses in Atlanta that did not previously exist. H.J. Russell & Co., the construction company Herman Russell started in 1952, is one of the nation’s largest minority-owned firms, Perry said, and its growth has been helped by Jackson’s contracting policies. It is said that
Mr. Jackson also personally supported Mr. Perry when he started his own development company.
“My very, very first project in Atlanta as Integral was a project I did as a result of a call from Maynard,” he said.
Jackson told Perry that one of the development partners for the apartment complex near the West End MARTA station is pulling out of the project and two other developers are looking for a third developer to come on board. Integral ultimately partnered with these two companies, and thus the first Atlanta project was born.
Overall, the contract obligations were a boon for black and minority businesses and were consistent with the growth of black-owned businesses in the region.
Federal statistics on black businesses from 1972 to 1982 show that the number of businesses in the Atlanta metropolitan area more than doubled during the first two terms of the Jackson administration, but the data It covers not only the city but also multiple counties within the region.
In 1972, the year before Mr. Jackson’s historic election, there were 3,241 black-owned businesses in the metro, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Minority-Owned Business Survey.
In 1977, the number of companies increased slightly to 3,961. However, by the end of Mr. Jackson’s second term in 1982, the Atlanta metropolitan area ranked among the top 10 regions in the nation for the number of black-owned businesses, with 7,077. That year, nearly half of the state’s black businesses were located in the Atlanta area.
At the time of Mr. Jackson’s death, the late Congressman John Lewis said that Mr. Jackson’s minority contracting program set an example to be emulated in cities across the country.
But when Mr. Jackson first tried to introduce a contracting program in Atlanta, he faced strong opposition from some in the white business community.
“There were companies that resisted us. I mean, their passion for fighting all of this just grew. They threatened us with everything they could think of,” Jackson said in Georgia in 1988. told a historian at the University of Technology. , If you want to do that, I want to go to court, that’s fine. See you in court. However, we have no intention of reversing this policy. Because it is right and this is the most effective means possible at the moment, by which we can right the wrong. past. ‘”
Mr. Jackson was also a strong supporter of affirmative action in employment. His goal was to make it less uncommon for black people to be in positions of power, and Atlanta accomplished that, Jackson said in another documentary interview in 1988.
“But we paid a price to get there,” he said.
When trying to promote the hiring and advancement of black Atlantans at the city’s six white-owned banks in the 1970s, Mr. Jackson initially tried to quietly meet with them to encourage more diversity in the ranks of vice presidents. did.
“There were probably 100 to 120 vice presidents in the downtown bank at the time, and none of them were African American,” Jackson told the documentary crew. However, after 18 months of meetings, no progress was made.
Credit: COX NEWS SERVICE
Credit: COX NEWS SERVICE
So Mr. Jackson said he was going to move $600 million in city funds held in those six banks because those six banks are resisting. Shortly after moving the first funds, the bank got his message loud and clear.
“I’ve never wanted to do things that way,” Jackson said. “But…you were chosen to use the power that you have, and if you don’t use that power, you’re breaking your promise. It would be terrible for Atlanta to drag things out and let things continue as they have been. My duty as a transitional mayor was to lead us from where we are to better and to better days.”
When Jackson returned to office for a third term in 1990, he reintroduced aggressive affirmative action policies ahead of the Olympics.
“The Olympics had record levels of minority and women participation, probably the highest of any American city to ever host an Olympics,” said Shirley Franklin, former mayor of Atlanta. “It’s all because of the institutional program that Mr. Maynard put in place.”
Jackson said in 2001, “If we couldn’t show that Atlanta had a history of inclusive action, this city would never host the Olympics.”
City is hesitant to protect Jackson’s legacy
It’s been 50 years since Jackson said everyone should have a chance to be someone in Atlanta, but the chances of that happening are disturbingly low.
According to the nonprofit Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative, children born into poverty have only a 4% chance of surviving poverty.
Atlanta has the highest income inequality of any large U.S. city, according to an AJC analysis of 2022 Census data. In 2021, the median income for black households in metro Atlanta was about $61,000, while the median income for white households was more than 50% higher, at about $93,000.
And the minority airport contracting program, which was a pillar of Mr. Jackson’s economic integration agenda, has seen its fair share of corruption scandals in subsequent administrations, including during Mr. Jackson’s third term and most recently under former Mayor Kasim Reed. .
Egbert Perry said the inclusive environment that Jackson created in Atlanta under his watch no longer really exists.
“Old barriers and institutions are starting to come into play again because conditions have changed,” Perry said. “I think a lot of that general atmosphere and commitment to working together to change outcomes has disappeared or gone nowhere.”
Part of the reason may be that Atlanta is not the same city it was when Mr. Jackson was first elected in 1973. Where once there were only a few thousand black businesses in the area, there are now hundreds of thousands. Every mayor since Jackson has been black, creating a large black political elite.
The racial composition of the city also changed. Atlanta is no longer a majority black city. In 1980, the city was more than 66% black; now the city is 47% black.
Mayor Andre Dickens said Mr. Jackson sought to expand economic opportunity for all Atlantans through the city’s infrastructure and airport, which he had at the time. Today, Dickens uses the same approach using modern tools.
“Technology is the fastest-growing sector, the highest-paying job, and a place where capital can work if you do it right,” Dickens said. “In the spirit of Maynard, 50 years later, this is an ecosystem that can provide the equity he sought, the economic inclusion he sought.”
He has set a goal for Atlanta to become one of the top five tech ecosystems in the nation, and recently created an Office of Technology Innovation to help achieve that goal, but has not set a specific timeline.
What is clear is that today’s Atlanta – cosmopolitan, urban, attractive to businesses and newcomers alike – owes its existence in part to the foundation laid by Jackson. is. Perry said it gave him a kind of immortality.
“Mr. Maynard will live on forever because his influence has had tentacles in so many places and people are reaping the benefits. There is no need to understand or appreciate it,” Perry said.
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