Jackson, Maynard

As Atlanta's first African American mayor, Maynard Jackson (1938–2003) strove to incorporate blacks more fully into the political and economic life of his city. Born into a politically prominent Atlanta family and educated at Morehouse and North Carolina Central University, Jackson received his law degree from the latter in 1964. After practicing law in the private and public sector for several years, Jackson jumped into electoral politics by running a losing campaign for a U.S. Senate seat in Georgia. He ran strongly in his hometown Atlanta, however, and using this momentum, he won election as Atlanta's vice mayor in 1969. In the mayoral election of 1973, Jackson won 95 percent of the black vote, defeating incumbent mayor Sam Massell on the strength of the surging black coalition, which, by 1970, composed 51.3 percent of the total city population.

Jackson opened up the ranks of the city bureaucracy to black job seekers; as a result, the number of African Americans in municipal government rose from 38.1 percent in 1970 to 55.6 percent in 1978. He leveraged city funds held in Atlanta banks to force affirmative action policies on local financial institutions, and Jackson's Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) monitored city agencies to ensure that blackrun firms won a fair share of government contracts. The mayor increased the number of city contracts awarded to minority-run firms from 1 percent in 1973 to 34 percent in 1981. These policies were particularly important in the construction industry, for the Jackson era saw the development of the city's international airport and expansion of the mass transit system. The airport (one of the nation's busiest) was completed ahead of schedule and under budget, using affirmative action programs for contracts and hires that conservatives often derided as inefficient. In 2003, the facility—Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport—honored the late mayor by incorporating his name into the title.

Jackson also shifted attention from downtown development to the neighborhoods, targeting federal money for housing rehabilitation, quality-of-life improvements, and social service provision. In an effort to improve relations between minorities and the police, Jackson shifted power from uniformed leadership to his African American civilian public safety commissioner, who increased the number of black police officers.

Under pressure from white business leaders, Jackson moderated his black empowerment themes in his second term, adopting more mainstream, downtown-centered policies, creating, for example, the Office of Economic Development to bolster corporate Atlanta. By the time he won his third term in a landslide election in 1993, the ground had so shifted under Jackson that he ran as the centrist alternative to a more liberal, neighborhood-centered opponent. His third term was shadowed by a scandal involving his political allies and concession contracts at the airport. Out of office, Jackson was a prominent attorney active in civic affairs, and he worked with his protégé [Page 394]and mayoral successor, Andrew Young, to bring the Olympic Games to Atlanta in 1996.

Jackson's legacy as mayor was to incorporate black interests into the traditional business-centered practices of 20th-century Atlanta.