Clarence Stone’s 1989 book Regime Politics documented the growing black electoral power in Atlanta from 1946 to 1988 that threatened incumbent white economic power. What emerged was a biracial coalition in which black constituents received major concessions from the white business community. Simultaneously, the Civil Rights Movement led to the election of Maynard Jackson, the first black Mayor of Atlanta. All subsequent Mayors have been black. By the mid-1990s, however, the rise of neoliberalism significantly diminished corporate white concessions to black constituents.
Also by the 1990s, major demographic shifts, such as the ‘reverse migration’ of northern blacks to the urban South, the growth of the Latino population, and waves of refugee resettlement, were underway in metro Atlanta. Together these end-of-millennium trends represent a critical turn toward a new political-economic compact, labor regime, and racial-cultural landscape with implications for social equity in 21st century Atlanta. This session, a debate-style conversation exploring contemporary racial politics in historical context, considers the past, present and future of the “Black Mecca”.
“Still the Black Mecca?” is a half-day public symposium addressing the status of racial equity in Atlanta.
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