Former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson Dies

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta, Ga.. June 23, 2003:  Maynard Holbrook Jackson, Jr., a three-term mayor of Atlanta and one of its most charismatic civic leaders, died in Washington Sunday night of a heart attack. He was 65.

Bunnie Jackson-Ransom, his ex-wife, said she had few details. She was boarding a plane back to Atlanta from the Rainbow/PUSH convention in Chicago.

She said the couple's son called her of the news.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson announced Jackson's death to a stunned Chicago audience.

A great-grandson of Cobb County slaves, Jackson was launched from Atlanta's black aristocracy, graduated from Morehouse College at 18 years old and was elected in 1973 the first black mayor of a major Southern city.

He was elected after his opponent had used the divisive campaign slogan, "Atlanta's Too Young To Die." Jackson was only 35 at the time, the nation's youngest mayor.

His election came five years after Cleveland's Carl Stokes and Richard Hatcher of Gary, Ind., had broken the color line for mayors. The same fall Jackson was elected in Atlanta, Los Angeles' Tom Bradley and Detroit's Coleman Young also broke through in their cities.

Jackson was an eloquent orator, with iridescent green eyes and a bearish heft that once reached 350 pounds. His political career spanned a quarter of a century. Among Atlanta mayors, only William Hartsfield, who served 23 years, had a tenure at City Hall that exceeded Jackson's dozen years.

Jackson's political star first ascended in 1968 when he challenged Herman Talmadge for his U.S. Senate seat. Jackson lost that race by more than a 3-to-1 margin, but won the city of Atlanta by 6,000 votes, a political omen for him.

Though not actively involved in the civil rights movement as a young man, Jackson was among a cadre of political leaders across the nation who worked during the 1970s to expand the social gains made by minorities into the economic arena.

He served the two-term limit at Atlanta City Hall from 1974 to 1982. In a city that once had served as the arsenal of the Confederacy, his historic 1973 election generated exaggerated hopes in Atlanta's black community and exaggerated fears in the white community.

Through sheer resolve, Jackson endured a turbulent first few years in office, sparring with the city's white business power structure. Meanwhile, his poise and oratorical skill stirred many young and ambitious blacks across the country, and soon their resumes stacked up at City Hall.

Of historic import, Jackson instituted a controversial affirmative action program that elevated the percentage of city contracts awarded to minorities in Atlanta from less than 1 percent in 1973 to 38.6 percent five years later. He applied his program of "joint venture," which brought together white and minority-owned firms, most promiently at the Atlanta airport.

Years later, Jackson would crow, "We built the Atlanta airport, biggest terminal building complex in the world, ahead of schedule and within budget -- and simultaneously rewrote the books on affirmative action." He also would boast that, under his watch, joint venture produced about 25 new black millionaires, most as a result of the airport.

In 1989, following Andrew Young's two terms as Atlanta's mayor, Jackson, then a bond attorney for the Chicago based firm of Chapman & Cutler, re-emerged as a local political force.

He swamped City Councilman Hosea Williams, winning the mayoralty with a mandate of 79 percent of the vote.

During his final term from 1990 to 1994, Jackson became a prominent spokesman for American cities, serving as president of the National Conference of Democratic Mayors and of the national Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials.

At the 1992 Summer Olympics in Spain, meanwhile, he had the honor of accepting the five-ringed flag from Barcelona Mayor Pasqual Maragall. Jackson waved the flag broadly that day inside the Olympic stadium and later quipped, "I've got enough ham in me to appreciate standing in front of three billion people."

But Jackson's third and final term proved frustrating as he was unable to reproduce the accomplishments of his initial terms. A corruption scandal at the Atlanta airport, which led to the conviction of his old friend, airport commissioner Ira Jackson, marred his administration.

On June 9, 1993, Jackson announced he would not seek a fourth term, citing health and other personal reasons. His announcement surprised many Atlantans.

Only days before, a local survey by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution had revealed that Jackson's public approval rating was a powerful 70 percent. Roughly half of whites and three-fouths of blacks polled said they approved of the way Jackson served as mayor.

Nine months earlier, in September 1992, Jackson had undergone bypass surgery at St. Joseph's Hospital to clear six blockages in his arteries. At the time, his physician said the mayor was about 100 pounds overweight, adding, "He's obese and he has to lose weight."

In announcing his decision to bow out of the 1993 mayor's race, Jackson said, "I have wrestled with this decision more than any other decision in my life . . . But I am satisfied that I have made a, regrettably, necessary decision."

Later, he would reflect, "I got tired of giving up $500,000 a year to earn $100,000 a year [as mayor] and getting beat up and sacrificing my family, myself, my income, my health and everything."

Though proud of his achievement as the big-city South's first African-American mayor, Jackson, in later years, wondered about his own legacy and bemoaned, "I can see that my full name will be Maynard Jackson First Black Mayor of Atlanta, Georgia."

That rankled him. He thought it racist and unfair because it cheated him of his accomplishments in office, which included not only affirmative action programs, but overseeing construction of the midfield terminal at Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport (and providing many jobs in the process), giving voice to intown neighborhoods, establishing a cultural affairs department and serving as the first modern manager under the city's new charter.

Word From the Camp

Policamp, Inc. New Orleans, La.,  June 23, 2003:   I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Mayor Jackson about two months ago at the National Forum for Black Public Administrators’ Annual Conference.  Not surprisingly, he was in a great spirit.  As usual, he asked about former New Orleans’ mayor Marc Morial.

We briefly spoke about the potential affect the pending affirmative action case could have on the gains made by African Americans in this country.  Mayor Jackson understood more than most how an effective affirmative action program could be used to transform economic opportunities to  those who have been traditionally left out of the economic mainstream of most American cities.

I also got a  chance to thank him for the excellent presentation he had delivered a year earlier at the 2002 Forum.  His frankness in that speech where he described what he considered a growing and dangerous trend in the number of Black political leaders who were suffering from “Scarred Negro Disease”  was memorable.   In that speech, Mayor Jackson chastised African American leaders who for some strange reason feared continuing disadvantage business practices which were put in place by many of his peer mayors in the 1970's and 1980's.  

 How appropriate and ironic that on the very day he was being called up to the next level, that the U.S. Supreme Court was announcing its ruling on the University of Michigan’s affirmative action case.  We have truly lost a soldier, but we know that he is smiling.

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