Eyes on the Prize II; Interview with Maynard Jackson

Camera roll, 40, 23, 11, 23, time code, sound 4, 8, 13, 14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 14, OK, so thinking about that question I put to you, do you feel that you were destined to run for public office? Well, if I was, there was a realization that came late. I am descended from three generations of Baptist ministers. And if anything, I felt I may have been destined to go into the ministry. In fact, I think I had almost decided to do that before my father died when I was 15. I had gone to Morehouse when I was 14 as a freshman on an early admissions program with a Ford Foundation scholarship. And he died when I was 15 and luckily I was surrounded by the value system that my father and mother felt was important.

I decided not to go in the ministry and I began to think about what I could do to apply what I felt was certain talents in another direction that might have a similar benefit. And I decided to become a lawyer because I could use then the skills as a lawyer to change the law to make things better that way. And did so as an attorney for the poor for many years. People, friends of mine, and Cleveland where I waited tables in the late 50s and sold encyclopedias do it or tell me that they remember by saying then that I intended to run for mayor of Atlanta. I have no recollection of that. But what I will tell you is that whatever may have been my feelings early on, I've always known that I was destined for some sort of public service, whether it meant elected office or in the ministry or at the bar as an attorney, some way trying to use the skills that I had. The value system that I was taught by my family to change things for the better for those who were the most oppressed and lo and behold,

Bobby Kennedy, I mean King was shot and killed John Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed. I was buried the day after my first child was born, Brooke, my daughter Brooke. She was born April the 8th of 1968. So she was two days old when I went from the hospital to the grave. And I spent three days thinking about what I was going to do with my life and decided that politics, although not perfect, was the best available, nonviolent means of changing how we live. And that's when I know I decided to get into politics. But I thought even then I would take a long time to phase into it, two, three, four years. I wanted to build a law firm. And lo and behold, less than two months later, after declining to arrive at the state house, until a group of neighbors that I would not do that. After I sat down to watch the Democratic return from the California primary and saw Bobby Kennedy shot to death.

When that went off finally, early in the morning hours, the news, the late news had been delayed and came on. Announce at Herman Talmadge, then the U.S. Senator from Georgia was going to run the next day, that day really was the last day to qualify. During the fifth of 1968, for the U.S. Senator, and apparently nobody was going to oppose him. So I went to work that morning and I resigned my job. I spent all day barring $3,000 for the qualifying fee. And around the U.S. Senator, I was 20 years ago. I was 30 years old. I'm 20 years ago and I'm 40 years old, of course, today. But I know that I can chart my decision back to when King was shot and killed. Okay, let's cut. Dennis Sites, laughs over. Gone with the wind. Gone is the south that never was.

What was the Atlanta that did used to be? Could you describe relations between whites and blacks when you were coming up in this town? When I was growing up as a boy in Atlanta from the age of seven, we moved here from Dallas, Texas, where I was born. But Atlanta is my mother's native home. It was hard core segregation all the way. But we never bowed to it. It was against the family policy. We never walked in anybody's back door ever. And I even dated a young lady one time who wanted to go to a movie, The Fox Theater, which at that time had a buzzard truth, as we called it. So black people were expected to go around the side of this theater, walk up all these steps, this magnificent theater, which we've preserved. It fell a mile out, by the way, to save as mayor of Atlanta, because I refused to issue the demolition permit. When I was very pressurized by the new owners of that property to tear it down, they wanted to build another building there.

So we saved the Fox Theater. Meanwhile, flashback, so back in the 50s, she wanted to go see this movie, ask where it was playing, and she said, ask where it was playing. She said, it was playing the Fox Theater. So I'm sorry, but we don't go to the Fox Theater. So we talked about it, she said, well, this is the only movie I really want to see tonight. I said, but do you understand my policy? She said, yes, I said, well, I want to try to accommodate you, but I can't go. She said, well, I don't really understand that. I said, fine, let's go. So I took her to the theater, I bought one ticket, gave it to her to come back and pick her up when the movie was over. So she got a little upset, she went on a saw the movie, came out, I was there waiting, I took her home, and never called her again. I've walked into a shoe store as my father, my grandfather, to be fitted for shoes. We would sit down and then they would ask us to move to the back of the shoe store, and we'd explain if we were going to spend our money, we'd sit anywhere we wanted to.

I said, well, you got to go to the back, I said, sorry, no, we don't have to go to the back. I chose to go to the back or leave, and we're leaving. The white power structure of Atlanta, like cities all over this country, and especially in the south in those days, 40s, 50s and 60s, with an iron hand, ran things. Atlanta was better than most southern cities because we had an understanding white leadership in politics that helped to bring along the white business leadership. The business leaders of Atlanta always have loved Atlanta. It's a great asset. It's the most responsive and responsible business community in the country, but they were products of their day. They hadn't really had broadening experiences, but Ivan Allen, Jr. was there.

Heartsfield himself, when he first became Mayor of Atlanta back in the 40s, was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, the man after whom our airport is named. But then he grew. He happened to grow more aware and broader. He grew broader and more open-minded on the race issue. Incidentally, as Black voters began to register more, he was a vote counter. So in those days, you had a trade-off, and I explain this political arrangement because it may give a real insight into Atlanta. The arrangement was that the white power structure would make its decisions politically and then send for the Black leadership. That pretty much was in the Atlanta Negro Voters League, which was a 400 to the Georgia Voters League, which was founded by my grandfather, John Wesley, my mother's father, but on my father's recommendation. My father had been, was a minister, but was also a politician and businessman.

Atlanta Negro Voters League was headed by two people, Republican John Wesley Dobbs, my grandfather, and Democrat Austin T. Walden. They were so respected and so revered and so trusted that being the key point. When the Atlanta Negro Voters League made a decision and issued its ticket at 12.01 a.m. on Election Day, 99% of the Black voters voted as the Atlanta Negro Voters League recommended. That organization no longer exists. They would go in response to the call downtown to meet with a white leadership. And here's the way it would go as explained by my grandfather. I was not there, of course. They'd walk in, they'd be seated and so forth, and exchange pleasantries, and the white leadership would say, we have decided to back Joe Blow for mayor, and we want you all to help us out and support our candidate. The Black leadership then, with the spokespersons being Dobbs and Walden, would say, we hear you.

And we'll certainly be happy to give a consideration, but first, we need a high school. We need so-and-so streets paid. We need sewers on the west side of Atlanta. We need better schools in the old fourth ward, or south side, or south Atlanta. They'd have to bargain for the things which they already were paying taxes. But that's how we get Washington High School, Book of the Washington High School, the first Black High School in the City of Atlanta in 1924. That's how we get most of the improvements in the community across time. So we're talking about a southern city that had a special edge, in my opinion. So there were many other southern cities, put dogs and cattle prods, fire hoses in the streets. Atlanta in the 60s went to the bargaining table. It's called the Atlanta style.

The Black College is here, and the fact that we are an educational center of Black and White, our factors that have contributed to that, and the fact that we are crossroads with the second, very often, the busiest airport in the world. Atlanta went through the 60s with a national reputation for dialogue between the races. When you became mayor, you sounded the theme of new partnerships for this city. What were you looking to change? I wanted to move it from talk to action. Excuse me, could you begin that with... Okay. When I became mayor, what I wanted to do was to move us from an era where we

were doing more acting than just talking. You see, Atlanta is, in my opinion, truly ahead of every other major setting in the country and race relations. But the problem with that is what James Baldwin wonders about. You know, Haven's a high priced, and the price of the Haven, Dweller, has executive him as to dilute himself into believing that he's found a haven. So we were kind of believing all of our headlines and our PR too much. We're the best, but we weren't good enough. That's my point. So we had to kind of begin to own up to our future. And if we're going to leave the nation fine, we had to match our rhetoric with our action. And as mayor, what I wanted to do was to lead us not just black people, but all people, black and white,

into an era where we truly could begin to point at progress, not just for a few people, but systemic progress. Some may benefit more than others at first, but after a while when the system begins to work, large numbers of people are benefited. And that was what I wanted to do. And we did so. But I have the scars. I have the scars to prove that it was not easy. When you became mayor, this was something new for Atlanta. How did you see yourself and what were the expectations on you from both blacks and whites that you faced when you took office? Being the first black mayor is what you wish on your enemy. And I say that with tongue in cheek, a great pride to be mayor of Atlanta.

And every black mayor has been the first black mayor of America. I'm sure it's felt the same thing. But it truly is part hell. You first of all start with exaggerated black expectations that overnight the Valhalla will be found. Heaven will come on earth and it's all because the black mayor has been elected and things just don't work that way. The obligation that I felt was to try with everything in my power, in every legal and ethical way that I could, to move things as quickly as possible in that direction. But me, while having to explain to somebody who called me from Ludowissie, Georgia, that no I really was not there mayor, I'd be very pleased to help if they didn't mind my waiting a little while because we were getting four to 50 phone calls a day. Even from out of state, all of a sudden became the mayor of Atlanta, but for black people in Georgia and even some neighboring states. That was an extraordinary burden. But in the city of Atlanta alone, we had to deal with that tremendous expectation of black community.

Now equally important and equally difficult was what we found in the white community, exaggerated anxiety. That anxiety was, oh my god, what are we going to do? We got a black mayor. What does this mean? Is this the end of Atlanta? We had just come through a runoff election where my opponent ran a campaign that said Atlanta is too young to die. They had TV shots that made Atlanta look like an abandoned western mining town with tumbleweed blowing through the streets, literally spots on TV. Atlanta is too young to die. Now he was castigated and condemned by everyone. Even the editorialists said, wait a minute, you've gone too far. He began to back off. I think that today he regrets that. I think he received bad advice. But he actually had been elected mayor. My predecessor, Sam Asal, had been elected mayor with only 16% of the white vote.

He was white. He was the first Jewish mayor of Atlanta. And he's a good man. He did a lot of good things. But he kind of got off on the side of that. But my point is that that exacerbated the situation. When I became mayor after that runoff campaign, there was great anxiety. Where was it reflected most strangely in our newspapers? I've seen bad press for the first two years that I was mayor. The press was almost hysterical. And not until the then editor of the Atlanta Constitution, Reg Murphy, left town, two years into my first term as mayor,

the things begin to settle down. And a more objective, more dispassionate, looked by the newspaper's occur as a, you know, reviewed our actions in the administration. We didn't expect anybody to say, hey, we're on your side. We just wanted fairness, even handedness. And things began to sift out a little bit there. But it was an atmosphere also that caused me to make a serious misjudgment. I looked at how the power structure members dealt with each other. If they disagreed, say, you know, to hell with you and, you know, you're so and so and all this, but they would not walk away from the relationship. I said, that's fair enough. I can deal with that. Because I wanted strongly, fervently wanted.

The business community worked hand in glove with me as we went through this transition. I didn't want to do it in a confrontational way. That was not my wish. But my job was to do it one way or the other. So my preference was to do it as a team. If we stumbled, let's stumble together. If I made a mistake, fine, say, I'm a dummy, but don't walk away from the relationship. I was dead wrong. Sometimes got hot. Even some of the closest friends I had in the business community, in the white power structure now, said, maybe that was the dumbest thing I've ever seen. And goodbye. So I miscalculated. But there were several key people. Jay Paul Austin, Coca-Cola, stuck with me. And did not always agree with everything I did because we were making big changes. Changes of some people. Honest to goodness leaders.

I mean, in the business community, just did not understand. Excuse me, let me, I want to be able to focus you in on some of this. Okay, so can you give me a specific example of the hysteria that you mentioned? Complete distrust of any motive that came out of City Hall. If we were pushing for affirmative action ahead to be because I wanted to get a crony a job. The reality is that we've been able backwards to put things the other way to salvage credibility. I went from negotiated contracts, 90% to about 90% bid contracts that took it out of our hands and almost guaranteed for the public scrutiny a more balanced approach to contracts. And another quick example is that even though I was for control of handguns, not rifles, but handguns, and have been for a long time,

when a secretary was shot in this city by an escaped mental patient from New Jersey who went in Atlanta and bought a handgun on the spot. Bought ammunition on the spot and walked up behind a former governor secretary at high noon on a Friday and down in Atlanta, and blew her brains out. I was accused of being responsible for that. Because they were so concerned about the crime situation. The fact is that our crime figures came down. We were number one on homicides in a nation before I became mayor. And of course, that dropped significantly. So that's a quick example of how serious it really became in hysteria. The last example I think was to try to broke the camels back. All of a sudden they looked up at themselves and they were shocked. They said, wait a minute. Let's settle down. You know, the city hall is being run better than before. It's better managed. Let's take another look at this thing. And that's when things began to settle into a more reasonable range of discussion. Camera roll, 4025, time cold, 1425.

Okay, so let's go into this notion of you being a transition mayor. Well, the obvious, of course, was I was the first black mayor of Atlanta. In some ways, my predecessor Sam Asel may have been a transition in that he was not of the normal mold for Atlanta's mayors, except that I think pretty much all of Atlanta's mayors in modern history, Hart's Field, Allen, Misselle, myself, and Andy Young all have had Atlanta's best interests at Hart. But the interpretations are different now. It felt my lot to be the first black mayor and to kind of get really serious about building an even playing field as expression goes. When I became mayor, 0.5% of all the contracts in the city of Atlanta went to Afro-Americans in the city,

which at that time was 50-50, and today is about 70% black. There were no women department heads. This was not only a question of race, it was a question of also sexual discrimination, and you know, all the typical isms, if there's one normally there is a whole bunch of them, and they were all there. We had to change dramatically how the appointments to jobs went, normal hiring practices in city government, went the contracting process not to reduce the quality, by the way, ever. We never, ever, ever set up a law standard. And those who say, well, affirmative action means you've got a law of the standard, that's a real insult, in my opinion, to African-Americans and other minority-Americans.

We never did it, didn't have to do it. 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. Atlanta Airport alone, a kind of 89% of all of the affirmative action in America, in all of America's airports. And the FAA told us that, we didn't know it. So you don't have to sacrifice, and we didn't. So our transition, therefore, was not just a question of race and sex, and equal opportunity for women, and equal opportunity for minorities. It was also a question of proving the point that we could manage well, and we did. We put new management systems in top to bottom, that we could have equal rights and equal opportunity, and not sacrifice quality, that we could begin to live up to our advanced building as a city. More than we did, I'm proud of Atlanta, and I'm proud of the fact that we are,

I think the best in the nation among the major cities and race relations. But the time had come for us to begin to put our money in our jobs, where our mouths were. To the credit of this city, as time went on in my services mayor, a number of people really began who were opposed to our policies in affirmative action, for example, who felt that it was unfair that it was being too pushy and so forth. Who forgot all about the fact that I took 18 months to negotiate with the banks, never held a press conference. Let me interact you on this, because I'd like to break down all this specific base on it. So let me begin by asking you to tell me about some specific reactions to your executive order on affirmative action. I don't think you have enough film to go into that.

Well, the reaction was immediate, it was not all white, it was black and white. The surprise for me was the number of black friends, well meaning, who were frightened by the aggressiveness of this program, and who cautioned me to slow down that they were concerned there might be a reaction against the black community. Well, our studies indicated to us there was black communities in a position that for the majority of black people, things could not get any worse. In some ways, things were excellent, in other ways, or very good, or getting better, different categories. And better than almost any other study in the country, I keep saying that because it was true. Atlanta was clearly head and shoulders above the rest of the nation, but not as good as we could be. And not as good as we had to be.

I had people to say, when I talked about affirmative action, and they were contracting with the city, professional firms or whatever, maybe a law firm, maybe a major corporation, I've got a whole file of reactions, one of which was well-mainted, this was a major manager of a major white corporation. Who got very upset with me about the policy and affirmative action. And said, I don't see this to be necessary, we're going to do what's right, you know, you can trust us and so forth. And I said, I have every confidence, but I want to trust you, but I also want you to sign on that in line. I said, well, look, I'm just not going to go out and hire the first Negro I see. I said, I think that's a pretty sound, personal policy. I said, I wouldn't either. And I said, we're not talking about that, we're talking about a policy and affirmative action plan.

And I said, I want to work with you, you know, well, I can't get it done in a month, I said, I've never given you a timetable. Well, who do you want us to hire? I said, you know my policy, I never, ever recommend a person. Now, my reason for that is because I never wanted them to be able to say, well, me just doing this kind of get his buddies and his cronies into a job. So I would never recommend anybody for a particular position. But when the first of the downtown banks responded to our initiatives after a while and came in and said, we want to adopt a affirmative action plan and we've spotted somebody in the bank, we want to promote. It's going to take us about four or five months. I said, that's fine, I've never said how long you have to do it. All I want is your word. They kept their word. This was first Georgia bank. And they said, what about for the board? You know, who do you recommend? I said, I don't do that. But would you respond and we brought you three or four names? I said, sure, I'll be happy to.

And sure enough, they did and that's how Tom Cordy was recommended to his first board. They asked me, what do you buy these pants? They're all excellent people. What about Tom Cordy? Excellent man. We'll do an excellent job and who do you think is the best of these three? I said, well, I think that Tom Cordy, a former banker and a businessman, probably do the best job for the bank and that's what we're talking about. We don't want to just get a black person on the board who can't help you and therefore discourage you and your colleagues in the banking community from inviting other black people to be on the board. It's where always we're balancing, constantly the balancing act. And there were thousands of other examples, but it was never done. Good. Now, what I'd like to do is give you a chance to more. Thank you. Thank you. Sound low for all night. Okay, so could you describe the war with banks?

We had a situation where in Atlanta, we had about $600 million of tax money being handled by the six downtown banks at that time. These are banks that from a civic point of view always show a great responsiveness and responsibility. They love Atlanta. Their leaders are the quintessential civic leaders of Atlanta. And in Atlanta, by the way, if you want to move to power, you're a newcomer, you must come in and pay your civic dues. So we're not talking about a bunch of folks who didn't care about the city. These are people who loved Atlanta, but they had no background in what to do about moving toward affirmative action and equal opportunity. You know, I'm saying that a lot now because I've got a plan for the future that's going to include working very closely as partners with the power structure to achieve more things with an understanding now that the common ground of discussion was not there before. We were talking from different perspectives and the banks were handling all of this. There was not a single black vice president or above in any of the six downtown banks at that time.

We're talking about approximately 1975, 76 there about. And I was mayor from 70, 40, 82, so that was an early part of my first term. And of course, nobody black onto the boards of these downtown banks at that time. So I went to them. I visited every CEO in his office and invited them to meet with me and they all did from time to time. I even made the mistake of inviting them all at one time in a meeting. I mean, this nothing was said in that meeting. I forgot they were competitors. They didn't want to say very much in front of each other, but my point is for 18 months, never held a press conference and never attacked the banks.

And zero was accomplished. I don't mean almost zero. I mean zero. But just a position of VP, yeah. I'm going to have to roll out on camera 4025. 4026 camera roll. Sound low. Continue. 409. Time call. 1426. OK, let's begin. Well, what I mean when I say zero was accomplished is that you take the VP position, vice president position in a bank. That's really not a high position. That's kind of middle management. There must have been maybe 100 to 120 VP's among all the downtown banks at that time. And not one person was African and so forth.

So I decided we had to do something. I had done the best I could and that was not a response there. So I gave a 30 day notice that the banks that did not comply were going to lose the accounts, the city accounts. Which we're talking about tax dollars, $600 million in tax money. And on day 29, are there about one of the downtown banks, the smallest of the downtown banks came in and said they wanted to work things out. As I mentioned, that was first Georgia bank. And on day 31, we moved the smallest account we could find from uncooperative bank. A, it was a $500,000 account, just a half million dollar account. Move that into first Georgia bank and I think the message was heard. Now, I want to make this very clear. It's never been my desire to have to do things that way.

In fact, if anything, I would like to have done them anyway other than that way. But when you try to do things through negotiation and through paths of least resistance, when they are non-confrontational and they don't work, and you have been elected to use the power that you have, if you don't use the power you're violating your promises, I would be doing it latter a disservice to let things linger and continue as they had been. My obligation as the transition mayor was to move us from status quo into a better way and a better day. If in the process I took a lot of heat and I mean real heat, I have the scars to show you. Blood is still on the rug in the mayor's office, right? That's the job. It goes with the territory.

And any mayor who's not prepared to pay that price ought not to be in that job. All right, a brief recap then of the results of the banking issue. And I'm responding on the point of trying to be specific and giving examples. This is only one of many, many examples. But the result today in Atlanta is that Atlanta probably is the only major American city where every traditional Atlanta downtown bank has integrated boards of directors. And where they all have black vice presidents and above to the extent by the way that I met a high ranking senior VP head of all commercial lending, one of the major downer makes for the day and find out for the first time that he was black. Well that's fine because I don't want to have to go around, you know, in the old days of television, see somebody black with you,

hey mama, mama, come look quick, you know, daddy, look at this. And of course now it's, you know, we just kind of take it to read it. Well that's fine. We want to move to the day where, where being black and being in positions of power and authority and service is not going to be a phenomenon so rare that we have to call the crowd to look to take a look. And I'm proud that Atlanta therefore is in that position, but we paid a price to get there. But the benefit of the city, the banks responded and made their changes for the better. And there are many people in those banks who helped to make that happen. Okay, I'm going to interrupt you there. And I'll keep rolling. And I'd like us to move on to a description of what the expectations of this airport project work. The YouTube office from the white community and what your agenda was. Well let's remember now we're talking about building a big project. It would be more than a half billion dollars. It would be the biggest project in the history of the city of Atlanta.

Biggest project in history of the state of Georgia. The bond issue alone. I'm a bond lawyer now with Chapman and Cutler and the bond issue alone. At that time, 305 million was the first of several bond issues. Was the biggest bond issue of any kind in the history of Georgia. And was the biggest bond issue for an airport in the history of the nation. So we're talking about a huge project. And we're talking about doing it between active runways safely. This, therefore, was a challenge not only in affirmative action. It was a challenge to management. And we put together a seven person team. Had other supporting actors and so forth. But I think it was the finest public management team ever assembled in this country. So I want to emphasize that as we move toward affirmative action, we always saw that as an issue that had to be managed. And I think this is the key point. Affirmative action is not something that just happens when you sing songs and all of a sudden it jumps off the wall.

That's not it. It is to be managed. And those in charge must produce. They must have goals to meet. And they must be judged as managers by their productivity, their success. So we had to build an airport. We had to do it well. We had to do it within budget. We had to do it within time, within the time allocation. And simultaneously, it had to be done fairly. Black people, other minorities, and women had to have an equal, not superior, but an equal opportunity to participate in the bidding, the contracting, the concessions, top to bottom of this airport. So we had to manage that entire package and we did. The result was that when we announced how we were going to approach this from a contract compliance point of view, contract compliance, meaning 0, 5, 6, 7, 8 different items, including but not limited to affirmative action. I would have thought the heavens were falling down. We were threatened with litigation six, seven times a day. A lot of the litigation occurred.

I was told that I was retarding the progress of Atlanta. I'm the mayor who found an airport project that was 11 years old and nobody could do. They had given up on it. They told me I couldn't do it. These are the long time bureaucrats of the city. Dedicated Atlanta-loving people, but they had never sold encyclopedias as I had, and had never trained people how to sell, and had not trained themselves in the positive attitude that is part of my life. I am a trained positive thinker. They told me you can't build this in that spot. I said, why not? They said because NSA85 runs right through where you would have the terminal be. I said, fine, we'll move the interstate. And they laughed at me. They said, that's fine. You know, this kind of manner, you know, rookie mayor and so forth. What does he know? Well, I didn't know a whole lot, but I knew never to say never. And I knew there's a way to do anything, and we did it too. Now, in the process, by the way, people pitched a fit about affirmative action.

We got to the point where we were absolutely being stone-walled, almost across the board. Litigation, threats of more litigation, all kinds of political pressure, black emissaries coming in to carry the message from whites who had an interest in this thing, and there was some whites who want to do what was right, I want to be sure that's understood. And there was some who simply didn't know what to make of this. You know, we have to understand, I don't agree with it, but our points of orientation was so different, and they just did not understand what to do with this new way, this new administration. They didn't know how to adjust to it most, and not most of the white community in the White Parish Act. Now, the white community itself is not monolithic.

I had big support among the neighborhood movement in Atlanta, because I want to be focused on that. We got camera roll, 40, 27, time code, 10, 27. Continuation of sound, 4, 9. Okay, so let's recall that specific moment, if you will, when you had to call home. Well, there, it's really difficult for me to remember the exact thing that precipitated more was an accumulation of things. We couldn't get the number of bidders we wanted on deals so that we would have a good cross-section for the benefit of the taxpayers. We were determined not to sacrifice anything in excellence or anything else for the benefit of the program. I was confident we could do their program affirmative action and manage this project well, better than ever had been done before, and we proved that. But there came a time when we saw that we weren't going to be able to proceed as we had thought we were, to build that airport, unless we were prepared to back up on our affirmative action commitment,

abandon it in part as a matter of fact, and then move ahead and build the airport and just kind of, you know, retrofit, which never has worked. So we said, okay, we won't build it until the situation is right. And I was asking a news conference about that, is that in fact what I had decided, I said, yes. What about all this, you know, you'll be accused of holding up progress. I mean, it was a big to do, it was front page stuff, it was hot stuff, I was attacked right and left. You know, we're the ones who got the project going after people said it couldn't happen. 11 years of people talking about it, we made it happen, and we held it up for a year. But we were busy. I mean, I'm also part politician, right? So I don't want to come out of a year of delay with all this criticism and not have a better idea.

So we spent that year refining the project, we came out with a better idea that was $7 million cheaper and better designed and so forth. And then we went ahead because by that time people had come to believe that I was truly crazy enough to do what I said, which was to let the project sit out there and weeds grow until people did what was right. Now I don't want to be that way. What I want to be is Mr. Nice Guy and I'm not a confrontationist by spirit. But again, where you try to work things out in a non-confrontational way and it does not work. Where you move reasonably, you have fair rules and fair practices and it gets you zero. Then you've got to do everything legally and ethically you can do to make the change occur. To put it behind you, suffer the trauma and then build back from it and that's what we did.

And today we're a much better setty for it. Okay, now I'd like to ask you to go back and have a phrase that we thought was pretty interesting. You were accused of going too far, too fast of being too black. Could you play that back for us how that worked? What they said would you say? Well, again, remember the environment, right? We're going from a city where 0.5% of the contracts went to black people. Only one black department had ever had been hired and that was not very much within the relative size of the government and so forth. And we had nowhere to go but up. I mean, truly had nowhere to go but up. Our interest was in running a good government, strong management, fiscal response, but all of these things, right? To run a good government, it had to be done well and fairly.

So affirmative action, therefore, was not just a dream or kind of a nice side thing, not throwing a plum to the black community. It was a necessity. I have had people to tell me, well, mainly you were just too black. You were too pushy. So I would remind them that, you know, I tried to negotiate this and I tried to negotiate that. Not one or two days, but I mean months and months, even a year and a half in one case. I got nowhere. It was only then that we had to be more aggressive, to do what was necessary, whatever it was. If anything, I had begun to feel that I was not pushing hard enough. And then I had someone to tell me I've had a white friend who said that to me one day. I mean, you know, you were too black. I said, I don't know what you mean.

I said, we're a better city today because we had good policies that were sound. He said, no, you know, you wouldn't even appoint anybody white. I said, that's really interesting. I said, I had four chief administrative officers, three of them I appointed were white. Well, yeah, well, I kind of forgot about that. Well, you know, we asked you to appoint a white police chief, which was true, by the way. I had a group to come to me and fight leaders and to say we'd like you to appoint a white police chief. And I asked him to have any other criteria in mind. Because I wasn't going to appoint anybody black just because they were black. And I was not going to appoint anybody white just because they were white. But back to this fellow, this friend of mine, he said, well, you know, you wouldn't appoint a white police chief. I said, the first police chief, I appointed was white. Well, no, it wasn't. I said, yes, it was. He was clenching and he said, oh, yeah, that's right. But that didn't count because of this and that. So what I've had to deal with is this, the transition attitude of good people, frankly, not even knowing how to react to these initiatives. With my trying to stay on even keel, try not to get mad because I feel like I'm being put upon.

That I'm being unfairly attacked and I was trying to be patient with the transition. With people who are good-hearted, people who love Atlanta, but just did not understand the necessity and the desirability of the kind of transition that I had to lead. We were change agents for the better. And we would determine the integration would be a working reality and not just a word. Good. Good. You were a labor lawyer early in your career and you supported the sanitation workers when you were vice mayor. Why couldn't you not support their demands when you were mayor? Well, I did support, as mayor, I supported the demands of sanitation workers. I didn't support their strike when it got to the point that the strike was an illegal strike. And we suffered the possibility of garbage piling up in the city and the city becoming unsanitary.

The quick background is I'm a pro labor person, always have been. When I left the National Labor Relations Board and they eventually set up my private practice as vice mayor, I actually represented a few unions. The National Alliance of Postal Federal Employees being won. Asked me was a supporter of mine, they contributed to my campaign. The American Federation of State County Municipal Employees. I support Asked Me. I still do. But they had bad local leadership that called a rump strike with no local vote on issues that already had been settled. They wanted to raise until we didn't have the money. We offered to pay for their accountant to find the money. If you find it, you can get it. They went and looked for it, couldn't find it, and still said it's there somewhere. So we're going to strike and they call the strike on the spot. My obligation is to, as mayor, always must be to run the city in the very best way that I can. To be fair to everybody I possibly can be fair to.

We went around the bar and we already had moved on better uniforms and pay wage. Everything they asked for was fair by the way. I said that publicly. What they've asked for is needed. We just didn't have the dough. And my plan was to lay it out on a multi-year thing and bring them current for where they would be even under their program. They wouldn't go for that. Struck the city. And we offered, we urged people to come back to work. They wouldn't come back to work. Which all of we had to get this thing squared away. We had to pick up the garbage, keep it a lot of clean. There's even another thing, by the way. The inability to manage is presumed to be a defect of black elected officials. The polls indicated most white Americans indicated black people in public office can't manage anyhow. To have a city with garbage popping up all over the place would hurt as a matter of fact the movement in black politics. Not just me personally. So after giving every kind of warning in the world when it wouldn't return that we had to go on a replace many of the strikers.

Many were later rehired by the way. But the bottom line was when I ran for re-election. I still carried 96% of the black vote. And my white vote went from 25 to 31%. People understood that I was back into a corner by an untenable ill-timed, ill-planned, illegal strike. That I think many of the employees even understood was one that never should have been called. But I always had to be guided by what was best for Atlanta as a whole. And I was. Okay. I hope everything. I was only one of several. 4028, sound 409. Time call. 1428. Okay. A brief recap of that city council meeting, if you will. Well, there were hundreds of striking City of Atlanta employees who were singing.

We shall overcome and signs of course that were castigating me and condemning me. That was a very rough time for me. That was a very sad decision that I made and had to make. But it was a right decision. I didn't like having to do that. For me to fire any employee, but incidentally a thousand employees, and incidentally ninety-eat percent of them being black. Something I had to pray over. And I took no joy in doing it. But I also knew what my job was as mayor. My job was to manage a city and. I'm sorry. We got that and there's also a deal. Can we get some noise control over there? Okay.

Okay. Thank you. I wanted to move into public housing personally to set an example. To those who ran the Atlanta Housing Authority who won that board. And I said I would not appoint anybody to the board unless they did the same thing. Urge those already on the board to do the same thing. And one said yes and the other said you must be crazy. Spend three days and I thought I knew public housing. I had to go on up around public housing so I was not in it. But around it. Brand of experience. Never had wratch crawling in walls like that before in my life. And that's when I made up my mind. We're going to do something about it. We haven't done enough yet but we're going to. Great. Okay. A few words on Amadine L in terms of why your advice not to hire her? Well this was an interesting thing.

I have had and have great respect for Amadine L. But not a single advisor, male or female agreed that I should hire for that particular position. I went ahead anyhow and as it turns out in retrospect they may have been more right than I was. And when time came for us to part ways I asked her what she resigned and she declined to do so. I gave her more time to reconsider that and she still said no and she wanted to appeal it. And fight the case under our rules at that time before the Atlanta City Council like a trial. So that's what we did. She lost. We won. She left the administration. But to her credit there were several things that happened because of her but to the positive. But the reality is that. I think that I would have done myself and her and the administration a better service if I had asked her to serve in a different position from the very beginning. But that's that's 2020 hindsight.

She's doing an excellent job for. The City of Atlanta EOA today and I wish her well and I'm very much in her corner. Okay. That's good. Okay. Okay. Okay. How do you understand the challenge that faces black elected officials? This is an America where the most perfect revolutionary act in this democracy is voting. Black elected officials have all of the challenges that white elected officials have with a major overlay in addition. That overlay is to prove we shouldn't have to do this. It's not fair that we're asked to do this. Not fair that we're expected to do this. But the reality is that we've got to prove ourselves more than others. Not just to white the white community but to the black community as well.

There is an undercurrent in black America that fears that black elected officials will embarrass the black community. One of the things that I've sworn I would never do is to do anything that would embarrass my city. Anybody, black or white but especially the black community. And do you know that I hear that more than almost any single thing when I talk to the church ladies and the deacons and so forth around they appreciate that. So the challenge therefore is to manage well to be a good public manager but more than that a leader who has a vision for the future and who has the guts to make that happen. But also the skill try to build a consensus and to bring that group along. And there is no excuse that we ought to use just because we're black. We shouldn't hide behind that.

Shouldn't use that as a rationalization. Should not try to say well look you know you got to make special allowances for me because I'm black and all of this. I'm sorry but black taxpayers want the same things that white taxpayers want and you'd better be able to deliver and you've got to be able to stand and deliver. And when we talk about eyes on the prize we've got to be sure that we are electing people to office. Who first of all know what prize are after what is the prize the prize is equal opportunity it is good management it is a better way in a better day it is a change from the status quo. And the prize also is to serve well and to serve fairly to serve honestly but to make a difference. The only thing one is doing is holding office a high look at me I'm a black elected official and they're not taking care of business. If they're not using the power they have to change things for the better they are a waste.

The prize is a better way in a better day for all people especially those who are oppressed. Well in the one year delay the approximately one year delay while we were being stonewall we finally developed a better plan less expensive better designed. People began to rally to it and that's what I knew the project was going to work not only in terms of affirmative action. People were beginning to say we'll we'll go along with it we don't like it but yes okay we can work with live with that. But also that we're going to have a great airport well designed built ahead of schedule within budget and simultaneously we're going to do what was necessary to do to be a fair government that's what I knew. Okay and now I'd like to ask you if you feel that winning in election winning in the election of mayor wasn't that the prize.

It's interesting I got the nationally prestigious award with a significant monetary award in 1974 for the greatest contribution by the American under 35 years of age and that was being elected. But I'll beat out the Watergate reporters by one vote I'm told but the reality is no politics is not an end as a means to an end. It is a means of changing public policy and public policy controls almost every aspect of our lives and we are the change agents. It is through us the people speak we want this we want that this kind of life this kind of quality of life and we must deliver honestly fairly to all people but we must deliver.