Reimagining Democracy for a Good Life
Jul 15, 2026 · 38 min · 11 segments
Is Atlanta’s reputation as a Black Mecca real or simply good marketing? Or both? In this chapter: how the long legacy of Black leadership transformed Atlanta into a world-class city, and how hip-hop…
Angela Glover BlackwellHostChristina LeeGuest
Maurice HobsonGuestNathaniel SmithGuest
Helen ButlerGuest
Charles BlowGuest
Nsé UfotGuest
Maryam MomaGuestAlison JohnsonGuest
What we see in the American South, or what I call the Black New South, is from 1965 until 1980, you see where Black folk are able to vote in their own interest based on citizenship and voting.
Dr. Maurice Hobson is the Georgia State University professor we met in the last episode.
There was a brilliant young politician by the name of Maynard Holbrooke Jackson Jr. who was able to galvanize and understand that times were changing.
And he wins with roughly 95% of the black vote, 58% of the total vote, which means that there's a sizable white population.
He's able to find his way into sitting in the city's top office in 1973, being elected as the city's first black mayor and the first black mayor of any major southern city in the United States.
We are the city.
that refuses to be diverted from the positive path that stretches clearly before us.
We are the city that refuses to despair but continues to hope.
We are the city whose people refuse to become bogged down in the mire of demagoguery and inflammatory rhetoric.
We have arisen from the ashes of a very bitter campaign to build a better life for all Atlantans.
It was the organizing of old black women in public housing tenements in the city, getting seniors on buses to go vote for Maynard Jackson that gave him an opportunity to win.
I always try to make it clear that without poor black people, Maynard Jackson would not have won the mayoral race in the city of Atlanta.
Nathaniel Smith is the founder and chief equity officer of the Partnership for Southern Equity.
It's a nonprofit organization that advances policies and actions aimed at promoting racial equity in the metro Atlanta area and the wider American South.
Nathaniel is very much influenced by the class of leaders who served as the moral compass of the city, and he considers his work to be part of that tradition.
If we didn't have people who were willing to fight for a better city for black people, then we wouldn't have the city that we have today.
fighting for a better reality for black people has meant leading for the whole and lifting everybody up.
I have never seen a single black legislator, historically until now, propose any legislation that would have hurt someone else but help black people.
What we see in the American South, or what I call the Black New South, is from 1965 until 1980, you see where Black folk are able to vote in their own interest based on citizenship and voting.
Dr. Maurice Hobson is the Georgia State University professor we met in the last episode.
There was a brilliant young politician by the name of Maynard Holbrooke Jackson Jr. who was able to galvanize and understand that times were changing.
And he wins with roughly 95% of the black vote, 58% of the total vote, which means that there's a sizable white population.
He's able to find his way into sitting in the city's top office in 1973, being elected as the city's first black mayor and the first black mayor of any major southern city in the United States.
We are the city.
that refuses to be diverted from the positive path that stretches clearly before us.
We are the city that refuses to despair but continues to hope.
We are the city whose people refuse to become bogged down in the mire of demagoguery and inflammatory rhetoric.
We have arisen from the ashes of a very bitter campaign to build a better life for all Atlantans.
It was the organizing of old black women in public housing tenements in the city, getting seniors on buses to go vote for Maynard Jackson that gave him an opportunity to win.
I always try to make it clear that without poor black people, Maynard Jackson would not have won the mayoral race in the city of Atlanta.
Nathaniel Smith is the founder and chief equity officer of the Partnership for Southern Equity.
It's a nonprofit organization that advances policies and actions aimed at promoting racial equity in the metro Atlanta area and the wider American South.
Nathaniel is very much influenced by the class of leaders who served as the moral compass of the city, and he considers his work to be part of that tradition.
If we didn't have people who were willing to fight for a better city for black people, then we wouldn't have the city that we have today.
fighting for a better reality for black people has meant leading for the whole and lifting everybody up.
I have never seen a single black legislator, historically until now, propose any legislation that would have hurt someone else but help black people.
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