THAT ’70s CITY / A look at the decade when Atlanta came of age: First black mayor rises in heady political era

When author Pearl Cleage moved to Atlanta from Washington in 1969 to attend Spelman College, she expected the Old South.

“Lester Maddox was the governor,” noted Cleage, referring to Georgia’s segregationist chief executive.

Instead, she found herself immersed in a progressive political movement on the verge of history.

“Everyone knew there was a big change coming,” Cleage said.

It was a simple matter of math.

By the 1970 census, for the first time in its history, Atlanta had more African-American residents than whites: 225,040 vs. 223,914. With the federal Voting Rights Act passed and other civil rights-era reforms enacted, blacks were finally empowered.

A first mayor of color was inevitable.

A year earlier, Atlanta elected its first and only Jewish mayor, Sam Massell. His vice mayor, then a largely ceremonial post, was a young black attorney who had just come off a primary challenge against longtime U.S. Sen. Herman Talmadge (D-Ga.).

Though Maynard Holbrook Jackson Jr. failed to get a third of the vote in that contest, he carried Atlanta and emerged overnight as a new force in city politics. It was assumed he would succeed Massell in 1977, after the latter had served two terms.

Jackson, the great-grandson of slaves, had other ideas.

Throughout his life he had shown little patience for traditional timetables. At 18, Jackson graduated from Morehouse College. By the time he turned 31, he had run two campaigns.

His staff was likewise young and multiracial. Cleage was just 22 when she joined his campaign.

“Black folks knew we had the power,” she said. “We knew we had the votes.”

But was Atlanta ready?

Jackson was brash and ambitious, leading doubters to question whether he was too radical or anti-white.

“Maynard was a very pragmatic person,” said Cleage, who would go on to become the mayor’s press secretary. “He knew how to reassure voters.”

In the 1973 municipal election, the insurgent won 47 percent of the vote in a crowded field, more than double the incumbent’s total. The two headed for a runoff. Massell needed a miracle.

Trailing badly in the polls, Massell sought to change the conversation with a dramatic two-page ad in The Atlanta Constitution. It depicted a vacant city with the headline, “Atlanta’s Too Young to Die.”

The implication was clear.

The strategy backfired.

“That was the most overt appeal to fear in the campaign,” said Cleage. “People resisted it overwhelmingly.”

Jackson won in a landslide. He would go on to serve three terms as mayor, overseeing, among other megaprojects, the building of a massive new terminal at Hartsfield International Airport (now Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport). He died of a heart attack in 2003 and is buried in historic Oakland Cemetery.

“After I moved here, I’d call home and tell my family and friends, ‘Atlanta’s different. It’s not like the rest of the South,’ ” Cleage said. “Now they had to believe me. It was a proud moment for all of us, and it made me proud to be an Atlantan.”

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About this series: As we enter 2009, we look back at Atlanta’s transformation in the ’70s. It was a breathless transition for the city, and its growth stood in stark contrast to that of the nation’s other urban centers.

Coming Monday: “Hotlanta” embraces the freewheeling ’70s, boasting a lively club scene downtown and an even livelier party at a notorious suburban apartment complex.