Flashback Photos: Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr.

Politics

Flashback Photos: Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr.

He shepherded Atlanta through the 1960s, the Civil Rights Era, and worked openly to promote racial harmony and equality.

Born March 15, 1911, Ivan Allen Jr. was the son of successful Atlanta businessman Ivan Allen, whose office supply and furniture store became one of the city's best-known companies. Allen Sr. was a noted civic booster and his son continued in that spirit as he grew to manhood.

Dr. Benjamin E. Mays (right) chats with Mayor Ivan Allen, Jr., (left) at a banquet in Atlanta, June 1967. Originally running for statewide office on segregationist platforms in the 1950s, Allen realized that Atlanta could only achieve its lofty growth goals and move forward in the '60s and the years to come if citizens of all races worked together and he became a champion of civil rights.

1962 -- New Atlanta mayor Ivan Allen Jr. is shown with his wife Louise and sons Inman and Beaumont.

May 9, 1968 - Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr., standing, shakes hands with one of the Mississippi-Alabama contingent of the Southern leg of the Poor People's Campaign after the group arrived in Atlanta. "Godspeed to you," Allen told the marchers as he climbed aboard each of five buses with brought them to the city. Allen defeated future Georgia governor Lester Maddox, an avowed segregationist, in 1961 for the post of Atlanta mayor, taking office in early 1962. He went on to serve two consecutive terms in the office (1962-70), guiding Atlanta through the turbulent Civil Rights era.

June 4, 1962 - Mayor Ivan Allen, center, of Atlanta, Ga., boards a plane at New York's Idlewild Airport for a flight to Paris and the scene of an Air France jetliner crash one day earlier that killed 130, most of them Atlanta residents. With him are Edwin L. Sterne, left, an assistant Atlanta city attorney, and Aubrey Morris, an Atlanta newscaster. “I realized how insignificant I was, but I knew I had to assume the posture of representing these families and, indeed, the entire city of Atlanta, Georgia. I knew nothing about protocol, foreign relations, aviation, international agreements, or any of the other details I might become involved in. I was nothing but the Mayor of Atlanta and a friend and neighbor of 106 people who had been killed at this same airport only the day before…These were my lifelong friends," Allen wrote of the experience later.

Oct. 10, 1965 - Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. shows off his collection of ground-breaking shovels. They represent new plants brought to the city by industry hunters.

May 22, 1962 - These young ballerinas, bearing peach baskets filled the signatures of 35,637 persons, added culture to Atlanta City Hall as about 300 confronted Mayor Ivan Allen and members of the Citizens Advisory Bond Commission asking for a performing arts center.

April 9, 1965 - Mayor Ivan Allen connects on the seventh pitch from Governor Carl Sanders in the newly completed Atlanta Stadium.

April 6, 1969 -SCLC Leader Dr. Ralph David Abernathy talks to Atlanta Police Captain Howard Baugh and Mayor Ivan Allen during a demonstration march.

On April 4, 1968, the night of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the widow Coretta Scott King is escorted back to her home from the Atlanta airport by Mayor Ivan Allen Jr.

Jan. 14, 1981 -- Former Atlanta mayor Ivan Allen Jr. gets a hug -- and the Martin Luther King Jr. Peace Prize -- from King's widow, Coretta Scott King, who told him he 'laid a solid foundation' for good race relations.

March 16, 1965 - Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. shows (or rather tries to show) Scott Silvis, 16 months, the new electric sign at the Darlington Apartments, 2025 Peachtree Road, that shows a running count of Atlanta's population. The count when the mayor threw the switch was 1,174,575. The city population grows at the rate of one person each 16 minutes.

1967 -- Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. was presented with the Pioneer Award by the 100 Per Cent Wrong Club in tribute of his outstanding work in sports. Club president Al Thompson (left) and the Braves Hank Aaron flank the mayor. Aaron, who won the 1967 National League home run championship, was the guest of honor at the club's opening-season meeting at the Stadium Club.

Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young with predecessor Ivan Allen, Jr., atop the 10 Park Place building overlooking Atlanta's Woodruff Park on April 23, 1987. Both worked hard during their time in office to promote the city's overall growth.

Jan. 14, 1981 -- Former Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen attends the M.L.K. birthday celebration at Ebenezer Church. He was awarded the Martin Luther King Peace Prize award at a ceremony there. In 2004, Allen was inducted into the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame at the Martin Luther King Jr. Historic Site in Atlanta. He died at age 92 in 2003.

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Born March 15, 1911, Ivan Allen Jr. was the son of successful Atlanta businessman Ivan Allen, whose office supply and furniture store became one of the city's best-known companies. Allen Sr. was a noted civic booster and his son continued in that spirit as he grew to manhood.

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