- Annexation & politics
- Segregation
- elected Oct. 1973; took office Jan. 1974
- City of Atlanta
Maynard Jackson elected mayor (1973)
Maynard Jackson won the 1973 runoff with just under 60 percent of the vote and became the first Black mayor of a major southern city. The city had become majority Black by 1970.
The record
The 1970 census showed Atlanta with a Black majority for the first time. In the 1960s the city's white population fell by 60,132 while its Black population grew by 68,587 (NGE). Jackson defeated incumbent Sam Massell, and Black Atlantans gained equal representation on the city council that year. He raised minority firms' share of city contracts from under 1 percent to more than 35 percent, including on the new airport terminal, and set up neighborhood planning units. He was the grandson of John Wesley Dobbs, and as mayor he renamed Houston Street for Dobbs in 1994.
Today: Atlanta City Hall. Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport bears his name.