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Maynard Jackson: A Biography
For
black Atlantans, Maynard Jackson’s election in 1973 as the city’s first
black mayor represented a crowning achievement in political
mobilization, a process that had been underway for decades. Maynard
Jackson’s grandfather, John Wesley Dobbs, had been among the early black
activists who helped to organize and energize the black community in
Atlanta. Thus, Jackson’s election had been substantially preordained.
Jackson’s election culminated a major shift in the city’s power balance
and placed blacks at the top of the historic and much touted biracial
coalition that had long characterized Atlanta’s politics. This coalition
of white “Southern moderates” and a mobilized black community that voted
in a bloc had largely succeeded in keeping many racist white elements
out of power. The result of this alliance was that the candidates backed
by the white business community usually won the Atlanta mayoralty, with
a strong supporting role played by black voters. With Jackson’s
election, moderate whites were displaced as the governing elite and
replaced by young black insurgents, many of whom had come of age during
the civil rights movement. Jackson’s election represented a sea change
in the socio-political dynamics in Atlanta, and followed in a series of
similar mayoral insurgencies in big cities across the Midwest and
Northeast. It is this sea change in Atlanta’s politics that Bob Holmes
has captured so well in his biography of Maynard Jackson.
Holmes has succeeded in appropriately situating the
story of Maynard Jackson’s life within the context of the history of the
black elite of Atlanta, and the evolution of the city’s black political
and economic power structure. His telling of this rich history also
serves to remind the knowledgeable reader of how much black economic
power has expanded in Atlanta, substantially influenced by Jackson’s
efforts; and how much the black political elite in the city has
simultaneously expanded in numbers, and declined in prominence and
social standing. Holmes’s analysis of Jackson’s black economic
empowerment strategy and his signature minority set-aside program
captured in the major expansion of Atlanta’s Hartsfield Airport, make
for fresh and new understanding of this singular achievement of
Jackson’s first term as mayor.
Holmes takes us fully inside the three terms of
Jackson’s mayoral years. Jackson’s initial election resulted in two
terms in office. It was this first 8-year tenure that most defined
Jackson’s mayoral leadership and which clearly took the greatest toll on
Jackson as the consummate political man. Holmes provides coverage of the
major political issues of Jackson’s first years and dissects several key
issues—administrative hiring, police brutality and the selection of a
new police chief, housing for low income residents, the distribution of
city services, and intractable, racially-tinged problems with the white
business community—which provoked the greatest conflict. The changes
initiated by Jackson provoked rancorous racial conflict that, like a
great fog, hung over the city for many months. With Jackson’s election,
Atlanta entered a period of deep social and political change which was
not easy. The burdens of leadership during this time wore heavily on the
young mayor.
The reader is given an up-close look at dimensions of
Jackson’s thundering personality and how Jackson conveyed his philosophy
of governance and his strong sense of the imperative of significant
social change. Holmes enables us to see Maynard Jackson as both
extraordinary, and all too human. Holmes captures Jackson as a man of
awesome talent, determination, and strength. He captures Jackson as an
extraordinary visionary man and leader, someone who held unbridled
ambitions for the betterment of the city of Atlanta. Holmes also shows
the reader insights into the dimensions of Jackson’s failings as a
husband to his first wife, as well as his shortcomings in fulfilling his
role as father to his children, especially to his son. Holmes helps the
reader to understand the price that both Jackson and those closest to
him paid for Jackson’s life in politics.
One of the lasting impressions one gets from Holmes’s
account of Maynard Jackson’s life is the enormity of the impact that
Jackson had on the city of Atlanta. Jackson’s leadership and powerful
presence in the city resulted in two key developments that permanently
altered the business environment in Atlanta. The first was the minority
business development initiative of Jackson’s first four years in office.
The second was Jackson’s leading role in bringing the 1996 Olympics to
Atlanta. With his discussion of preparations for the Olympics
presentation and the eventual winning bid, Holmes reminds the reader of
Maynard Jackson’s indelible imprint on Atlanta and his role in
transitioning the city, first to become “The capital of the New South,”
and in his second mayoralty, shepherding the city to assume its current
position as a 21st Century global city. It is worth noting that Bob
Holmes came of age as an Atlanta activist, serving as an elected state
official, university professor, and senior policy advisor, during the
years of Jackson’s ascendancy and success. Holmes’s life in political
leadership ran coterminous to Jackson’s for several decades, and the two
shared many of the same goals and political successes in bringing the
Atlanta black community into full political representation. Therefore,
it is most appropriate that the definitive biography of Maynard Jackson
has been penned by Bob Holmes.
Georgia Persons, Ph.D.
Professor of Political Science, Georgia Institute of Technology
Editor, National Political Science Review
About the Author of Maynard Jackson: A
Biography, Robert A. Holmes
Dr. Robert A. Holmes, Emeritus Distinguished
Professor of Political Science at Clark Atlanta University, earned his
Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1969. He has served as an
administrator and professor at four universities. In addition to his
biography of Maynard Jackson, he is the author of 60 journal articles
and book chapters, as well as the editor of The Status of Black Atlanta
(1993-2005). Further, he has served as president of the Association of
Social and Behavioral Scientists and the National Conference of Black
Political Scientists; and he was a member of the Council of the American
Political Science Association. Dr. Holmes also served as a state
representative in the Georgia General Assembly for thirty-four years;
and he was a member of Maynard Jackson’s mayoral transition team.
Reprinted with permission of Barnhardt & Ashe Publishing, Inc.
www.BarnhardtAshePublishing.com
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