ABSTRACT
The city of Atlanta has been under black mayoral leadership since 1973. Blacks have majority control in both the Atlanta City Council and the Atlanta School Board, as well as on the Fulton County Board of Commissioners. Black mayors, like their nonblack counterparts, are disciplined by that reality. A 1988 study of the economic status of black Atlantans concluded that Regardless of which data one looks at the conclusion is clear. The spectre of Eaves as mayor motivated the black leadership, especially Mayor Maynard Jackson, to recruit Andrew Young to run for mayor. Black mayors came to power at the historical moment when cities began to decline as industrial centers. The Atlanta black leadership has accepted this role with seeming alacrity. The inner-city poor black population that was being created by these changing dynamics of the American economy became an impediment in the city's growth scheme.
