Atlanta is often affectionately called the “Black Mecca” of the South. The city has undergone a dramatic demographic shift over the past four decades. Black Atlanta is shrinking.Twenty major trends, a “20-Point Plan,” account for the depopulation of Black Atlanta. Many of these trends are detailed in The Black Metropolis in the Twenty-First Century, a book I edited in 2007.
The 2010 census revealed a significant exodus of blacks from Atlanta over the previous decade, with the black population falling by 29,746 people. Atlanta’s black population loss occurred at the same time blacks in the metro area grew by 40 percent, an addition of 490,982. The lion’s share of blacks who migrated to Metro Atlanta settled in the suburbs—not the city—a trend unlike the one that gave the city a black majority and its first black mayor, Maynard Jackson, elected in the 1973. Metro Atlanta now has the second largest black population of all U.S. metropolitan regions, surpassing Chicago, and just behind New York.
The demographic transition is not an overnight phenomenon. It is important to note that this black exodus took shape during an era of Black mayors and majority black city councils. The impetus for this demographic shift can be summarized in the following 20 trends:
Atlanta’s population grew from 467, 455 in 1960 to 496,973 in 1970—with the Atlanta’s black share increasing from 39.9 percent to 51.3 percent. During 1980-1990, the city’s population decreased from 425,022 to 394,017—while the black share of Atlanta’s population jumped from 66.6 percent to 67.1 percent. The 2000-2010 decade saw Atlanta growing from 416,474 to 420,003, while the black share of the city continued to decline, from 61.4 percent to 54.0 percent.
- The 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games—served as “shot of adrenaline” that kicked off the black depopulation trend;
- Demolition of all public housing in the city;
- Overt hostility directed at the poor and homeless population;
- Heightened class warfare between black “elites” and black “underclass;”
- Squandering of Atlanta Empowerment Zone funds designed to revitalize low-wealth minority neighborhoods;
- Diverting public funds into private ventures and away from the city’s core black neighborhoods;
- Dismantling of the public health safety-net hospital—privatization of Grady Hospital;
- Failing public schools;
- Defunding the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority or MARTA;
- Racial redlining and disinvestment by banks, mortgage firms, insurance companies, and commercial enterprises;
- Predatory mortgage lending;
- Gentrification and displacement in urban core neighborhoods;
- Shortage of affordable housing;
- Housing discrimination in rental and owner market;
- Racial steering by real estate agents;
- Spatial mismatch between black residence and job centers;
- Hyper-job sprawl into the suburbs;
- Black suburbanization—albeit re-segregation in low-jobs suburbs;
- Expanding “food deserts” with closure of grocery stores and supermarkets;
- Breakdown of the de facto power- sharing “arrangement” between white business elites and black political elites.
These 20 trends are not meant to be exhaustive. Nor are they ranked in any order. However, taken together, the trends acted as a powerful force in depopulating Black Atlanta—a long-term trend that will likely continue into the future.
The 1996 Summer Olympics was Atlanta’s Hurricane Katrina—setting in motion a surge of policies and practices that fueled the black depopulation trend. Atlanta’s 20-point plan is strikingly similar to the “20-Point Plan to Destroy Black New Orleans,” written several months after Katrina and floodwaters devastated that majority black port city in 2005.
The 2010 census trends show Black Atlanta gradually moving toward a numerical minority in a few years. This shift has profound implications on local electoral politics. This smaller Black Atlanta footprint will likely translate in loss of black political power in the city. Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed won by a slim 714 vote margin in 2009. Some pundits predict Reed may be the last black Atlanta mayor we see for some time. However, these pundits made the same predictions of former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin who preceded Mayor Reed. Time will tell.
