Is Atlanta the new Black Mecca? With its affordable housing, livable pace and reputation for encouraging entrepreneurship, Atlanta is the "go to" city for enterprising African-Americans

Ebony, March, 2002 by Charles Whitaker

So great is metro Atlanta's appeal that some continue to call it home even when their corporate headquarters are elsewhere. LaVan Hawkins and his wife, Wendy, owners of Detroit-based Hawkins Food Group, the nation's 12th-ranked Black business *, have homes in Atlanta and Detroit and commute between the two by private jet.

Despite the explosion of opportunity at its upper levels, Atlanta is still beset by the problems that plague every urban center in America: a crime rate that has inched up with the downturn in the economy, a critical budget shortfall that threatens city services, drugs, crime and pockets of nagging poverty.

"The fact that there is opportunity here does not negate the fact that there are areas of concern as well," says Martin Luther King III, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which is headquartered in Atlanta. "Atlanta is battling the same problems as any other big city. It's important not to get so caught up in the notion of the Black Mecca that we lose sight of that."

Still, the "Black Mecca" label sticks. The fact that Atlanta continues to attract enterprising young Blacks is both widely accepted, and a continuing source of wonder. "Some people look at us and they say, `How did you do it?'" says Franklin. "People just don't understand how little old Atlanta keeps pulling off all these major coups. How did we get the Olympics? How did we become a major transportation center? It just amazes people. But there is a can-do spirit here, a belief that anything is possible if you work at it. That's what makes things happen."

And one cannot underestimate the influence and impact of the city's major educational institutions. "The schools of the Atlanta University Center and the other major universities here have helped set the stage and played a major role in attracting young people here and painting this as a city of opportunity," says William Clement, chairman of the board of directors of the Atlanta Life Insurance Co.

In recent years, Atlanta also has developed a reputation as a city in which entrepreneurial dreams are nurtured. "I would not say it's easier to start a business here," says Detroit native and Morehouse College alumnus Steven Holland, who with his wife, Deirdre, owns a real estate firm and mortgage brokerage, A-House, "but you have this sense here that it can be done because there are so many examples around you."

Indeed, Atlanta has always been a major Black economic center. "This city is the birthplace of so many successful Black businesses that you can't help but be inspired by it," says William E. Simms, president and chief executive officer of 100 Black Men of America, Inc., the national community service agency whose national headquarters are located on historic Auburn Avenue in the heart of Atlanta's Black business district. "I walk out the door here and you see businesses started 80 or 100 years ago and you feel the history as well as the potential."

Today, Atlanta boasts more Black-owned companies per capita than any other city in the nation except Washington, D.C., according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. It is home to the nation's second-largest Black insurance company, Atlanta Life. Citizens Trust Bank, the fourth-largest Black bank, also is based there.