The 3 mayors who made it happen

Ebony, July, 1996 by Kevin Chappell

OLYMPIC theme music was piped into the background like a well-timed gospel hymn leading a preacher to the end of a rousing Sunday sermon.

In the "pulpit" was Andrew Young, Atlanta's former mayor and an ordained minister. He knew he had the right credentials, but he was not sure he had the right audience. For on this September day in 1990, he wasn't down South; he was far East--in a Tokyo, Japan, conference room to be exact--speaking to X6 poker-faced members of the International Olympic Committee.

But as he wrapped up his city's 45-minute pitch to host the Olympic Games, he watched in amazement as a dozen or so committee members--moved by the mix of his passionate presentation with the song that has come to signify the thrill of victory--began to cry.

He and the other members of the Atlanta team, including Mayor Maynard Jackson and Atlanta Organizing Committee President William (Billy) Payne, did have the right audience. What played in churches along Atlanta's Auburn Avenue and in executive suites on Peachtree Street played just as well on the other side of the globe. Members of the committee were moved and later voted by an overwhelming margin to hold the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, instead of Athens, Greece, the Olympic birthplace and sentimental favorite to host the centennial event.

It was a powerful moment, says Jackson, who, too, had spoken eloquently to the Olympic committee and had supported Young and Payne while they circled the globe preaching the Atlanta gospel to the world. "It worked to distinguish Atlanta and win us the Olympics," he says.

Distinguishing itself is no longer a problem for the city that B.K. (Before King) was just a Southern transportation hub. Today, the city that gave the world the real Martin Luther King Jr. and the fictional Scarlett O'Hara has risen to become the darling of the Southeast, the United States and the world. Atlanta's new image is due, in large part, to African-American leaders who have brought to the town good ideas, a color-blind mentality and a winning attitude.

Through the leadership of three Black mayors--Andrew Young, Maynard Jackson and incumbent Bill Campbell--Atlanta has become a global business magnet and, perhaps equally important, a world sports hub. Fresh from hosting its first Super Bowl, the city is now preparing to put on the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games, the world's greatest sporting event.

The national and international wheeling and dealing pulled off by these three mayors to secure the summer Olympics (which have been held in the United States only three times) continues to boggle the minds of many sports, business and political insiders, who believe Atlanta's unorthodox rise to the municipal summit is a bigger story than the Games themselves.

Through it all, the three mayors of Atlanta have stuck together, knowing the city would not be where it is today if they had splintered. "Some people, not all, but some people, had, and still have, the notion that Black is second class. If you're Black, get back," says Jackson, Atlanta's mayor from 1974-82 and 1990-94, who now owns a financial consulting company, Jackson Securities, Inc., and serves as "attache" for the Olympics. "But what you have here is a successful city, which incidentally is predominantly Black. Whites and Blacks have worked together to make it that way. But you have this interesting irony because three African-American mayors represent a continuity in the growth process of Atlanta and the city winning the Olympics."

For Atlanta, winning the Olympics means being host to the largest peacetime gathering ever. Billed as the grandest Olympics in history, the Games will feature 197 countries and an anticipated 2 million attendees during the 17-day event. The Games are expected to add 77,000 jobs and $5.1 billion to Atlanta's economy. For the first time in the history of the Olympics, many of the jobs and profits will go to Black companies, Black workers and Black institutions of higher learning, all of whom will finally get some of the real gold. In fact, it is projected that more than 30 percent of all Olympic-related ventures will go to African-Americans.

The financial impact of the Olympics for Blacks and the city will continue long after the flame has been extinguished and the last athlete has returned home. It will undoubtedly propel Atlanta to a new level. "It's going to put us in orbit," says Mayor Campbell. "Atlanta will never be the same."

At a time when many cities are struggling to make ends meet and more and more mayors have turned into naysayers, that kind of confident talk has already made an impact on Atlanta's business c community Widely read and respected husincss publications continue to rank Atlanta as one of the best cities for husiness, the best city in which to own a business, the best eity for global companies and the best relocation destination.

And although Atlanta has major crime and poverty problems, the eity has implemented several successful community policing programs and hopes to see inner-city conditions improve when it becomes one of the country's six federally recognized "Empowerment Zones," which bring with it $250 million in economic incentives in neglected areas. Those challenges aside, the key to Atlanta's unmatched overall success, many say, has been the leadership of the city's past three mayors, who have formed unprecedented partnerships between the public and private sector and national and international communities.