The 3 mayors who made it happen

Ebony, July, 1996 by Kevin Chappell

The road to Atlanta's position as "Olympic city" began in Febluary 1987 when Billy Payne, an Atlanta attorney and former college foothall player, approached then-Mayor Young about the possibility of the city bidding to host the Olympies. "I was always a fan of the Olympies and had always wanted to go to the Games," recalls Young, a former track star and Olympic hopeful in the '50s as a student at Howard Universitv. "But the Olympics ha`! left Montreal $700 million in debt, so 110 one on my staff wanted me to even talk to Payne because they knew I would I be a sucker for anything related to thel Olympics."

But Young, who was mayor from 1982-90, did talk to Payne and soon came to the realization that no city could afford to pay for the Olympics on the backs of taxpayers as Montreal had attempted. Young explored the idea of finaneillg the Olympics through corporate sponsorships, something that had been done successfully in the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.

After much thought, Young not only pledged his support, but he also helped to secure the support of the city's chamber of commerce and city council, both of which were essential for the city to even be considered to host the Games. The next year, Young led a delegation of public and private sector representatives to Seoul, South Korea, to attencl the 1988 Olympics and meet with members of the International Olympic Committee e (IOC), which decides where the Games will be held.

Soon, meetings with foreign dignitaries on the IOC became second nature to Young who had previously served in the U.S. Congress and as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. "I realized there were 86 members on the International Olympic Committee," says Young, who is now co-chair of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games. "I looked at places that I knew and where I had worked with people at the UN and I said to myself, 'I think we can get 53 of these votes.' We really got 51, but two people died in the meantime. It was a matter of knowing how to approach international issues."

The ability of Young, and later Jackson, to deal as effectively with heads of state as with city council members surprised Atlanta's business community and the world, who viewed the city as a good Southern town, but not savvy enough to compete nationally and internationally.

"Nobody thought we had a chance," Young admits. "So the power structure didn't lock in on it and try to control it. But we knew we had a chance, and we began rounding up people, mostly volunteers, who spoke languages and knew cultures. And soon we were able to address every country in their own language, we knew their culture, we had somebody from that part of the world who was doing well in Atlanta.

"So when [Olympic committee] people came to Atlanta from Latin America and they saw a Hispanic who was head of Coca-Cola, that said something," Young says. "The Africans who came here had never been any place where they saw people of African descent running the airport, running city hall, the chief of police. That's how we won their votes....We are all global in our view. We brought a global vision to the city."