What city will replace Atlanta as the new black mecca? (Roswell: middle-class, best cities)

[Columbusattorney]

"The ‘Black Mecca' was always intended to be where the black business class's dreams came true, not the rest of us."
It was the place to be, we were told throughout the Eighties and Nineties. The housing was cheap, the weather benign, the social and business networks poppin', the elected officials black and enlightened, and the opportunities limitless. Twenty years before it had been "the city too busy to hate." Now it was the "Black Mecca," and pilgrims streamed in by the tens of thousands
Maynard Jackson was elected Atlanta's first black mayor in 1973, only 5 years after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King. According to a June 29, 2003 Atlanta Journal-Constitution article by Ernie Suggs"In 1973, fewer than 1 percent of the city's contracts went to minorities. Five years later, it was 38.6 percent. At one point, more than 80 percent of all minority contracts at U.S. airports were in Atlanta, prompting Jackson once to boast that he had helped create 25 new black millionaires...."Those first 25 millionaires, with the assistance of the next three black Atlanta mayors, have helped to create scores of additional black millionaires along with the thriving, empowered, well-connected and ambitious business and professional class which identifies with the people who run Atlanta to this day.
"For almost half of black Atlanta's children, ‘Black Mecca' never happened at all
"Metro Atlanta is emerging as the new heart of the nation's black middle class," proclaimed the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on September 25, 2002. "'Atlanta has become... a modern-day Harlem, a place of opportunity where educated blacks can enjoy the fruits of the post civil rights era economy,' said Roderick Harrison, a demographer with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, an African-American think tank in Washington." But despite Atlanta being home to more local black-owned companies per-capita than anywhere except the nation's capital, for almost half of black Atlanta's children "Black Mecca" never happened at all. As far back as 1998, two years after the Olympics when the hype was at its heaviest, the Associated Press reported that 35% of black Atlanta was below the poverty level 2000, child poverty in Atlanta was 5th in the nation, ranking only 6 points behind Brownsville TX, a single percentage point behind New Orleans, and one ahead of Gary and Cleveland.

[atlantaATL]

Originally Posted by BringBackCobain

The reason Dekalb county is the second richest black majority county is probably because places like Druid Hills, Dunwoody, Decatur, Briarcliff, North Druid Hills, and Brookhaven bring up that average as the are wealthy areas. I would bet that if South DeKalb was its own county, it would not be wealthy.

Again, I have seen no one provide reliable statistics to back up inferences that Atlanta is where wealthy blacks live.

Here is something from LA times i dont know if it might help but they seem to have something to say about atlant being a mecca small articale here and link

But the opening monologue, voiced by all of the featured women, highlighted what will set this show apart from its New York and California predecessors: “Atlanta is a mecca for wealthy African Americans. Nowhere else is there an elite society of African Americans going to galas, fashion shows, and living in luxury gated communities. Atlanta is the black Hollywood.”Black class, as 'reality' would have it - Los Angeles Times

[matt8325]

Originally Posted by WilliamM

Well, in fairness it has been a pretty important divide historically in metro Atlanta, more so than say an East/West divide.

And might there be any specific reasons for that?

Well it seems like there has been a divide between east and west too. Look how poor the west end of Atlanta is compared to areas east of 75/85 such as Druid Hills.

[Columbusattorney]

In 1968, when black sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee went on strike for safer working conditions, decent wages and the right to have their union recognized, black ministers urged their congregations to march at the side of strikers. The NAACP followed suit. After Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to town, even the high schools were emptied to join some of the mass marches. The National Guard was mobilized, many arrests were made and Dr. King was murdered. The Memphis sanitation workers ultimately won their union contract, and thousands of ordinary working families in that city got living wages that allowed them to educate their children, buy houses, live decent and dignified lives, and even retire.
Eight years later in Maynard Jackson's Atlanta, where nurturing of millionaires and the business class took precedence over uplifting the fortunes of ordinary working people, the city's black mayor rallied white business leaders and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and fired more than a thousand city employees to crush a strike that resulted when the mayor refused to honor prior promised pay raises for the black men who picked up the city's garbage.

"The black business class and their representatives in power don't know how to liberate anybody --- they just know how to get paid."

The contrast between the prophetic leadership of the civil rights movement era and the profit-oriented leadership of the black business class that came in its wake could not be clearer. Old Testament prophets, like civil and human rights advocates, were not millionaires or kings. They were not in government, nor were they entrepreneurs. They were ordinary people, often reviled and persecuted for daring to speak impolite and unpleasant truths to the powerful and the well connected. Black business people of the old school, the generation of A. G. Gaston /John H. Johnson who heeded the call of the movement's prophetic leaders rather than trying to pretend that they were leaders themselves, did more to help the movement and advance the fortunes of ordinary African Americans on a bad day than most of the Maynard Jackson millionaires do in their entire careers.Today's elite black leadership does not measure cities by their presence, nor do they measure their own performance by the prevalence or absence of child poverty, affordable health care, equality of access to good education or any of the things that matter to ordinary black families. What matters to these "black leaders" are big-ticket projects, bragging rights, relentless self-promotion, and the accumulation of contacts, contracts and personal wealth. "Black Mecca" was always intended to be where their dreams came true, not ours.
The guiding principles of America's black business-class leadership are the enrichment of its individual members, and its own self-promotion as folks with the legitimate claim to leadership of African Americans. The "Black Mecca" hype was the product of this relentless business-class self-promotion. For the small subset of African American business and professional people possessing the requisite skills, contacts and access to capital, Atlanta did offer unparalleled opportunities. These have been replicated on a smaller scale in other cities where the previous generation's movement for human and civil rights forced open some of the doors to governance and contracting. "Disparities between numbers of educated and professional black men and women may actually be greater in business-class led black Atlanta than in the rest of black America."
The black business and political class does what it does well enough. But unlike the black business people of previous generations, it stubbornly refuses to help open up the doors of prosperity to other segments of the black community. The Black business class and their representatives in power don't know how to liberate anybody - they know how to get paid.

[AtlantaGuy404]

Originally Posted by WilliamM

What is this supposed to mean exactly? Are you denying one exists or not?

Point is, it might not be your cup of tea, but let's face it, cultural "meccas" of various types exist. Are you going to argue that San Fran hasn't been a gay mecca, New York an artist's mecca, Salt Lake a Mormon mecca, etc.? So c'mon, let's be real here.

As for using purely mathematical terms, that's why I tried to bring up "symbolic-historical" reasons in my earlier post in speaking of why Atlanta might become a mecca for blacks over say Birmingham, AL or Charlotte.

But at the end of the day, these facts get born out in the numbers too. For example, what city would you call the Jewish 'mecca' (outside Israel) in the Western world? The answer is obvious and the numbers bear that out both in gross and proportional terms (avgs.). One shouldn't overestimate the statistical measure, but it's very important nonetheless.

It depends what you define a "mecca" as. If you are saying there are place where similar people congregate then I agree those places exist. If you are defining a "mecca" as the best place for a group of people to live then I'm saying that doesn't exist.


Just because there are affluent black people in Atlanta that doesn't make it a black mecca. Those same people could move to Dallas, or Charlotte and still live a great lifestyle but nobody calls Dallas or Charlotte black meccas.

My point is, is Atlanta a great city for some blacks? Yes. All blacks? no. Some whites? Yes. All whites no. I'll say it again the best place for any person is the place where they will be happiest, not surronded by the same types of people.

And on a side note the Atlanta metro area is majority white and there are plenty of wealthy white people living there but nobody calls it a white mecca.

[WilliamM]

Originally Posted by AtlantaGuy404

And on a side note the Atlanta metro area is majority white and there are plenty of wealthy white people living there but nobody calls it a white mecca.

Actually, Atlanta has been somewhat unique among fast-growing metros in the proportion of whites relocating from elsewhere in the country as a proportion to foreign immigrants for ex. So, it might not even be a huge stretch to call Atlanta a white mecca too in a certain sense.

But, of course, 'mecca' is a loose cultural category that is not meant to express anything rigid or official but just a general trend. The word mecca obviously has religious connotations and just seems to me to express a site that has significance for a cultural group. Just because one place is a mecca for this or that doesn't mean - and wouldnt be understood by most people to mean - that one HAD to be there to be anyone. NY was a jazz mecca in the 50s, but you could still play some great music in San Francisco, or even Kansas City!

[AtlantaGuy404]

Originally Posted by WilliamM

Actually, Atlanta has been somewhat unique among fast-growing metros in the proportion of whites relocating from elsewhere in the country as a proportion to foreign immigrants for ex. So, it might not even be a huge stretch to call Atlanta a white mecca too in a certain sense.

But, of course, 'mecca' is a loose cultural category that is not meant to express anything rigid or official but just a general trend. The word mecca obviously has religious connotations and just seems to me to express a site that has significance for a cultural group. Just because one place is a mecca for this or that doesn't mean - and wouldnt be understood by most people to mean - that one HAD to be there to be anyone. NY was a jazz mecca in the 50s, but you could still play some great music in San Francisco, or even Kansas City!

Agreed

[lilmusket]

Possibly Houston or Washington, DC.
Washington, Dc has always been known as "Chocolate City"

[ArthursChoice]

damn...sho you right.

Originally Posted by Columbusattorney

In 1968, when black sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee went on strike for safer working conditions, decent wages and the right to have their union recognized, black ministers urged their congregations to march at the side of strikers. The NAACP followed suit. After Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to town, even the high schools were emptied to join some of the mass marches. The National Guard was mobilized, many arrests were made and Dr. King was murdered. The Memphis sanitation workers ultimately won their union contract, and thousands of ordinary working families in that city got living wages that allowed them to educate their children, buy houses, live decent and dignified lives, and even retire.
Eight years later in Maynard Jackson's Atlanta, where nurturing of millionaires and the business class took precedence over uplifting the fortunes of ordinary working people, the city's black mayor rallied white business leaders and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and fired more than a thousand city employees to crush a strike that resulted when the mayor refused to honor prior promised pay raises for the black men who picked up the city's garbage.

"The black business class and their representatives in power don't know how to liberate anybody --- they just know how to get paid."

The contrast between the prophetic leadership of the civil rights movement era and the profit-oriented leadership of the black business class that came in its wake could not be clearer. Old Testament prophets, like civil and human rights advocates, were not millionaires or kings. They were not in government, nor were they entrepreneurs. They were ordinary people, often reviled and persecuted for daring to speak impolite and unpleasant truths to the powerful and the well connected. Black business people of the old school, the generation of A. G. Gaston /John H. Johnson who heeded the call of the movement's prophetic leaders rather than trying to pretend that they were leaders themselves, did more to help the movement and advance the fortunes of ordinary African Americans on a bad day than most of the Maynard Jackson millionaires do in their entire careers.Today's elite black leadership does not measure cities by their presence, nor do they measure their own performance by the prevalence or absence of child poverty, affordable health care, equality of access to good education or any of the things that matter to ordinary black families. What matters to these "black leaders" are big-ticket projects, bragging rights, relentless self-promotion, and the accumulation of contacts, contracts and personal wealth. "Black Mecca" was always intended to be where their dreams came true, not ours.
The guiding principles of America's black business-class leadership are the enrichment of its individual members, and its own self-promotion as folks with the legitimate claim to leadership of African Americans. The "Black Mecca" hype was the product of this relentless business-class self-promotion. For the small subset of African American business and professional people possessing the requisite skills, contacts and access to capital, Atlanta did offer unparalleled opportunities. These have been replicated on a smaller scale in other cities where the previous generation's movement for human and civil rights forced open some of the doors to governance and contracting. "Disparities between numbers of educated and professional black men and women may actually be greater in business-class led black Atlanta than in the rest of black America."
The black business and political class does what it does well enough. But unlike the black business people of previous generations, it stubbornly refuses to help open up the doors of prosperity to other segments of the black community. The Black business class and their representatives in power don't know how to liberate anybody - they know how to get paid.

[jeffreda30238]

Originally Posted by KingTat

New poster here! I have read many articles saying how the black population of Atlanta is shrinking. Its even on the wikipedia page! I am just wondering what city do you guys think will take the place of Atlanta as the "new black mecca?" I am thinking maybe Charlotte, or Dallas. Both cities saw a rise in african american population the same years Atlanta saw a decline.

I am only 16, but when I graduate college I wanna move to the new black mecca. By then (2015) Atlanta will have been dethroned. But by what city?!

I would agree that Charlotte is the next possible Mecca....we shall see.