Product Code Database
Maynard Holbrook Jackson Jr. (March 23, 1938 – June 23, 2003) was an American attorney and politician who served as the 52nd mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, from 1974 to 1982, and again as the city's 54th mayor from 1990 to 1994. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African-American mayor of Atlanta and of any major city in the South; his three terms made him the second longest-serving mayor in the city's history, after six-term mayor William B. Hartsfield.
He is notable also for public works projects, primarily the new Maynard H. Jackson International terminal at the Atlanta airport, and for greatly increasing minority business participation in the city. After his death, the William B. Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport was renamed Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport to honor his service to the expansion of the airport, the city and its people.
His father Maynard Holbrook Jackson was a Baptist minister from New Orleans. He became active in civil rights in Dallas, Texas, where he had grown up after his family moved. His grandfather Alexander Stephens Jackson had been a Baptist minister and educator in Louisiana and Texas. The young Jackson's father died when he was fifteen; his grandfather Dobbs became even more influential in his life. Bradley R. Rice, "Maynard Jackson (1938-2003)", New Georgia Encyclopedia, edited January 6, 2016, accessed April 7, 2016
Jackson attended David T. Howard High School in Atlanta and Morehouse College, a historically black college for men in Atlanta, graduating in 1956 at the age of eighteen. He sang in the Morehouse College Glee Club. After attending the Boston University Law School for a short time, Jackson held several jobs, including selling encyclopedias. He returned to graduate studies, attending the North Carolina Central University Law School. He graduated with a law degree in 1964. He was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.
Jackson married Burnella "Bunnie" Hayes, in 1965. The couple had three children, Elizabeth, Brooke, Maynard III. Prior to their divorce, Bunnie Jackson founded First Class, Inc. She was the first African-American woman to own a public relations and marketing firm in Atlanta.
Jackson married Valerie Richardson in 1977, to whom he was married for 25 years until his death. They have two daughters, Valerie and Alexandra. Valerie Jackson hosts Between the Lines each weekend on the WABE-FM radio station, the Atlanta Public Broadcasting station.
In 1970, Jackson became Atlanta's first black Vice-Mayor, his first elected position which he held for four years. Later that year, Jackson supported sanitation workers in the city who had gone on strike, with his support contributing to their receiving a higher wage.
In 1973, Jackson was elected with 60 percent of the vote, as the first African-American mayor of Atlanta and any major southern city; he was supported by a coalition of white liberals/moderates and African Americans. At the age of 35, he unseated incumbent Sam Massell.
During his first term, Jackson worked to improve race relations in and around Atlanta after the polarization caused by the election campaign. As mayor, he led the beginnings and much of the progress on several huge public-works projects for the city and region. Affirmative action programs helped minority and women-owned businesses to participate. He helped arrange for the upgrade of the then-William B. Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport's huge terminal (now Domestic Terminal) to modern standards. Jackson strongly opposed the construction of freeways through in-town neighborhoods, knowing that such actions destroyed thriving communities. In 1977, Jackson fired over 900 sanitation workers during the 1977 Atlanta sanitation strike. Following this act of strikebreaking, many of the workers returned to work by the end of the year.
Jackson was mayor through the period when the separate Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) obtained a large amount of federal funding for a rapid transit rail-line system, when construction began, and when MARTA began its first rail transit service in Atlanta and in DeKalb County in 1979 and during its continual expansion thereafter. As mayor, he celebrated in September 1990 when Atlanta was selected as the host city for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. As mayor, he accepted the Olympic flag at the 1992 closing ceremonies in Barcelona, Spain. He oversaw the completion of many planned public works projects, such as improvements to freeways and parks, and the completion of Freedom Parkway, which were expedited from 1990 to 1996 in preparation for the Olympic Games that began in August 1996.
During Jackson's second term as mayor, the Atlanta Child Murders were ongoing between 1979 and 1981. He supported the Atlanta Police and other police forces in the area but also worked to calm public tensions aroused by the serial killings of black children. The accused killer, Wayne Williams, was caught in 1981. Williams was convicted to serve two consecutive life sentences for the murder of two adult males, but never charged with or tried for the murder of any of the child victims. He is currently being held in Telfair State Prison.
In 1974, Jackson received the Samuel S. Beard Award for Greatest Public Service by an Individual 35 Years or Under, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.
In August 1974 Mayor Jackson appointed A. Reginald Eaves, an activist and personal friend, as Public Safety Commissioner. Eaves was criticized for lacking police experience. He generated controversy by appointing an ex-convict as his personal secretary and for what was considered as affirmative action in the police department, which some described as "reverse discrimination." "A. Reginald Eaves", Atlanta Unfiltered, September 6, 2009
Jackson fired Eaves after revelation of a police exam cheating scandal. "Maynard Holbrook Jackson Jr.", Encyclopedia of World Biography, at Bookrags Eaves was later convicted by a federal jury of extortion in 1988 after selling his vote on two rezonings. "Scalawag" , Atlanta Magazine
In 1991 Jackson awarded transgender supermodel Caroline Cossey (known under the stage name "Tula") honorary citizenship to Atlanta, though he later rescinded it after he learned that she was transgender, saying “I wouldn’t have given it to somebody whose claim to fame was being transsexual” despite Cossey having a career for many years before her gender reassignment was public knowledge. Cossey stated that she felt insulted by his decision. "Tula - First transgender in Playboy 1991" Playboy Magazine, October 9, 2020
Jackson was appointed as the National Development Chairman of the Democratic National Committee and was the first Chairman of the DNC Voting Rights Institute. In 2002, he founded the American Voters League, a non-profit and non-partisan effort to increase national voter participation. He appeared briefly in the 2001 documentary Startup.com.
|
|
