it took us to organize one small
city in the 1960s.
I am 88 and I haven’t seen
anything galvanize the planet
like this since the bombing of
Pearl Harbor. And I was 9 years
old then.
Q. What about the response
of national leadership now as
compared to back then?
A. We had brilliant leadership
in the Second World War.
Roosevelt was a genius. We don’t
see leaders who are mobilizing
people right now. The thing is
that in each of these previous
movements in our lifetime we
had leaders that grew up and
were trained for a time like this.
Lyndon Johnson (for example)
had a tremendous amount of
experience legislating and he
understood the importance of
using a crisis to make creative
changes.... There doesn’t seem to
be anybody prepared for these
multiple crises now.
Q. How has Atlanta changed
since you first came here?
A. The first time I came
to Atlanta was for a YMCA
conference. I was 14 or 15 and I
was at the Butler Avenue YMCA
and I saw the Klan march. I rode
here on a segregated train.
Things have changed and
improved enormously for people
of color, but I would say that
economic changes have not
kept up with changes in race
relationships. The problems of
race and poverty are intertwined.
When I came here Atlanta
was maybe 300,000 people in the
metro area. Now it’s six million.
We have had simultaneous
explosions of populations of both
rich and poor. We are both richer
and poorer simultaneously. The
colleges and the Fortune 500
companies have brought in more
rich people than any city in the
world, I think, but at the same
time people were abandoning
the rural areas of the South and
flocking to the cities. While we
were prepared for the economic
boom, we weren’t prepared for
the poverty boom.’
Q. What role do you feel you
had in the changes?
A. Between 1981(when he
became mayor) and 1990, we
attracted 1,100 international
firms to Atlanta. There was $70
billion in direct investment.
Our airport had grown to be the
world’s busiest and we didn’t use
any government money on the
airport, except for the highways
to get to it. The secret was we
used private sector money from
Wall Street for everything we did,
starting with the airport.
There was no money in
Washington, but there was
money in Germany and Japan.
So almost immediately I started
visiting those places and inviting
businesses to come to Georgia.
Q. What would you say if you
could talk to your younger self?
A. I’d keep reminding my
younger self: keep faith, keep
faith in good, keep faith in the
eternal values of humanity.
Q. A lot of people have called
you a hero. Who are yours?
A. Martin Luther King Junior
and Jimmy Carter. Also (Atlanta
businessmen) John Portman and
Charlie Loudermilk. They were
two guys who grew up poor and
who got rich on their brains and
determination. Also, I basically
started out as a preacher so
Gandhi was one of my first
spiritual heroes.
Q. How do you feel about the
future? Optimistic? Pessimistic?
A. I am faithful. I hope and am
sure it’s going to work out all
right, but we’ll have some tough
times ...My grandmother used to
sing a song “I’ve got a feeling that
everything’s going to be all right.”
So, when there are hard times, I
sing those old Negro spirituals.
They were written in the hardest
of times, but they were all very
faithful and visionary.
The answer to all questions is
spiritual and when we infuse the
spiritual into the technological
and the modern era, everything’s
going to be all right.
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"Before he was really not engaging in life. Now, when I walk in, he's
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AUGUST 2020
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