Monday, May 23, 2016

“Never Shall I Let you Down”: Atlanta’s First Black Mayor and the 1977 Sanitation Workers’ Strike



“Never Shall I Let you Down”:
Atlanta’s First Black Mayor and the 1977 Sanitation Workers’ Strike

In 1973, Maynard Holbrook Jackson Jr. became the first black American mayor of a major southern city wining with 59 percent of the popular vote.[1] This hallmark in American history occurred during an era of American history that once again saw an increase in black political engagement and participation, especially in roles of leadership. The years following the 1972 National Black Political Convention inspired the increased involvement of black Americans running for local office and successfully becoming mayors of “Chocolate Cities”; cities with predominantly black populations. High levels of political engagement improved access to resources and opportunities for people of color who had been systematically marginalized by political and economic racism. The challenges associated with this level of political leadership begin with campaigning for election as well as the struggles one assumes while in office. One of the major trials that occurred during Jackson’s first term as mayor was the 1977 strike of over 1,000 of the city’s sanitation workers. This strike was not impulsive, but rather a culmination of conflicts that had pit the black working class in Atlanta against governing elite. Years prior, this same group of working men and women, predominantly black Americans had stood steadfast against a political system they believed was tyrannical and deliberately restrictive of the workers’ wages and which did not care about maintaining substantial working conditions. In 1977, sanitation workers once again struck and expressed these similar grievances. However, this time the main obstacle that prevented the workers from achieving their demands was Jackson, the city’s first black mayor who stood along side sanitation strikers three years earlier. Jackson ultimately fired and replaced over all of the strikers with the support of much of Atlanta’s black middle class as well as prominent civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Sr.[2] Conflict within the black community shows that Atlanta was entrenched in complete intra-racial class warfare. Such particulars are often overlooked in historical research, but are critical in order to understand how socioeconomic class differences affect relations within the black community during the 1970s.
Jackson’s legacy is oftentimes tainted with accusations of betrayal and self-interest; a black mayor who campaigned as a champion of the disenfranchised and underpaid who turned on his black working class support group once in a position of power. Referring to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s intervention in 1968’s sanitation strike in Memphis, one local American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) leader stated, "[King] gave his life for [strikers] . . . Dr. King was fighting the same threats as are being made by Maynard Jackson."[3] Jackson’s handling of the 1977 sanitation workers’ strike has also been described as his way of reassuring Atlanta’s white business class that he would not put the interests of the black community above the city’s and securing their support in the next election.[4] For New Beginnings Journal, a journal of independent labor, Jason Schultz wrote that the strike was indicative of working class citizens continuously taking a back seat to the socioeconomic interests of ruling elites, no matter what the background of city managers and that the “proud tradition of battle against white supremacy and workers self-management…throughout America during the Civil Rights and Black Power era seems like a fleeting memory”.[5] However, this specific conflict should be evaluated for its complexity and its underlying narratives must be brought to light in order for a true historical analysis to be constructed. The 1977 Atlanta sanitation strike took place during a period in the city’s history where class and biracial alliances were being created under the leadership of Mayor Jackson and mayors before him. His policies and mayoral actions transcended the issues of black versus white racism and put, at the helm, Atlanta’s economic security and opportunity for progression. 
Frustrations between city bosses and sanitation workers exasperated in early 1977 when superiors demanded strikers go back to work, ignoring the AFSCME Local 1644’s previous agreement with the city to not require workers to go out in extremely cold conditions. Strikers also demanded an increase in their wages. Workers who did not go to work had their wages severely docked along with other substantial disciplinary actions. In Jackson’s discernment, those who struck were in the wrong and he supported city bosses’ decisions to dock and withhold the pay completely of those who refused to work.  Jackson was not entirely dismissive, nor did his reasons show that he had put city worker’s interests on the back burner as they believed, but he justified the eventual firings by saying that the workers continued to strike despite his turning down of their demands. He cited that their demands for higher wages would cost the city $10 million dollars, and even offered to increase wages the following year. “Let there be no mistake about it, the employees on strike need a pay increase. The employees deserve a pay increase. But we don’t have [the money].”[6] In response to Jackson’s reasoning for declining the strikers’ demands, the AFSCME ran publications in newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post showing huge surpluses in the city’s budget enough to cover modest increases in sanitation workers’ salaries. In April, Jackson announced the firing of all strikers to be replaced with scabs. This decision was, as Jackson stated,  “one of the hardest [he] had ever made”.[7] During deliberations between the AFSCME Local 1644 and city management, one union member declared that Jacksons decision to fire the workers was “designed to force [the sanitation workers] into violence”, but promised that the strikers would “peacefully demonstrate and peacefully gather.” Union members also claimed that Jackson declined their requests for a federal arbitrator to settle the dispute. The mayor was quoted as saying that arbitration would be useless and, “in the middle of a crisis…arbitration tends to lose its effectiveness.” The AFSCME recruited the help of attorneys who failed to secure an order that would have blocked the city from carrying out the mass firings that occurred. Sam Hider, Atlanta’s then director of labor relations stated that the strikers’ demands for $.50 cent per hour increases could not be met and over 1,000 city workers were fired.[8] Strikers used direct action and civil disobedience when battling with the city bosses. They believed that local and national media relied on Jackson to provide answers about what they wanted, while the neglected to collect facts and statements from the strikers. In the strikers’ eyes, the media regarded Jackson as the spokesman for all blacks in Atlanta. In the early stages of the strike, after Jackson declared that anyone having issues with garbage collection as a result of the strike to dump their garbage at a central location, strike organizers such as Dr. Modibo Kadalie led workers and frustrated citizens in disposing garbage on the lawn of city hall. Only then, according to Kadalie, were the voices of the striking sanitation workers heard and seriously covered by the city media.[9]
In March of 1977, three days after the walkout, Mayor Jackson enforced an April 1st deadline for sanitation strikers to go back to work. His ultimatum ensured that all strikers would be fired and replaced if they did not resume their duties. By this time, garbage had been dumped in undesignated areas across Atlanta as only 10 out of 62 of the city’s trucks were dispatched during the week. Jackson immediately went on the offensive and criticized the AFSCME for manipulating the workers against him stating, “It is unfortunate in the extreme that [employees] are put in jeopardy of losing jobs because of irresponsible actions of leaders who purport to represent their best interests”.[10] Jackson fired 1,024 sanitation workers on the April 1st deadline. He expressed that the AFSCME was exploiting the city’s poorest workers in order to enhance its power and criticized its failed promise of no more strikes following the restoration of its dues checkoff. “We have turned the other cheek so many times that we have no more cheeks to turn…Now, time had run out. The city has no choice but to act, and in my opinion [the] AFSCME is to blame”.[11]
While announcing his decisions, Jackson reminded the press and his constituents of the diverse entities that supported him such as the Atlanta Business League, Chamber of Commerce, the Urban League, SCLC, the Atlanta Baptist Ministers Union, and the Citywide League of Neighborhoods.[12] These groups represented the coalition of both the conservative white business class and the conscientious black middle class. Jackson’s actions and inactions represented his consciousness of being a leader of a very diverse Atlanta. Putting the needs of a working class segment of his constituency and potentially negatively affecting the city economically was not practical for a politician in his stage of his career or for one with the amount of pressure from both white and black voters. In order to maintain the support of the elite and working classes of the city, both black and white, Jackson focused on economic prosperity and interracial unity in order to demonstrate his aptitude of being mayor over one of the largest growing cities in America. He was able to create better opportunities for the working class over a more gradual time frame than they may have wanted. Promoting strong multifaceted city management, he was able to bring more opportunity for economic development within the city and attract migrants of profound economic and educational statures.
Atlanta’s black middle class stayed on Mayor Jackson’s side during the strike. They praised his handling of the situation and for his pragmatism and decisiveness. They believed that the strikers were being selfish when they refused to accept the city’s explanation of budgeting issues. Editorials in the city’s main black newspaper, The Atlanta Daily World, voiced the opinions of the black middle class and referred to the strike as an “unjustified confusion”. They believed that the AFSCME was causing unnecessary problems for the city by encouraging sanitation workers to not work. The black middle class remembered Jackson as being sympathetic to unions and sanitation workers as vice mayor, but the strikers’ determination to get raises were viewed as irrational.  The rift between the black middle and working classes began as strikers were deemed as disruptors rather than workers fighting for better conditions and wages. In March, the early stages of the strike, the Daily World declared, “We hope the workers involved I this work stoppage will return to their jobs. The citizens are entitled to a little peace at least until after the election is over.[13] This statement was made following reports of strikers becoming violent to workers who had not joined them. Mayor Jackson stated that the actions of the strikers coupled with the AFSCME classifying him as an anti-labor mayor, had jeopardized Atlanta’s past relationship with the union. He also declared the strike illegal and the wages as unrealistic.[14]
            Examining the type of rhetoric used in the Daily World shows how much of the black middle class viewed the black working class. Stating that citizens deserved peace until after the election process was over categorizes the strikers as other and separate from the important political processes that middle class citizens take part in. In another article, it is stated that the people of Atlanta needed peace and stability especially during a time where “[they] stand at the point of convincing the world that our people can lead the South, or lose it all because of frustrations, unfair demands, and a general lack of flexibility, so vitally needed as human beings”.[15] The black middle class did not think that sanitation workers had much reason to protest their working conditions as they had received wage increases over the years and that the working conditions were much more streamlined and efficient than they were in the past. The intra-racial disagreements was racialized as the black middle class felt that the garbage workers, who were overwhelmingly black, had been getting wage increases in the past because of the privilege of having a black mayor. The disruption of the city’s progress is also expressed with declarations such as, “And if they can’t see all this, why stir up a virtual racial civil strike, when we are striving to get a black elected to Congress?”...Let’s pick up the garbage and do our negotiating in a climate of peace…Anything other than this makes us look like creatures undeserving of advancement of high office. And we certainly are not either of those distasteful items”.[16] Clearly, the issues within the black population over the strike were not strictly economical but also heavily social and political. The black middle class saw the strikers as barriers to the continuation of black power on levels never before reached. The resentment shown towards strikers reveals how much of the black middle class felt about the actions of working class blacks.
In order to understand the intra-racial diversity within black Atlanta during the strike, the segmentation of the city as a whole must be understood. The 1970s marked a period of rapid expansion and an increase in developmental projects within the city, primarily in the northern metropolitan region. Shopping centers, office parks, and apartment complexes dominated the areas landscapes as the city’s white population shifted northward leaving mostly blacks in central and southern regions of the city. This trend of northern white flight resulted in residential segregation; White Atlanta in the north and Black Atlanta in the south. The city’s makeup was essentially white middle class living in the northern suburbs, middle class blacks in southern suburbs and the majority of the working class concentrated in the city’s central urban areas. Most new job and economic growth was concentrated heavily in the north.  Following his election in 1973, Jackson expressed his intent to counter disproportionate economic development between the northern and southern regions. He pushed for the construction of William B. Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport (later renamed Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport) in the southern region of the city and argued against business leaders who wanted the facility built in the north. Jackson asserted that the city’s southern region needed economic revitalization that the airport would bring projecting the generation of over 10,000 jobs and planned to utilize affirmative-action programs to gain construction contracts for black firms and airport employees.[17] Such intentions sought to increase the availability and opportunities for disenfranchised black Atlantans to participate in the workforce.
Despite being heavily concentrated amongst those of the same ethnicity, black Atlantans were not a uniform community with the same socioeconomic identities. Intra-racial disparities within this subpopulation created a climate where a substantial amount of blacks could compare their economic status to that of middle class whites.[18] Journalist Peter Ross Range described Atlanta in the 1970s as the “Capital of black-is-bountiful”. The city was home to some of the most prosperous black communities in the United States. Businesses such as the Atlanta Life Insurance Co., which held upwards of $85-million in assets, the Citizens Trust Company Bank and Paschal’s Motor Hotel were a few of the city’s black owned establishments that generated substantial revenue and secure employment opportunities. The Atlanta University complex housed 6,000 students in four colleges, a seminary and a graduate school. This black middle class has been described as self-contained and laid the foundations for the type of prosperity they saw in the 1970s for generations. Settling primarily in south Atlanta, middle class Atlantans typical stuck to their own residential patterns and institutions.[19] Such tendencies created an electorate with views sometimes similar but more often vastly distinctive from lower class whites and blacks. The existence of successful black owned businesses that generated substantial revenue and opportunities for employment coupled with the “Black Mecca’s” numerous collegiate institutions, allowed for generational stability to develop within the black middle class as there was a large group of college-educated blacks who didn’t have to depend on municipal or technical jobs.
Despite the established and further expanding black middle class, the average unemployment rate for blacks as a whole, over half of Atlanta’s population in the mid-1970s was twice that of white citizens.[20] The aforementioned white flight to northern suburbs left urban areas packed with public housing buildings a substandard infrastructure.[21]  Historically, white neighborhoods received city services before black neighborhoods were even considered. Infrastructural deprivation was evident in these neglected areas of the city, which lacked parks, playgrounds, and in many case, proper paved roads and walkways.[22] Much of Atlanta’s black working class depended on city jobs with union benefits in order to provide for themselves and create opportunities for upward mobility and prosperity. By the end of the decade, only 41.8 percent of blacks owned their own homes compared to 61.4 percent of whites. Also between 1972 and 1978, the number of housing units in the city declined by 6 percent as a result of urban demolition and renewal for new highway construction. The effects of such changes were felt most in urban black communities within the city while housing construction continued to increase in the suburbs. From 1970 to 1980, housing construction increased almost 50 percent, mostly in white suburban areas. In 1975, about 16 percent of the city’s housing stock was considered substandard. By 1980 that figure had increased by 25 percent. This substandard classification led to the demolition of over 900 acres of housing properties further disenfranchising urban blacks. Such projects of urban demolition and renewal were the primary causes of the loss of low income housing for the poorest black Atlantans.[23] An increasing population of semi-skilled low income blacks struggled to find jobs as the city lost much of its industrial job opportunities in favor of more white collar occupations such as wholesale and retail trade, finance, insurance and real estate. With insufficient job opportunities within accessible city limits, Atlanta’s poor, and unemployed benefited very little form the growth that took place in the 1970s. Politically, those who reaped the benefits of the city’s job expansion and economic development were primarily the white middleclass who tended to vote Republican. This population mostly lived in the so-called “Golden Crescent”, north of Interstate 20. In contrast, mostly black Democratic voters, whose interests had been constantly overlooked by city administrators, inhabited the city’s metropolitan area.[24] Both the black middle and working classes voted for Jackson, but for different reasons.
Jackson’s 1973 election was the culmination of years of political activity and strategic efforts of leadership and dedication. The son of a preacher at Atlanta’s well-known Friendship Baptist Church and grandson of political activist, John Wesley Dobbs, Jackson made a career as a lawyer who advocated for the advancement of black political power after graduating from Morehouse College at 18 years old with degrees in political science and history. Before graduating cum laude from North Carolina Central University School of Law, Jackson worked for the Ohio Bureau of Unemployment Compensation. He returned to Atlanta as an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board and for the Emory Community Legal Services Center where he provided legal services to low income citizens, free of charge.[25] In 1968, Jackson successfully campaigned to be elected vice mayor of Atlanta, the chief officer of the city’s municipal council. During his time as vice mayor, Jackson developed a relationship with the AFSCME Local 1644 as he canvassed alongside the city’s sanitation workers who struck against then Mayor Sam Massell for union recognition, an increase in their wages, and improvements in the human resource relationships between city management and employees. This strike in 1970 was considered an important success for the AFSCME as Massell eventually raised wages for sanitation workers and strayed away from mass firings. However, the AFSCME local 1644 lost its dues check-off privileges as a result which diminished the amount of leverage the union had during the remainder of Massey’s term.[26]
The years leading up to Jackson’s election were high in black political participation. Although he was a white candidate, Ivan Allen, Jr., mayor from 1962 to 1970 won his campaign with support from Atlanta’s black community. During his terms, he maintained a strong alliance with representatives from that electorate and balanced business and civic leadership with their needs.[27] Allen’s terms was also a period where a coalition of black legislators emerged which put forward the needs of the majority of black Atlantans; finally placing political power in the hands of half of the city’s often overlooked citizens. When Allen announced he would not seek reelection, this coalition wanted to have clear input in choosing whom they would support as his replacement. They were encouraged by the electoral victories of black mayor’s across the nation and believed that Atlanta was ready to successfully elect a black candidate who could win over black Americans while being moderate enough to have the support of white constituencies. In addition to Jackson, the coalition debated possible candidates such as LeRoy Johnson, a member of the Negro Voters League, Fulton County Citizens Democratic Club and the Summit Leadership Conference. Johnson was also well known for his moderate stances on racial issues as a member of the senate. Another proposed candidate was attorney Vernon Jordan, Jr. who served as field director for Georgia’s branch of the NAACP and was the former director of the Voter Education Project.
            Despite high hopes for the historic election of the city’s first black mayor, many of the city’s black leaders never fully believed that a black candidate would win, especially if multiple black candidates ran, and feared that the black vote would be split and not as effective against a white candidate.[28] With a saturated field of candidates, the 1969 mayoral election was won by white candidate and former vice mayor Sam Massell, who won the overwhelming majority of the black vote in a runoff against Republican Rodney Cook, a white alderman and state legislator who believed that the Republican Party could increase its southern membership by appealing to black voters. During his time as a legislator, Cook tackled the issues of low-income housing demolition and slum clearance and advocated against deliberately segregated housing markets.[29] Massell campaigned as a liberal Democrat and distributed literature suggesting that a vote for one of the black candidates would be a wasted, illogical ballot. Before defeating Cook in the runoff, Massell won the general election because of a fragmented black voting populous, which worked to his advantage because he had the majority white vote.  He vowed to pay black Atlantans a “debt dating back over 100 years” and promised to put human rights at the top of his agenda as he strove to eliminate discrimination of blacks in his city.[30]
More political engagement by blacks ignited the city’s black coalition of councilmen’s imagination of a black candidate winning a mayoral election. Blacks held leadership positions on school boards, municipal commissions, and on the boards of major white companies. These leaders tended to put forward the needs of the black middle class such as assuring that black business received adequate shares of city contracts. With the black populous now over 50 percent in the city, black legislators believed that if black mayoral candidates were kept at a minimum, the fragmentation of the black vote could be avoided. Before rallying around one specific candidate, the Atlanta University Center organized a meeting of faculty and staff and created the University Movement for Black Unity (UMBU). The UMBU held mock elections that resulted in Jackson garnering the majority of the votes as to whom should be the black mayoral candidate. Following the mock election, UMBU members took action and recruited student volunteers to distribute literature and campaign for Jackson. He was ready to enter into the position of “The African American candidate”.[31]
            As Jackson’s black support base grew, he also began gaining support from many white business leaders who turned away from Massell because of his mismanagement of much of the city’s business ordeals during his first term. Massell’s handling of the 1970 sanitation strike and his systematic replacement of black aldermen with whites the following year put him in an unfavorable light in the eyes of both blacks and white liberals. Gradually, the coalitions that had elected Massell previously were turning away from him; the city needed a unifying force that could offer moderate, productive leadership. Major damage was done to Massell’s hopes for reelection as his campaign strategies to win the votes of white conservatives backfired when his ad campaigns that bore slogans such as, “Atlanta’s too Young to Die” and “It’s Cheaper to Vote Than to Move” suggested that the city would be destroyed economically under the leadership of a black mayor. These strategies resulted in white moderates and businessmen supporting Jackson, criticizing his tactics and decency. Jackson won with 59 percent of the votes cast.[32] The results of this election were covered nationwide. Not only was Jackson elected the first black mayor of a major southern city, but also the first black politician to preside over a state’s capital anywhere in the nation. Jackson also notably won more than 20 percent of the votes in primarily white precincts. Black Georgia legislator Julian Bond stated that, “The voters are to be congratulated that they didn’t allow the mayor [Massell’s] incredible racist performance blind them to the fact that Maynard Jackson in the best man for the job.” Then Georgia governor Jimmy Carter also commented, “I’m very grateful that the outcome of the election does not indicate any racial division within the city.”[33]
Jackson’s victory brought new optimism for black Atlantans and moderate whites. It showed that generations of political leadership dominated by the business elite had to share its power with the large population of central city and southern suburban blacks. Jackson’s city council consisted of nine whites and nine black members, the school board had five blacks and four whites and the city had a white city council president. Jackson also put at the helm of his mayoral intentions the push for increased consideration of minority owned firms for city contracting jobs. During his first year in office, only $43,759 of Atlanta’s $33 million in city contracts went to minority owned firms, a decade later, black firms held 27 percent of city contracts; totaling nearly $44 million.[34] The city appeared “racially balanced” and ready to prosper socially, politically and economically.[35] The city was on a path of expansion, but as the 1977 strike showed, not all of its citizens were beneficiaries of this period of progression.
In October of 1977, Jackson was reelected for a second term in a landslide biracial victory. In primarily black precincts, he won with margins upwards of 90%. His victory amongst both white voters and the black middle class was largely attributed to his handling of the strike month’s prior. He continued to garner black support despite firing sanitation men because he unceasingly enforced his policy of fairly distributing city contracts to black businesses and the construction of the city’s new airport which would bring in a multitude of jobs and revenue to Atlanta.[36] How Jackson handled the strike certainly had implications on his political future and the impact that the AFSCME could have on municipal employees across the nation. Jackson’s opposition was not about strikebreaking, but strictly on the issue of the delivery of essential city services. Jackson saw himself as, “only the first domino in the A.F.S.C.M.E.’s Southern domino theory”. Had their strike been successful, the victories and momentum would encourage more walkouts across more southern states such as Florida and Alabama.[37] The AFSCME leadership believed that Jackson would be reelected in October but warned that he was creating an erosion of a crucial constituency, poor and working class blacks. AFSCME representative Owen King stated that, “You can’t trample on your main supporters and get away with it forever”.[38]
Georgia’s capital has been called the “Black Mecca” of the nation since the 1970s. As a result of years of biracial coalitions working towards the betterment of the city, Maynard Jackson went on to serve three terms as mayor and produced substantial economic growth each term. Black businesses flourished and affirmative action policies facilitated the employment of much of the city’s jobless. The city was an example of educational excellence and attracted droves of new, young minds year after year that contributed to even more economic growth and citywide expansion.[39] The success of one group of citizens in any region does not always guarantee success for all. The risk of hindering one group’s special interests in favor of the betterment of an entire city has proven to be an inevitable one for political leaders throughout history. Jackson chose to take on the role of mayor rather than black mayor and successfully maintained the alliances that were essential to Atlanta’s prosperity. Jackson did not go back on his campaign promise to “never, never let down” his constituents.[40] Instead his actions during the 1977’s sanitation workers’ strike demonstrated leadership that did not deter from his philosophy of governance and one who understood that diplomacy was the primary factor determining Atlanta’s success during this pivotal time in the city’s history.
Research that addresses intra-racial conflict within black America is necessary to fully evaluate any period in American history. Comparing how the black middle class felt about the 1977 strike with the grievances of the black working class is one example of how the narratives of both Jackson’s mayoral terms as well as the city of Atlanta during the 1970s could be different. Evidence shows that within communities, class separates individuals both socially and politically. Political campaigns and events such as this strike should not be restricted to black vs. white, but rather much deeper analyses must be taken.

  
      Primary Sources



The Atlanta Journal and Constitution

The Keys To The Kingdom (1974-1980). 2006. Video. Atlanta, GA: PBS.org.

The New York Times

The Washington Post.

  


Secondary Sources


Atlanta, GA. Digital Collections. Georgia State University.

Black Enterprise

Bullard, Robert D. In Search of the New South : The Black Urban Experience in the 1970s and 1980s. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost

Harmon, David Andrew. 1996. Beneath The Image Of The Civil Rights Movement And Race Relations. New York: Garland Pub.

Harris, Adrienne, S. "The Southern Magnet." Black Enterprise 22, no. 11 (June 1992): 335. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed April 8, 2016).

Kadalie, Modibo. 2013. "This damn Maynard Jackson..." Interview by Robert Sabatino & Andrew Zonneveld, TV. Decatur, Ga.

Kruse, Kevin Michael. White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005.

McWhirter, Cameron. 2003. "A Champion for Atlanta: Maynard Jackson: Many Felt The Warmth Of His Smile". The Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Rice, Bradley. 2004. "Maynard Jackson (1938-2003)". New Georgia Encyclopedia.

Schultz, Jason. "“A Disgrace Before God”: Striking Black Sanitation Workers Vs. Black Officialdom In 1977 Atlanta". New Beginnings, A Journal of Independent Labour (2007)

Sjoquist, David L. The Atlanta Paradox. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2000.












[1] Cameron McWhirter, “A Champion for Atlanta”, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, 2003.

[2] "Strike Is Criticized By Dr. King's Father”, New York Times, 1973.

[3] Scott Austin, “Sanitation Worker's Strike In Atlanta Loaded With Ironies”, The Washingoton Post”, 1977.

[4] Harmon, Beneath the Image of the Civil Rights Movement and Race Relations, 300.

[5] Schultz, “A Disgrace Before God”, 2007
[6] Scott Austin, “Sanitation Worker's Strike In Atlanta Loaded With Ironies”, The Washingoton Post”, 1977.
[7] "Where To Take Trash", The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 1977.

[8] Ibid.
[9] Kadalie, Modibo, interview by Robert Sabatino & Andrew Zonneveld, October 6, 2013.

[10] "Mayor Orders Workers To End Strike Today Or Face Firing” The Atlanta Daily World, April    1st 1977.
[11]."Striking Sanitation Workers Fired After Refusal To Work", The Atlanta Daily World, April 5th 1977
[12] Schultz, “A Disgrace Before God”, 2007.
[13] "Unjustified Confusion", The Atlanta Daily World, March 31st, 1977.
[14] "Mayor Hits Union Demands, Violence", The Atlanta Daily World, March 31st, 1977.
[15] "Lets Pick Up The Garbage", Atlanta Daily World, April 3rd 1977.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Keating, Larry. Atlanta: Race, Class and Urban Expansion. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001), 11.
[18] Ibid., 25.
[19] Peter Range, “Capital of Black-is-Bountiful”, New York Times, April 7, 1974.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Kevin Kruse, White Flight, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 251.
[22] David Sjoquist, The Atlanta Paradox, (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2000), 54.
[23] Robert Bullard, In Search of the New South, (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989.), 94.
[24] Ibid.,  83-86.
[25] Bradley Rice, “Maynard Jackson (1938-2003)”, New Georgia Encyclopedia (2004): Accessed April 24th, 2016, http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/government-politics/maynard-jackson-1938-2003.
[26] "American Federation Of State, County And Municipal Employees, Local 1644 (Atlanta, Ga.), Records" 2010
[27] Harmon, Beneath the Image of the Civil Rights Movement and Race Relations, (New York: Garland Pub), 231
[28] Ibid., 233.
[29] Ibid., 234.
[30] Jew and Negro Take 2 Top Atlanta Job”, The New York Times, 1970.
[31] Harmon, Beneath the Image of the Civil Rights Movement and Race Relations, 264.
[32] Ibid., 267.
[33] “Atlanta, After Bitter Campaign, Expects a New Era under Black”, The New York Times, 1973.
[34] Bullard, In Search of the New South, 79.

[35] Harmon, Beneath the Image, 268.
[36] Wayne King, “Jackson to Begin Second Term in Atlanta Amid Optimism”, The New York Times, Oct 6, 1977.
[37] Ibid., “Mayor Appears to Have Crushed Strike by Atlanta Sanitationmen, The New York Times, April 17th, 1977.
[38] A.S. Harris, “The Southern Magnet”, Black Enterprise: Vol. 22 Issue 11, June, 1992.
[39] Ibid.
[40] The Keys To The Kingdom (1974-1980), 2006.

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