The Legend of the Black Mecca - by Maurice J Hobson (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

For more than a century, the city of Atlanta has been associated with black achievement in education, business, politics, media, and music, earning it the nickname "the black Mecca." Atlanta's long tradition of black education dates back to Reconstruction, and produced an elite that flourished in spite of Jim Crow, rose to leadership during the civil rights movement, and then took power in the 1970s by building a coalition between white progressives, business interests, and black Atlantans. But as Maurice J. Hobson demonstrates, Atlanta's political leadership -- from the election of Maynard Jackson, Atlanta's first black mayor, through the city's hosting of the 1996 Olympic Games -- has consistently mishandled the black poor. Drawn from vivid primary sources and unnerving oral histories of working-class city-dwellers and hip-hop artists from Atlanta's underbelly, Hobson argues that Atlanta's political leadership has governed by bargaining with white business interests to the detriment of ordinary black Atlantans.
In telling this history through the prism of the black New South and Atlanta politics, policy, and pop culture, Hobson portrays a striking schism between the black political elite and poor city-dwellers, complicating the long-held view of Atlanta as a mecca for black people.

Review Quotes

"A necessary counter to the standard narrative of modern Atlanta. Recommended."--CHOICE

"Hobson does his best work articulating the nuances of how Atlanta became such an unequal city, lionized in civil rights history for being 'too busy to hate' and glorified in the present as one of several Black Meccas in the United States. His narratives are rich and compelling, and the data presents an accurate representation of the wealth of archives across the city's many historical, cultural and educational institutions."--Journal of Urban Affairs

"Provides an intriguing look at a group of people who are typically left out of conversations about Atlanta's past and progress."--ArtsATL

"The book is a timely reminder of what examining the intraracial socioeconomic class divide can reveal for students of African American urban history. Furthermore, the book opens up space for future projects that might address similar themes in other cities, as well as those that embrace the necessary challenge of doing work with an explicitly intersectional frame, which will foreground the ways in which gender and sexuality can serve as analytical frames of equal importance as race and class."--Winston A. Grady-Willis, Atlanta Studies

"The singular focus on poor and working-class black Atlantans makes this book an especially important contribution to a wider and more complete picture of the totality of Atlanta and its black citizens, including the most vulnerable."--Journal of Southern History