On land once belonging to Creek and Cherokee Indians, Atlanta has become the unofficial capital of the New South. In 1812 the first European Americans settled in Fort Peachtree, bringing enslaved persons of African descent with them. In its earliest American settlement, the area had few slaves compared to the major slave-trading centers of Augusta, Savannah and Charleston. The slave population multiplied between 1840-1860, just before the Civil War. It happened because Atlanta, then called "Terminus", became the supply center and railroad terminus for the South with four major rail lines and because the cotton industry boomed.

    As America has too frequently proven, anytime you marry Old South money-making activities with major distribution centers, slave-holders are attracted like bees to honeycomb. But slave-holders good times went up in flames during the Civil War. The war introduced food and clothing shortages as the Confederacy hopelessly tried to match troop supply lines with Union troop supply lines. And that was not the worst of it for White Southerners.

    Partly to punish the Confederacy, Union General Sherman ordered troops to set fire to Atlanta in 1864. By the end of the Civil War, African Americans enjoyed empowerment as full citizens for the first time, even as Union forces stripped privileges from White Southerners. Despite its inaccurate depiction portraying most Black Southeners as "Happy-to-serve-Massa" drones before, during and after the Civil War, the movie Gone With The Wind realistically captures White Southerners sense of loss as their slave plantation estates and city burned. The Old South really was, gone with the wind.

    By 1870, African Americans comprised nearly half of Atlanta's residents. During Reconstruction African Americans elected their own city councilmen and other politicians. The threat of Black political power to White Male Southerners hegemony festered until Union troops pulled out in 1877. Sensing the moment, White Male Southerners in the higher-ranking Georgia Legislature changed the voting rules process in city district elections to an at-large process. No African American could win an at-large election since race was typically the deciding factor. Consequently, voting rules chicanery, not democratic process, virtually stripped Black Southerners of political power. Despite or perhaps because of unjust political losses and emerging segregation, a solid black economic base developed with a staunch loyalty towards Black institutions. Black workers enriched churches that led to the development of Morehouse, Atlanta, Clark, Spelman, and Morris Brown colleges. Atlanta Life Insurance and Citizens Trust Bank developed on Sweet Auburn Avenue and Black middle class neighborhoods like Summer Hill emerged in south Atlanta.

    In a 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech, Booker T. Washington was enthusiastically received when he preached that Black economic empowerment was the practical road for African Americans to take. To paraphrase him, "We only need to build our communities, rather than fight for civil rights".

    Booker T. Washington's noble and practical vision was smashed by the harsh reality of the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906, when it became apparent to all that Black economic development could not proceed at a natural pace without civil rights protection. Incited by newspapers reporting false charges of Black men raping white women, white mobs, assisted by policemen, burned down the Brownsville district. In five days, the riot killed 25 African Americans and destroyed 1,000 homes. In addition to crippling Black business, the riots bifurcated race relations. On one side, it sparked interracial dialogue between moderate voices. On the other side, it rekindled Klu Klux Klan activity. In such an divisive and spirited environment, the historic Black colleges of Atlanta blossomed. Included among their teaching staff, was the great intellectual W. E. B. DuBois.

    This tension between white moderates and the Klan dominated racial relations in Atlanta for the next 65 years. While race relations improved somewhat after World War I, strict segregation remained a fact of life. In the midst of those times, John Wesley Dobbs made a name for himself as the pioneering businessman of Auburn Avenue district, known affectionately as Sweet Auburn. Black veterans, returning from Europe during World War II with an acquired taste for human dignity, sparked social activism that changed Atlanta and America. Jim Crow laws and customs would gradually falter.

    As the home of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young, John Lewis, Hosea Williams, and Joseph Lowery, Atlanta played a pivotal role in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s. Atlanta leaders seemed to fuse Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois' charge towards intellectual development, Booker T. Washington's self-help philosophy and Dr. King's integrationist vision. Thus, Atlanta arguably became the first city to develop a complete infrastructure within a city and county for Black economic empowerment. Church pastors did an excellent job of coordinating get-out-the-vote activities. By fair elections, they won the mayor’s office and several city council positions. Atlanta University Complex graduated large numbers of students who preferred to stay here. Small Black business formation accelerated. These factors and more integrated into the city's power structure as Atlanta transitioned from the Civil Rights Movement to Power Sharing.

    How did Atlanta land on so many traveler radar screens in the last quarter of the 20th century? Credit good public vision and enlightened race relations. In the early 1960s, when most Southern cities lacked vision and the willpower for interracial cooperation, Atlanta built the South's largest convention center and dramatically expanded its airport, thereby attracting more hotel chains and conferences. After Dr. King's death in April 1968, strong Black leadership and interracial cooperation prevented Atlanta riots that plagued nearly every other large city. In the 1970s, when other Southern cities lagged behind, Atlanta’s Black-led government and moderate white business leaders worked together to implement Affirmative Action. Those white business leaders knew that Black businesses had been unfairly shut out of government contracts and private jobs. From enlightened self-interest, they also knew that supporting Mayor Maynard Jackson to win a larger share of federal grants that expanded public infrastructure, essential to conventions and tourism.  With more  tourism and conventions than Richmond, Raleigh, Durham, Nashville, Birmingham, Memphis, Winston-Salem and Greensboro meant that all Atlanta businesses would reap huge rewards as Fortune 1000 companies made Atlanta their Southeast Division headquarters who bought tons of goods and services from pre-existing Atlanta businesses.

    In the 1980s, when many corporate headquarters exited cities, Atlanta kept its business jewels in Downtown, Midtown and Buckhead. Coca Cola, Georgia-Pacific and others expanded their downtown presence. A number of banks and businesses expanded in midtown. Many of those businesses attrcted Black leaders to their boards of directors for the first time. Ted Turner, a moderate white man, also put Atlanta on the international news map when he built CNN headquarters Downtown.

    Today, make no mistake … Atlanta still has glass ceiling, public school, and profiling issues like every other city. So what makes Atlanta the center of attraction for African Americans to visit and/or move here? Atlanta celebrates the most significant concentration of African Americans empowered in business, government, higher education, religion, cultural arts and social organizations relative to the percentage of its European American counterparts.