The Myth of Atlanta

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It's four oh four day.

For those not from the city.

Fall Fall Day is Atlanta Day, the day we celebrate everything Atlanta.

What you got for us?

Katie well An anecdote.

Two years ago. I had just been laid off, riding around the city, probably looking for tacos, when a song I had never heard of came on. I didn't know it yet, but the song was about to go viral and cause a star in Atlanta and the surrounding areas. So I'm driving down ponds right, dodging potholes, and Amaretta the Great song Sorry Not Sorry comes on?

You heard of it?

The one where she's saying, who is and isn't Atlanta exactly? For the uninitiated, Amareda the Great calls out different locations in the Atlanta metro for not being Atlanta, College Park, clay Coo, Decatur, Roswell, etc.

Etc.

I'm rid of the Great asserts that she's an a baby, so she gotta.

Start pulling folks cards. She says she and other real.

At Aliens had to live in the zoo where you don't make it out so I don't give a fuck what they say.

Okay girl, but is that a flex?

And not to get off on its tangent.

But the music video for this song was shot at the New Braves Baseball Stadium, which is also not Atlanta.

But I digress.

Being someone who's been here since child, I've seen the city change so much, so I thought the punchline for the song would be Atlanta.

It's not Atlanta.

That's a hot take.

I mean, think about it. With the gentrification of Atlanta, the culture that Atlanta has broadcasted to the world has been pushed out to the suburbs and beyond the same places. I'm rid of the great calls out for not being Atlanta. I'm struck by all the murals around the city with black women with gold grills and bands who knots and neighborhoods they used to be black but are decidedly not anymore.

It's like the city.

Puts black folks in the public art once it has successfully priced out all the real niggas. But the myth of this magical land for black people persists.

I'm Katie and I'm Eves.

In today's episode The Myth of Atlanta.

So for four or four day You're coming for Atlanta's nick.

I mean yeah. I think James Ballways said it best. I love America more than any other country in the world, and exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. And that's how I feel about Atlanta. I love the city so much, and I want to see it be the city it purports to be.

That's fair enough. Let's hear these myths.

Before I get into the particular miss of Atlanta. Are you familiar with the tale of Atalanta, the renowned huntress of Greek mythology.

Not really tell me about it.

At Talanta was known for her exceptional speed and unwavering commitment to virginity. She declared that she would only marry the man who could beat her in a foot race. She also declared that any man who lost to her would be killed immediately. This served to dissuade would be suitors, as at Talanta was known as one of the fastest runners in history and was confident that no man would

Dubois is onto something.

I think it makes sense for him to draw that connection between the two, and you know, I love a connection to sort of mythology in something.

So he has some points.

Yeah.

I first heard of the myth while reading doctor Maurice Jay Hobson's The Legend of the Black Mecca, Politics and Class and the Making of Modern Atlanta. In that book, he traces the rise of the black elite and the bargains they made for prosperity. The book illuminates the wide gap between the black political elite and the poor city dwellers. It really complicates the long held view of Atlanta as this mecca for black people. The book conformed a lot of my thoughts about Atlanta as a myth maker. So

I'm most proud of the fact that we set out a slogan as cided to visit the hate, and it looks like we're living.

Up to it. Blying this phrase were the deeply embedded segregation laws, policies, and practices that restricted all aspects of black folks lives. But Black Alantans were making progress, but always within the constraints of racial inequality. For example, in nineteen sixty the city of Atlanta had forty two barks for whites, three for blacks, twelve swimming pools for whites again three for blacks, sixteen recreation centers for whites. Guess

Do you think Grady did that, absolutely not.

It waited till nineteen sixty five to fully desegregate.

It sounds like Atlanta still made time to hate, basically exactly.

Atlanta was busy, but it made time.

So where did the phrase come from? Did people like come together and vote on the city motto or something?

Girl? No Girl?

This was a marketing campaign created by Helen Ballard, a Coca Cola employee, and endorsed by and popularized by then mayor Ivan Allen. Have you heard this phrase before?

Yeah, I had heard it before.

What were your first impressions when you heard it?

So it sounds very rose colored glasses, very like harp sound in the background, rainbow, the city too busy to hate. I feel like it was before my era where people were really serious about it. You know, I grew up in the nineties in Atlanta, but I never I guess I never fell for it because I saw the world around me.

I grew up in a low income area. I grew up where niggas was fighting.

Okay, we're hating and we're writing, all right, So yeah, I guess I never fell for it.

So you've been woke, girl?

I always saying that definitely would never say that about myself.

But I'm giving woke.

Okay, I'll take you there.

So the slogan highlighted Atlanta's commitment to economic growth, emphasizing the city that prioritized business development and cooperation across racial lines rather than racial division. This strategy helped attract businesses, investors, and visitors to Atlanta. As we see, Atlanta is full. I know you don't believe that, but no, I.

Don't believe that, but in attractive visitors.

It showcased the city that was forward thinking, and it really set the stage for Atlanta's reputation in the country and throughout the world.

The word choice of the phrase is really interesting to me. Too busy to hate, not too moral, not too kind, and not too intelligent, just busy.

They're like, girl, I'll hate you later when I got time moved.

Yeah.

It was purely marketing, aimed to set Atlanta apart from other cities in the Deep South like Jackson, Montgomery, Birmingham, and as I mentioned before, Atlanta had its racial disparities too in public accommodations and representation in local politics.

And in nineteen o six, white.

Atlantans committed a bitter massacre against Black Atlantin's killing at least twenty five people in wounding dozens.

But I know what you're thinking.

What am I thinking?

That was nineteen oh six?

Atlanta became the City Too Busy to Hate in the nineteen sixties. The city has moved on.

You got me?

Well, let me tell you about the Summer Hill Rebellion of nineteen sixty six, which happened while Ivan Allen was mayor.

And spreading the city too Busy to Hate gospel.

I'm listening.

The rebellion began following the police shooting of an unarmed black man named Harold Prather, sparking protests against ongoing inequities such as discriminatory policing, poor housing, inadequate public services, and

Thus it began. How many other times had white policemen shot black men? How many other times had white policemen beaten black men and taken them off to jail? How many other times? But this time was the one time too many. In Cleveland, it was not being able to get a glass of water in a bar run by

Nah, it was indirect opposition, and Julius Luster calls out directly how black politicians are used as mouthpieces to quell dissent from the black masses.

He writes.

Ivan Allan says Snick is responsible for the rebellions. Those black men he has bought off with tea and cookies can say, as did the Reverend Otis Smith. Our main concern is Stokely Carmichael. Whether or not we have a riot is up to him. The Reverend William Holmes Borders can say, We've got to stop him before he stops us.

Doctor O. W.

Davis can say, mister Carmichael is an albatross around our next. Whether Snick lives or dies is not important, because the black community will continue to fight until a society is created in which the black man will be able to fulfill himself. In that society, there will be no place for the Ivan Allens who think a city's image and progress can be separated from the people of that city.

I think it shows that because this was are in in nineteen sixty six, and actually in Ivan Allen's archive there was a note saying that they got it from a Negro girl passing it out on the street. So I think sometimes we can get this idea that people were like buy into this back then wait, they got.

What from a Negro girl passing out on the street.

They got the photo essay that the quotes come from. Okay, like they were passing it on the street, trying to get people to understand why they were rebelling. And it just shows that, like people were aware that this myth was in fact a myth. It wasn't true you know, they're doing urban renewal what we would call like gentrification now, but the urban renewal is very violent.

They were just coming in and knocking down people's homes.

I'm going to be condemned. There's a picture in the essay of a man just like holding up a rat. These are the conditions they were living in, and they saw that it was violent to have people living like this in your city while you're like telegraphing this like international great city to the world.

That's violence and that's hateful.

And I think just this artifact that I'm very glad that they have it in the archive, shows that people were already aware that this was some bs even back then.

Governments and politicians and authorities and power make it seem like the people can't see what the hell is going on right in front of them. It's like, I can starkly see this big difference between how you're portraying the city to the outside world and how we're literally living it.

And this made that clear.

And it's like this was a public kitchen that was very grassroots, like you're not going to see this in the AJAC not at this time. You're not going to turn on the evening news and hear the members of Synic saying that there's going to be no room for Ivan Allen's if they think the city's image can be separated from the people. You know, they're not going to

And I think it's powerful for it to be.

We've talked about previously in episodes about the power of photos and storytelling and how they can really show what was happening. But you know, in this way, often when we have situations like this, when the media is misrepresenting the reasons that protests are happening, you end up having to create a counter narrative. But it feels even wrong for me to use the term counter narrative because it's really the true narrative and the media's narrative is the

They're going to hear over and over. It's going to be the historical record exactly. So you got to come up with your own. And I think the picture is really like you can say, so you're blue in the face, like this is what they're doing.

But that picture of the man who owed the rat, I don't need to hear nothing else.

All I need to see was a rat, you know what I'm saying, Like, no more evidence needed, no care close, Like this is germ.

How would you get a hold of this?

You know what I'm saying.

Yeah, I believe you.

But what really strikes me about the myth is Atlanta's focus on outside perception versus internal relations. It's kind of like a microcosm for America itself. I know you've heard of the myth of American exceptionalism, and I think that's what this myth is getting to Atlanta. Exceptionalism, Like it's just not the case for the majority of black people who call the city home. And this myth is really foundational to the city's lore. And appeal. And this Atlanta

Atlanta is a place where we can set an example of prosperity. When you don't get treated right in New York, when you don't get treated right in LA, when you don't get treated right in Alabama, Atlanta has been here for this city.

Don't deserve it.

We can't do this here. This is what condo, It's sacred, must be protected.

This is what kanda, Atlanta's special.

We don't do that here.

Mind you, these are multi millionaires who made a lot of money talking about how Atlanta is the trap the hood both sold drugs and did other illegal activities in their youth at least what is still doing very illegal things in the city to this day, allegedly. But when a coalition of people come together demanding better for the city from elected officials and from sworn quote peace officers, you get on TV and tell them to stop, tell them to respect law and private property.

Because this is Atlanta.

Yeah, he didn't fall out say the city too busy to hate, but it's like he internalized it. It's like this little marketing slogan is the bloodstream of so many folks in Atlanta.

That's the thing about marketing slogans, right, They're catchy, often earworms that stick with us, and most importantly, they're selling something, and unfortunately too many of us have bought in.

Stay with us because after the break, we'll get into myth number two.

And we're back with more myths about Atlanta. Myth number two, Black political representation is a win for all black Atlantans.

So, speaking of Keisha Lance Bottom summoning Killer Mike and t I during George Floyd protests, I remember when she was elected in twenty eighteen and there were shirts and buttons and status updates that proudly stated I have a mayor named Keisha, as if having an identifiably black name automatically makes you gang gang.

And this isn't a new phenomenon in the city of Atlanta. It goes way back before Atlanta even had a black mayor. Pop quiz uh oh okay, So what time period did the moniker black Mecca come.

About nineteen fifties.

Okay, why do you think that.

I don't know, like girl, just because like the city was burgeoning, you know, but it was still pre sixties.

I think it came before a more modern era.

Okay, I could see why you would say that, but it actually started way before it actually happened in the eighteen sixties. So remember there's like the Freedman Bureau was around, that was in Atlanta, and so there's also the Battle of Antietam in Maryland, which was a Union victory that gave the North a lot of momentum in the Civil War.

We're going to be industrious being.

Focused on industry. That sounds really familiar.

Some things never changed, and it was also in Atlanta. Piedmont Park specifically where Booker T. Washington delivered the infamous Atlanta Compromise speech. Here's a pull quote from Booker T.

The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremist folly.

In other words, black and white leaders agreed that Black Atlantans would submit to white political rule in exchange for education and due process under law. It really codified segregation and struck a deal with white supremacists. But some middle class black Atlanta's did benefit, particularly business owners. There was a cluster of businesses on Auburn, av And Hunter Street, and you know, the city was segregated, so they had to study stream of customers. They was.

They was cool with it, but black folks still can't vote or really participate in civic life fully.

Nope, couldn't.

Georgia had an all white primary until nineteen forty and afterwards, black leaders John Wesley Dobbs and At Walden founded the Atlanta Negro Voters League, which basically broker deals with white political candidates like, oh, we'll get the black people to vote for you, Like we're gonna support this group. But they didn't really consult Atlanta's black working classes.

They're just like, yeah, so.

They just picked without seeing what regular black folks wanted.

Basically, yeah, like back room handshakes type of deal. Scholar Tamiko Brown Nagan calls this tactic the Atlanta way. Black elites compromise with white business leaders at the expense of the poor.

But still using the poor to win elections and ignoring their needs once in office.

Ugh, don't it sound familiar?

M M? I mean we're seeing the same thing right now today with Mayor Andre Dickens and cop City. Nobody wants it, but it's see Atlanta way. So now we got the city of Atlanta cutting down a forest during a climate crisis, mind you to build a training facility to teach cops to kill Nigga's.

Better tell us how you really feel.

I'm just calling it how it is. And Atlanta has a long history of doing this for decades, Black leadership has elevated white elites and business interests, even when, maybe especially when they go against the wants and demands of the black masses. And when it first started, poor black Atlanta saw these black leaders as puppets or simply white men in black face.

And I know, folks in the city still feel the same way, especially when these actions impact their day to day.

Yeah, and current black leaders are aware of this, you know, they're aware of how they're perceived. Here's Mayor Andre Dickens at Morehouse trying to convince black students that cop City, a militarized police training center, was good for the black community.

That's like a classic case of telling people that they're hurt, where protesters stand up in a situation and them actually not being hurt because he completely dismissed what they were saying and basically was deeming it invalid in that moment. But it's like, let your these people are your constituents. There are people who voted for you, maybe some of them, some of them aren't, but they live in your city.

I mean, you're trying to highlight the black stuff, like, yeah, I mean playing basketball with y'all, I may die the fuck. Yeah. But I don't know.

It's very interesting that clip in particular, because like you're trying to tell these black men you're at Morehouse. You're trying to tell these black men who you know, even though they're going to have degrees. The police don't care men walking around with your degree, like, oh, don't shoot me, don't arrest me.

And even if they did, it wouldn't do anything. They should write through that paper papers stand girl, and clearly bodies are thin to them too.

Yeah. And it's like, as a black person in Atlanta, you are twelve times more likely to give killed by the police as a white person. And I can only see this going up once you have this training center where they're learning how to kill you more effectively, more efficiently. They're learning the script of fearing for their lives no better little acting school moment. So I think the thing about this myth is that the black politicians really play

Kind of like, don't say anything bad about this fellow black person publicly because they're a fellow black person.

Very much so, you know, it happens during the the child murders, which took place during the first black mayor of Atlanta, Mayor Jackson's administration. Doctor Hobson's Black Meca book talks about this in this third chapter. But the children that were kidnapped and murdered were poor, and a lot of people call them hustlers and runaways, trying to suggest that they deserved what happened to them, or they were

Too busy to hate.

The original myth.

I told you it was foundational.

And now it's time for the last myth of Atlanta after the break myth number three.

Atlanta is the land of milk and honey for black folks. Now, this last myth.

I see the most in media from reality TV, like The Real Housewives of Atlanta.

Fabulous, Going with the Wind, fabulous Okay.

And Love and Hip Hop. So like every Tyler Perry movie where the characters are lawyers and businessmen who live in grand mansions with higher help. There's this idea that every black person in Atlanta is well off, but really those people are just taking up the most airtime in actuality. As of twenty twenty two, Atlanta had the highest income

So what are some of those causal factors like redlining.

Redlining, mass incarceration and while the city was too busy to hate white folks, those white flight and day asses away from black people and starting all white on clives around the city, like the Buckhead neighborhood. Hell, just a couple of years ago, Buckhet tried to secede from the city and take its tax dollars from the rest of Atlanta.

Mm hmm, I remember that little city hood movement. They were trying to separate themselves from the blacker neighborhoods in Atlanta.

But beyond Buckhead, Atlanta has been hyper fixated on class. So it makes sense why the success of upper class black folks would contribute to myth number three. The myth helps perpetuate itself. The more people think Atlanta is the land of milk and honey for black folks, the more the upper class gets telegraphed to the world as the ballers and movers and shakers they desperately want to be, so they produce media, essay, shows, movies, whatever to feed

Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then among Negroes, must first of all deal with the talented tenth. It is the problem of developing the best of this race that they may guide the mass away from the contamination and death of the worst in their own and other races.

Sounds like the black.

Politicians really took this line of thinking and ran with it. Ran it ran into the ground.

They really really did, which, you know, du boys didn't anticipate the talented ten the manifesting in the way that it did what we've been seeing this whole time. Forty five years after writing that essay The Talented Tenth, du Bois offers a self critique of the concept.

He writes, I assume that with knowledge, sacrifice would automatically follow. In my youth and idealism, I did not realize that

Because with everything's for sale, that includes black folks who are seen as disposable. The boys tried to warn us in the of the Wings of Atlanta, the chasing of the material will be the city's downfall.

Yeah, think back to the nineteen ninety six Olympics when the city cleared entire black neighborhoods to make Atlanta more attractive for all the international media coverage and tourism.

Back to the external image of the city versus what's really going on. I mean, she didn't sweet for all black folks here. I was traveling around the country last summer and this lady in Philly was saying she wanted to move to Atlanta because black folks had it better down here. And I'm no expert in Philly. That was only my second time out there for real, but I can say that thirty six percent of black households in Atlanta, that's over one.

Third, have a zero zero net worth.

And folks love to talk about Atlanta's black business, which the city does have more black owned businesses than other places. I will give y'all at but if we're keeping it a buck, they don't solve the problems of poverty and wealth inequality. Between ninety two and twenty twelve, black people created two million businesses. Okay, those businesses captured zero point three percent of the national sales revenue, and that was down from the one percent they were capturing before.

But hey, even if you.

Are able to claw your way up to the upper echelons of black society, remember the nineteen oh six race right took place partly because white people were jealous of black business owners getting too the money in, so they burn their businesses. And whoop they asked. Even after Booker t made the speech saying segregation was okay as long as black people could live their second class citizen lives

This one is my favorite, one favorite fly, Yeah, because we do see it in media so much, and it's one that black people Atlanta, outside of Atlanta and inside of Atlanta love to perpetuate like it's black Hollywood. That I think that's also part of this strope too. You know, we literally do have a lot of filming happening here, but that's not what black Hollywood has always referred to as.

Because you're just like, it's not true.

And I see it everywhere all the time, and I think a lot of people think that that's aspirational, and it's not always asked, at least not my idea of aspirational. You know, I can only speak for myself and my own perspective, but seeing the glitz and the glamour and the large homes and all that on television, it's still, at the end of the day, not doing anything for any of us here, and perpetuating the myth isn't doing anything for any of us here, especially the people who

To make enough money. Yeah.

I definitely think it is aspirational and like you're like, oh, well.

I saw this on TV.

Like, I really do. Think about the lady I met in Philly a lot. I had went to this like vegan restaurant, and you know, there's a lot of musclem people in Philly, so it was like all muscle people in there. I was the only one who didn't know how to order. I was like, well, what you got. I'm gonna just get what you guy. So we like started up a conversation and she heard out from Atlanta. She was so excited, like, Oh, I'm.

Gonna go there. I'm gonna give me a man, you a man.

First of all, has she not hurt I'm about dating in the city. I don't know nothing about it, but you ain't gonna get you, all right, that's what I heard. So she got hope.

It's because she's consumed media like a lot of us have, that has shown Atlanta in this way. There's like, oh, you should come here. Tyler Perry is good for the myth of Atlanta.

Tell me about it.

It was darvy back back woman when she met that bus driver. They were going out on the town. Okay, she got her a good black man who loved her and her kids, had a good job, was loving, she had a auntie, was a nice house after she got kicked out of that other house. And I'm not confusing that there's so many question I see him up, but he's good for perpetuating it. And I think it's like, you know, this myth has its roots in like the

Yeah, and people are still telling people, you know, as we talked about before, you know, move to Atlanta.

But they're telling them to move to Atlanta.

It's like, oh, the cost of living is low here, but like you can live like a king, and you can live like a key.

Can follow your dreams, which like, of course, like follow your dreams. But yeah, I just feel like the myth is holding the city back and it's holding people back.

Where do you think we would be if we didn't have that myth? What do you think would have improved?

I think there would be more class consciousness and like not people who are you know, aspiring like billionaires, like temporarily embarrassed billionaires, you know, who just like don't guide it, but like align themselves like politically with that class. You know, it's like no, baby, like let's eat them.

Okay.

So I think that would be a huge difference. And yeah, like just like more community focused and not so individual, not like oh I'm I'm going to get up, I'm going to eat I'm gonna be the next taller Perry.

You know what I'm saying.

It would be better if this myth didn't exist, because people come here and try to flex.

They celebrity themselves.

Yeah, it's all appearance. It's all on the outside.

And I've heard stories of just about dating, about the things people say on dates where they're trying to flex, like they got stuff and then got it, and that's shown very quickly when you like, you know, gott to pay your own check or something like that.

You know what, everything would be better every if we can get rid of these myths. I had to break it down for four or four day, Like I said, I do love the city. You know, we grew up here, got our degrees here that are young adults and our

Yeah, and going back to this idea of it coming out of the ashes, it being a feed phoenix, it's also done that is in its own image. It can constantly recreate itself and its symbology, so it fits there too.

And now it is time for role credits, the segment where we give credit to a person, place, or thing that we encountered during the week eves. Who are what would you like to give credit to today?

I would like to give credit to my yoga students. I'm a yoga teacher and I have been getting a lot of new students lately and meeting up a lot of new people and getting to know them and teaching

And also just the people that come to me.

They're all different, and they all have their own characters. They tell me stories, and I just love being able to connect with people in this way. And yeah, I'm looking forward to continuing the relationships that I do have and meeting so many more people along this path.

Okay, hello, and shout out to all of easy Yoga students who may be listening.

I would like to give credit to real niggas and I am breathed. Okay for all of y'all still out there, I would like to give credit to real niggas. Like as we've seen this episode, a lot of people pretend to be real niggas, put on the costume of a real nigga.

They and that's a real nigga, real nigga, real nigga. I want to give you your credit. And on that note, we'll see you next week.

Bye, y'all.

Bye.

On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media. This episode was written by Eves, Jeffco and Katie Mitchell. It was edited and produced by Tari Harrison. Follow us on Instagram at on Theme Show. You can also send us an email at Hello at on Theme dot Show. Head to on Theme dot Show to check out the show notes for episodes. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.