Kasim Reed had an idea that Andrew Young thought sounded good, but he didn’t think it would work.
It was the late 1980s. Former Atlanta mayor Young met Reed, then a college student, at a Howard University board of trustees’ meeting in Washington, D.C. Young was an alumni trustee. Reed was the board’s student representative.
Reed’s idea: Get students to vote to pay a small fee on their bill each semester. The pooled money would be doubled by a federal matching grant, building the school’s endowment. Young thought students wouldn’t pay more. But the idea was approved — thanks to hard campaigning by Reed. Today Reed’s idea has brought in an estimated $12.5 million.
Young recalled being impressed with the ambitious young man.
“I hope you come back to Atlanta and run for something,” Young recalls telling him.
Two decades later, on a recent muggy morning, Young stood near Auburn Avenue — black Atlanta’s symbolic heart — and endorsed Reed for mayor. Young hugged Reed, now 40, and supporters clapped.
Young told the AJC that others asked for his endorsement but “I had committed to Kasim 20 years ago.”
It was a clear pass-the-mantle moment, one that years earlier could have sealed an election. A giant of Atlanta’s black political establishment had marked his inheritor, just as he had once endorsed current Mayor Shirley Franklin.
But the city has been rocked by the collapsed economy and fears about crime. Franklin has laid off hundreds of workers while property owners have seen tax bills rise. After eight years, many voters aren’t feeling warm and fuzzy about the Franklin years. And Reed, a state senator and corporate lawyer with a fat campaign fund and strong ties to Franklin (he ran both of her campaigns), is anything but a shoo-in.
Still, Reed brims with confidence. He speaks matter-of-factly about how powerful people have been “favorably impressed” with him, and how he thinks he will win this election despite odds that have him in third place. This persona — well-dressed smooth talker with a touch of I’m-the-smartest-guy-in-the-room-itis — has put off some.
But those critics have a problem: From his days at Howard to more than a decade under the Gold Dome, Reed has used deal-making skills to get things done that others couldn’t. After seven years in the state Senate, Reed even has Republicans like Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle saying nice things about him.
Reed sees this election as his opportunity to move up to the big time. He’s a black Democrat in his forties with a strange sounding name (his full name is Mohammed Kasim Reed) running for a higher office. Sound familiar? Reed has cultivated the comparison by hiring former staffers for Barack Obama’s campaign and Obama’s high-powered consultants. He isn’t the only Reed who thinks he should be climbing. His mother, Sylvia Reed, said she was surprised that her son, the youngest of four, decided to run for mayor.
“U.S. Senate. That’s where I pictured him being next,” she said.
Reed was raised in the Cascade area, near the Atlanta city line. His father, Junius Reed, was considering Islam in 1969, the year Reed was born.
“My name was really a product of the times,” says Reed, who has always been called Kasim. He was raised a Methodist. Reed’s parents divorced but both remained involved in their children’s lives.
Reed had a political streak early on. His mother remembers having to go to school because her son was arguing with a teacher about how he was teaching about slavery.
Reed says his political consciousness developed in elementary school, when he researched a report on Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. When it came time for college, Reed wanted to go to Marshall’s alma mater, Howard University. Reed says Howard is “the biggest influencer in my life besides my faith in God and my family.”
His role as a student rep on the trustee board allowed him to schmooze with leading African-American politicians and business leaders including top black business and political leaders. At school, he interned at Congress. After he left the school, he became the youngest general trustee in the school’s history.
Back in Atlanta in 1992, the 22-year-old Reed ran for a Fulton County Commission seat.
“I made the decision that if I was going to be in politics I was going to take my shot early on,” he said.
Reed lost in a crowded race. He learned an important lesson: You have to work hard to win an election.
“You have to earn things,” he told the AJC recently. Reed went back to Howard, this time to law school. After three years, he returned to Atlanta. He has been a successful lawyer and today is a partner at Holland & Knight.
In 1998, he ran for state representative from his area, this time with lots of planning and volunteers. He targeted visits to influential voters. One of those was Franklin, another Howard graduate. He kept going to her door and leaving material. On the second or third time, she was home. “I know who you are!” Reed remembers her saying, as she waved campaign material he’d left. It was the beginning of a close political relationship. Reed was elected. Franklin was so impressed she asked him to manage her mayoral campaign.
In 2002, Reed won the Senate seat he held until last week, when he stepped down to focus on his mayoral bid. Despite being in the minority the whole time, Reed played a key role in major Senate legislation. He is credited (or vilified, depending on your politics) as one of the senators who kept the 1956 flag, with its dominant Confederate battle emblem, off of a referendum. It was considered a feat, since Democrats were in the minority and Gov. Sonny Perdue backed a referendum on that flag.
Sen. Nan Orrock (D-Atlanta), a longtime friend, said she has seen Reed navigate tough issues, including hate crime legislation and a referendum for the city’s sewers.
“He knows how to play chess,” she said.
Several politicians and the Atlanta Labor Council have backed his mayoral bid. The big question, of course, is where is Franklin? Why hasn’t she come out for him? Franklin has declined to say anything. Reed will only say: “We have a long time to go in the campaign,” implying she might endorse him soon.
Reed has ground to make up. A recent poll for WSB-TV showed Mary Norwood leading, with Lisa Borders next and Reed in single digits. Reed said his polling shows him close behind Borders. Reed remains confident: “We have the resources that are necessary to make sure that everyone in the city of Atlanta will know who I am.”
In June, campaign finance reports showed Reed had outraised his opponents. He has hired top-flight advisers, including top Obama pollster Cornell Belcher. Reed also is hitting the streets, from boisterous black fraternity gatherings at Morris Brown to art galleries on the east side. At a summer labor rally, he told the crowd, “Don’t misread the suit, baby, I’m going to go to every door.”
Not every visit has been pleasant. At a forum this spring for Georgia Equality, the state’s main gay rights organization, when asked if he supported gay marriage, Reed said no, he only supported civil unions. Some in the crowd booed.
“That is where I am, based on my faith,” he said.
Georgia Equality officials declined to comment on the incident.
Reed knows that in this election despite his campaign funds, high-priced advisers and the Young endorsement, no mantle is being passed. He has to come from behind to win.
“I am the least well-known candidate in the race and because of that I am going to have to run a better campaign,” he said.
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