For years, Mo Ivory worked behind the scenes as a political consultant for campaigns, using her background as an entertainment lawyer and radio personality to bring out celebrities and influencers to support her candidates.
Ivory ran unsuccessfully for Atlanta City Council in 2017. After the loss, Ivory said she wrote off the idea of ever serving in elected office.
Then last March, one of Ivory’s sorority sisters from her time at Spelman College called and urged her to run against Natalie Hall for the District 4 seat on the Fulton County Board of Commissioners. For Ivory, the timing seemed right and after speaking with board Chairman Robb Pitts and Stacey Abrams, for whom Ivory has campaigned in the past, she decided to make another run for office.
Ivory, 55, a Grant Park resident and professor at the Georgia State University College of Law, ran in the May primary and defeated Hall in a runoff election in June. On Friday, Ivory was officially sworn in as the Fulton board’s first Afro-Latina commissioner at a ceremony in downtown Atlanta.
Ivory, who has lived in Fulton for more than 30 years, starts her four-year term at a challenging time. In November, the Department of Justice released a scathing report on the Fulton County jail. It describes the facility as dilapidated and found it to be woefully understaffed and dominated by a culture of violence perpetrated by guards and detainees alike.
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
On Friday, the U.S. government announced a proposed consent decree with the county and Sheriff Patrick Labat to address the inhumane and violent treatment of the jail’s inmates.
In an interview before her inauguration ceremony on Friday, Ivory said she plans to bring “an element of analysis and a tone of working together in partnership” to discussions about the jail and other crucial issues for the county.
“I’m committed to listening to both sides and I think that that’s important,” Ivory said. “And sometimes in politics, what I’ve noticed is that folks are not listening anymore.”
Anyone who watches Fulton commission meetings knows well that heated arguments often erupt, sometimes with members delivering personal attacks. Ivory called the environment “problematic” and said some of the arguments unfold “not in the healthiest of ways.”
“I’ve taken the opportunity to sit and talk to every single one and to open a line of communication,” Ivory said of her fellow commissioners. “And I hope that’s what I’ll be, to build a bridge between even the commissioners themselves. And if I can begin to do that and we can work together in a more cohesive way, then I think that’ll be a benefit.”
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Pitts said during Ivory’s swearing-in ceremony that he couldn’t think of any other elected official as qualified as she, drawing loud applause from the crowd.
“But in addition to her qualifications ... she’s really in it for the right reasons,” Pitts said. “That’s the main thing. She wants to help people, and she’s demonstrated that.”
Other speakers at Ivory’s inauguration included U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and state Sen. Nan Orrock, D-Atlanta.
Fulton County’s District 4 includes parts of the city of Atlanta, including its downtown, as well as parts of Hapeville and East Point.
Ivory grew up in the Bronx in New York City, came to Atlanta to attend Spelman College and got her law degree from Temple University. She later worked as an entertainment lawyer and became a radio personality with a talk show.
She also taught entertainment law at Howard University and now is director of GSU’s Center for Entertainment, Sports and Intellectual Property Law.
Ivory has five stepsons and one biological daughter, who has 3-year-old twin daughters. Ivory said her granddaughters’ future is part of what inspired her to run for the Fulton board. Ivory lives with her husband and 17-year-old stepson.
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
“I know they’re going to grow up in Fulton County and I want the schools to be better,” she said of her granddaughters. “I want the criminal justice system to be better. I want health care to be better. I want all the things that are services that the county provides and that the city provides to be better for them.”
Hall’s reelection campaign last year was hobbled by a sexual harassment scandal. In September 2023, other Fulton County commissioners censured her following a federal hearing on her affair with a former chief of staff. In that hearing, Hall repeatedly took the Fifth Amendment when asked if she placed tracking devices in the man’s car.
Last year, a federal judge ruled the county was liable in the sexual harassment case, which cost taxpayers roughly $1 million in penalties and fees. In February, commissioners cut Hall’s office budget by $200,000 to partially offset the cost of the judgment.
About the Author
