Shirley Franklin was always uneasy about her role.
In 2001, without a runoff, she won a bitter race for Atlanta mayor against several well-known and well-financed candidates.
When she got into office, she was met with an unexpected budget deficit, which forced her to reduce the number of city employees, increase taxes to help balance the budget and take a pay cut.
Then, she had to fix the sewers.
“I had to get emotionally and spiritually comfortable with being mayor,” Franklin said Wednesday. “I doubted if I could be a good mayor. I had to get comfortable with being the center of attention.”
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
She eventually became comfortable with the idea of leading a city and on Thursday, 24 years after being elected as the first female mayor of Atlanta and the first Black woman to lead a major Southern city, Franklin was getting a lot of attention.
“You have to dream it, to believe it, to achieve it,” said former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young on Thursday. “And I don’t think that anybody has dreamed more, believed more and achieved more, in relationship to the city of Atlanta, than Shirley Franklin.”
The city’s 58th mayor was officially honored with the unveiling of Shirley Clarke Franklin Boulevard on a portion of Central Avenue SW, and the renaming of Westside Reservoir Park to Shirley Clarke Franklin Park. Thursday’s dual celebrations came just weeks after The Center for Civil and Human Rights announced they were naming their new soon-to-be opened east wing after her.
At an early morning ceremony for Franklin to dedicate the street, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens greeted the throng of people with “Welcome to Shirleyville.”
Franklin, 79, now joins the pantheon of former Atlanta mayors who have gained landmark status, like William B. Hartsfield, Ivan Allen Jr., Maynard Jackson and Andrew Young, who have monuments and facilities throughout the city named after them.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Dickens, at the street sign unveiling, called Franklin his hero and mentor. Dickens grew up with Franklin’s late son, Cabral Franklin, and said that the former mayor was the first person to endorse him for city council and mayor.
“You had a vision that was 50 to 100 years out,” Dickens said. “What an amazing characteristic. We are a better city because of your leadership.”
Sitting in her home Wednesday night, someone asked her if she could have envisioned all of this when she moved to Atlanta in the early 1970s from Alabama, by way of Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
“I couldn’t have imagined it a year ago,” she quipped. “But I’m thankful that some of the things that we’ve been able to accomplish as a city, happened on my watch.”
The daughter of a judge and an educator, Franklin earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology from Howard University and a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania.
When Franklin arrived in Atlanta in February of 1972, she said she had briefly met Maynard Jackson once when he came to speak at Talladega College where she was teaching.
As a 17-year-old in 1963, she saw Andrew Young at the March on Washington.
Young ran for Congress for the second time in 1972 and Jackson ran for mayor in 1973. Their post-Civil Rights era elections ushered in an unprecedented era of Black political power into Atlanta.
“I was attracted to the South, because the South was going through a transformation. I found that fascinating and I wanted to be a part of the New South. I saw the great possibilities,” Franklin said. “And I was very much enthralled, engaged and hopeful for the city because of their elections.”
During Jackson’s first term as Atlanta’s first Black mayor, he appointed Franklin as his commissioner of cultural affairs. When Young was elected mayor in 1981, he hired Franklin as his chief administrative officer and city manager. Both would push her to consider her own run for mayor, which she would often dismiss.
Credit: AJC
Credit: AJC
“It seemed kind of far-fetched that I would serve as mayor,” Franklin said. “Some of it is just providence. I didn’t run for mayor because I wanted to be the first woman mayor. But in some ways, being the first woman in a long line of mayors put me in a position to represent all of the women who didn’t have the same opportunities that I had.”
When she finally ran, Franklin was labeled a carpetbagger and Jackson told her downplay her West Philadelphia roots. She didn’t hide her roots and ran under the slogan, “If you make me mayor, I’ll make you proud.”
Although she was always perfectly appointed with her short blonde hair and trademark flower on her lapel, as mayor, Franklin shied away from the traditional trappings of glitz and glamour.
One of her first projects was to establish the “Pothole Posse,” where the city’s many eyesores were to be fixed as soon as a resident called to complain. But her most lasting legacy was tackling and fixing the city’s crumbling sewer system, which was in a state of emergency and in violation of the Federal Clean Water Act.
Credit: ajc staff
Credit: ajc staff
She led a $4 billion revamp of the system and for her efforts she was dubbed, “The Sewer Mayor.”
In addition, she led the initial effort to create the Atlanta Beltline project and got the city to invest more than $6 billion in improvements to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Atlanta city parks and affordable housing projects. She also led the effort to acquire the personal papers of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. for Morehouse College.
“I love the work,” Franklin said. “I grew up not seeking the limelight. I am the only child, so I got a lot of attention. So I don’t crave attention.”
When she was elected mayor, the old Bellwood Quarry, the park that now carries her name, was years removed from being the headquarters of the Fulton County chain gang system. After the abolishment of the chain gang system, private mining operations at Bellwood continued throughout the 20th century.
In December 2005, Franklin announced plans to acquire the land to create 280-acre park with a 35-acre reservoir, which would also serve as a drinking-water reservoir.
In 2006, Vulcan Materials sold the site to the City of Atlanta for about $40 million. It was completed in 2021.
Located in the Grove Park neighborhood just north of Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway, Franklin Park, with its 2.5 miles of trails and stunning city views, is the largest park in Atlanta, bigger than the iconic Piedmont Park, and is connected to the Beltline.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
At the afternoon ceremony, the rolling green hills and chirping birds have replaced the sounds of jailed workers at what Dickens said Franklin looked at as “tainted history and turned it into an oasis.”
Surrounded by her family, sorority sisters, walking buddies and former members of her staff, when Franklin finally spoke to accept her recognition, she stressed the importance of female leadership.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Franklin said while she was grateful for the recognition, there are not enough things named for women who have played significant roles in shaping Atlanta.
“I’ve been a feminist since I was 13. So, for a long time, I have believed that women hold up half the sky and ought to be recognized for it,” Franklin said. “But I never expected that I would be the one who would be recognized. But if I have to be an example of that, I welcome it.”
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