I didn’t want to be that guy.
Last spring, my mom asked me to join her and one of my cousins for lunch. My cousin was with her husband. They’re like a Black power couple. Both in their 30s. Her, a nurse, and him, an engineer. They were in town from Dallas.
Over brisket and pulled pork platters at Ford’s BBQ in Oakhurst, they talked about life in Texas raising their baby girl. They’d been there for about 11 years and seemed content with their current home.
Then came the line I’ve heard so many times: “We need to get to Atlanta.”
All they wanted to do was shower my city with warranted praise, but there I was, like any skeptical native, ready with a follow-up question for the potential transplants.
“Why Atlanta?”
I listened as this young, educated and successful Black family shared their dreams of moving to a city that just “looks and feels so Black,” she said. They talked about the cost of living being cheaper than Dallas. They wanted a better social life. They wanted an affordable house with space to raise their growing family.
My cousin called Atlanta “the Black mecca,” a place in America where folks who look like us should seek comfort and expect success.
I responded by reeling off counterpoints.
Did they know Atlanta leads the country in income inequality, affordable housing gulfs persists and the median household income for Black residents is one-third that of their white counterparts?
My cousin comes from a family of entrepreneurs. I told her that Black small businesses in Atlanta earn 17 cents for every $1 earned by all others.
How about the fact that a person born into poverty in Atlanta has a 4% chance of making it out in their lifetime? If they were thinking about having another kid, were they aware that the state has some of highest maternal mortality rates among Black women nationwide?
Credit: CHRISTINA MATACOTTA FOR THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION
Credit: CHRISTINA MATACOTTA FOR THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION
Before my cousin, many people have told me the same thing about Atlanta. That includes story sources; the Uber driver with rap dreams who’s been chasing them in Atlanta for 10 years; the Morehouse College student who moved from an all-white town; and the queer visual artist who came from a conservative family to find acceptance here.
A lot of ink in my reporter notebook bears this phrase. Combing through audio from interviews conducted over the last year, there are at least 100 mentions.
Credit: Atlanta Journal Constitution
Credit: Atlanta Journal Constitution
It almost started to feel like something people just said, but didn’t really understand. What I’ve seen, historically, is a city quick to celebrate and sell its Black culture but slow to address the needs of its everyday Black residents.
And you might be asking who am I to question Atlanta’s place as the past, present or future Black mecca?
Let’s just say that my roots, love and frustrations for this city and its metro area run deep into that red clay. My experiences as a native, current resident and local journalist inform my perspective.
I’m a 1984 Crawford-Long baby. My education came from Northwoods Montessori, DeKalb County Public Schools and Paideia. Over the course of 40 years, I’ve called Grant Park, south DeKalb, Decatur, Morningside, Druid Hills, Little Five Points, Inman Park, Midtown, downtown, Castleberry Hill and East Lake home. My work has led me to the newsrooms of Rolling Out, Atlanta magazine, Creative Loafing, CNN, Canopy, Capital B and now the AJC.
With the exception of one year in Chicago, I’ve spent the past two decades living in and writing about the Black people, places and moments shaping my hometown.
As a kid who sat on the couch and read this very newspaper every morning with my late father — a former staff attorney for the city of Atlanta — I learned the importance of sharing stories about our home — warts and all.
Being a Black storyteller from Atlanta, I’ve always tried to do just that.
Whether it’s spending weeks with the “water boys,” or digging into the historical significance of OutKast’s “Southerplayalisticadillacmuzik,” giving Black stories more nuanced reporting drives my work.
Through my research, I found that the term “Black mecca” has its roots in the post-Civil War South. As the city rebuilt itself, so did the idea that it was growing into a place for Black mobility, political power and creativity.
Credit: AJC Staff
Credit: AJC Staff
The Black mecca branding got a boost in 1973 with the election of Atlanta’s first Black mayor, Maynard Jackson. It was called into question during the Atlanta child murders in the 1980s. It rebounded with the 1996 Olympics and exploded as the city went on to become the music, film and entertainment epicenter it is today.
So, why question Atlanta’s place as the Black mecca now?
For one, it’s an election year. Atlanta residents will vote for mayor, City Council and other crucial civic gigs. But wait, there’s more: In just over year — nearly three decades after the 1996 Olympic Games — the 2026 World Cup will bring an entire globe full of people, and at least $500 million to the Black mecca. Are Black folks set to cash in or will they be left out?
“I want to ensure that when the World Cup hits Atlanta next year, that it doesn’t just happen to Atlanta, but with Atlanta,” Mayor Andre Dickens said at his annual State of the City address, which took place during Black History Month and also functioned as a reelection pitch.
Credit: Curtis Compton / Curtis.Compton@
Credit: Curtis Compton / Curtis.Compton@
Like major milestone moments of the past, Black Atlanta and its metro area are set for another seismic shift. It’s what comes with inviting the world to your front door whilst trying to tidy up the house for staging.
As a native and local reporter, keeping my hometown honest comes with the job.
I’m also not the first person in Atlanta — or even the AJC staff — to call into question Atlanta’s place as this great Oz, Wakanda or promised land for Black people.
In 2023, my colleague Nedra Rhone put it perfectly in her piece, “Black mecca more a work in progress than a promised land.”
“That Black people have spent 100 years searching for a Black mecca says something about just how elusive it must be. Black Americans have operated under the illusion that a single city has the power to overcome pervasive structural inequalities,” she wrote. “Leaving those problems unaddressed means there may never be a true Black mecca.”
Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com
Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com
In her piece for Politico titled, “How Atlanta Became a City I Barely Recognize,” Teresa Wiltz talks about growing up in the city during the 1970s and 1980s. Wiltz grapples with the city’s glaring racial gaps.
“Atlanta is, in many ways, the ‘Black Mecca,’ the historical center of a movement,” Wiltz wrote. “But today, outside its bourgie Black bubble, with its McMansions and Beamers, deep inequities persist.”
In his 2017 book, “The Legend of the Black Mecca: Politics and Class in the Making of Modern Atlanta,” scholar Maurice Hobson talks about former Southern Christian Leadership Conference president Joseph Lowery questioning the priorities of Atlanta’s Black leadership, whom he accused of being more focused on the city’s branding than its people during the Atlanta child murders.
It’s a theme throughout Hobson’s research.
“With growing economic development in Atlanta, it was clear that the city’s administrators were preoccupied with franchising the city for world consumption, while it demonized, disenfranchised, and criminalized its citizens,” Hobson wrote.
It’s fair to say Rhone, Wiltz and Hobson aren’t wrong. In fact, residents might tell you the same is still true in 2025. However, it ain’t all bad.
In his address, Dickens noted that Black Enterprise called Atlanta the best place to start a business. He also mentioned it being the best city for Black homebuyers.
Dickens walking out to Jermaine Dupri and Ludacris’ “Welcome to Atlanta” at the onset was a reminder that Atlanta still lays claim to hip-hop’s throne.
It’s a place where the number of Black-owned businesses with at least one employee other than the owner surged after the pandemic. Atlanta’s historically Black colleges and universities produce $1.1 billion in economic impact every year. This very news organization once dubbed the city as “fast becoming a mecca for African Americans in tech.”
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Do all of these highlights tell the full story about the people, places and spaces behind those data points?
Through our original reporting series, “Atlanta: America’s Black Mecca?” UATL — the AJC’s Black culture franchise — and contributors will shed light on the reality (or mirage) behind this question.
Who has it been a Black mecca for, in the past, present and future? How does Atlanta compare to other cities? We’ll dig into whether Atlanta is still the Black mecca for college students, the LGBTQ community, creatives, chefs, entrepreneurs, families, et al.
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
As a local kid, it only feels right to launch a series with the hometown paper’s team of passionate journalists and contributors, who also share a deep love and knowledge for our city. Through data- and people-driven storytelling we will prioritize the voices of Black locals and transplants.
With each month, “Atlanta: America’s Black Mecca?” will present stories, photos, videos and programming centered on this question, telling those stories.
This should also be a conversation, so we want to hear from you.
Hit us up on social — @itsuatl — or via email at uatl@ajc.com. We invite you to share your success stories, failures, questions, challenges and experiences that speak to life in the “Black mecca.”
Let’s tell this story together.
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