Shooting, protests test Atlanta’s image of Black prosperity
4 years, 6 months ago

Shooting, protests test Atlanta’s image of Black prosperity

Associated Press  

Police cars burned in the streets of Atlanta as protesters smashed windows and spray-painted graffiti outside CNN headquarters. “We stood with the Atlanta Police Department when they were just tearing up our city and said this doesn’t happen here,” Evans said of violent protesters. Speaking through tears at a news conference this week, she added, “It makes you eat your words.” Brooks’ killing so soon after the fiery demonstrations and Floyd’s death under the knee of a white Minneapolis officer have cast a harsh spotlight on the cracks in Atlanta’s reputation for racial harmony and Black prosperity. After hiring its first Black officers in 1948, the Atlanta Police Department is now 60% Black, higher even than the city’s Black population of 52%. But racial tensions persisted for decades as Atlanta grew its economy — and its national profile — often with few direct benefits to poorer Black residents, said Maurice Hobson, a Georgia State University historian and author of a book on race in Atlanta called “The Legend of the Black Mecca.” Atlanta Fulton-County Stadium, which opened in 1965 and became home to baseball’s Atlanta Braves, encroached on Black neighborhoods.

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