Мейнард Джексон: Атлантаның тұңғыш афроамерикалық мэрі

American politician and attorney

Maynard Holbrook Jackson Jr. (March 23, 1938 – June 23, 2003) was an American attorney and politician who served as the 54th mayor of Atlanta, Georgia from 1974 to 1982, and again as the city's 56th mayor from 1990 to 1994. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first Black mayor of Atlanta and of any major city in the South; his three terms made him the second longest serving mayor in the city's history, after six term mayor William B. Hartsfield. He is notable also for public works projects, primarily the new Maynard H. Jackson International terminal at the Atlanta airport, and for greatly increasing minority business participation in the city. After his death, the William B. Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport was renamed Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport to honor his service to the expansion of the airport, the city and its people.

Jackson was born into a family that valued education and political activism. His maternal grandfather was civil rights leader John Wesley Dobbs, who worked to successfully overturn the white primary in Georgia. He also gained the hiring of black police officers in Atlanta and lighting of Auburn Street, the main retail street of the black community. Maynard's mother Irene (Dobbs) Jackson was one of six daughters; all graduated from Spelman College, encouraged by their parents. Irene earned a doctorate in France and became a professor of French at the college. His father Maynard Holbrook Jackson was a Baptist minister from New Orleans. He became active in civil rights in Dallas, Texas, where he had grown up after his family moved. His grandfather Alexander Stephens Jackson had been a Baptist minister and educator in Louisiana and Texas. The young Jackson's father died when he was fifteen; his grandfather Dobbs became even more influential in his life. Jackson attended David T. Howard High School in Atlanta and Morehouse College, a historically black college for men in Atlanta, graduating in 1956 at the age of eighteen. He sang in the Morehouse College Glee Club. After attending the Boston University Law School for a short time, Jackson held several jobs, including selling encyclopedias. He returned to graduate studies, attending the North Carolina Central University Law School. He graduated with a law degree in 1964. He was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. Jackson married Burnella "Bunnie" Hayes, in 1965. The couple had three children, Elizabeth, Brooke, Maynard III. Later that year, Jackson supported sanitation workers in the city who had gone on strike, with his support contributing to their receiving a higher wage. In 1973, Jackson was elected with 60 percent of the vote, as the first African American mayor of Atlanta and any major southern city; he was supported by a coalition of white liberals/moderates and African Americans. At the age of 35, he unseated incumbent Sam Massell. In 1977, Jackson fired over 900 sanitation workers during the 1977 Atlanta sanitation strike. Following this act of strikebreaking, many of the workers returned to work by the end of the year.

Maynard Jackson provoked a major racial crisis in May 1974 when he attempted to fire the incumbent white police chief, John Inman. Jackson believed the change was needed to grapple with Atlanta's growing crime problem and charges by the black community of police racial insensitivity toward African Americans. Whites opposed the firing and racial tensions rose, detracting from Atlanta's proud motto: "too busy to hate." In August 1974 Mayor Jackson appointed A. Reginald Eaves, a college friend and fellow activist, as Public Safety Commissioner. Eaves was criticized for lacking police experience. He generated controversy by appointing an ex convict as his personal secretary but was criticized more for what was considered as a system of quota promotions and hiring in the police department, which many described as "reverse discrimination." Jackson fired Eaves after revelation of a police exam cheating scandal. Eaves was later convicted by a federal jury of extortion in 1988 after selling his vote on two rezonings. In 1991 Jackson awarded transgender supermodel Caroline Cossey (known under the stage name "Tula") honorary citizenship to Atlanta, though he later rescinded it after he learned that she was transgender, saying “I wouldn’t have given it to somebody whose claim to fame was being transsexual” despite Cossey having a career for many years before her gender reassignment was public knowledge. Cossey stated that she felt insulted by his decision.

In addition to the 1979–1981 Atlanta Child Murders mentioned above, residents were concerned about a rising crime rate during Mayor Jackson's tenure, which was consistent with national trends. In 1979, with a soaring murder rate and nationwide publicity about crime there, Georgia Governor George Busbee, acting on a request from Mayor Maynard Jackson, called in Georgia State Patrol troopers to help patrol the downtown. The business community accused Mayor Jackson and Police Chief George Napper of dismissing public concerns about crime. Atlanta had the highest murder rate and the highest overall crime rate of any city, and the numbers were rapidly climbing higher, with a 69% increase in homicides between 1978 and 1979 alone. Much of it was considered to be driven by drug wars.

After leaving office as mayor, Jackson continued to be active with the Democratic Party. In 2001 he unsuccessfully sought the post as the Democratic National Committee chairman, losing to the fund raiser Terry McAuliffe, who had the backing of former president Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. Jackson was backed by presidential candidate Bill Bradley, among others. Jackson was appointed as the National Development Chairman of the Democratic National Committee and was the first Chairman of the DNC Voting Rights Institute. In 2002, he founded the American Voters League, a non profit and non partisan effort to increase national voter participation. He appeared briefly in the 2001 documentary Startup. com.

Towards the end of his second mayoralty, a 1993 survey of historians, political scientists and urban experts conducted by Melvin G. Holli of the University of Illinois at Chicago ranked Jackson as the twenty fourth best American big city mayor to have served between the years 1820 and 1993. In 2008 the Southside Comprehensive High School was renamed the Maynard Holbrook Jackson High School. In 2003, Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport had Jackson's name added to it, and in 2012 the airport's new international terminal was named for him. In 2015 a documentary film about his life and work, entitled Maynard, was in preparation, directed by Samuel D. Pollard. It is expected to be released in 2016. The Maynard Documentary was officially selected by DOC NYC to premiere at their film festival on November 16, 2017.

Jackson died in 2003 at the age of 65, of a cardiac arrest at a hospital in Arlington, Virginia after suffering a heart attack at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. His remains are buried at the Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta.