Jackson, Maynard, 1938-2003

Maynard Holbrook Jackson Jr. (March 23, 1938 – June 23, 2003) was an American politician and attorney from Georgia. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected in 1973 at the age of 35 as the first black mayor of Atlanta, Georgia. Served three terms from 1974 to 1982 and 1990 to 1994, he is the second longest-serving mayor of Atlanta after six-term mayor William B. Hartsfield.

Born in Dallas, Texas, he 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. 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. After work with the National Labor Relations Board and a neighborhood law office, 30-year-old Jackson mounted an underfunded populist challenge to veteran Georgia segregationist Senator Herman Talmadge in 1968. Despite the odds against him, and the conservative racial climate in the state, he surprised many political observers by winning 200,000 votes, one third of the total vote, and garnering the support of many white small farmers. He also ran well in Atlanta, reflecting the growing influence of African American voters.

In 1969 Jackson was elected vice mayor of Atlanta, serving under progressive white businessman Sam Massell, who was Atlanta’s first Jewish mayor. Upsetting expectations that he would serve several terms as vice mayor, he immediately challenged the incumbent. The race became acrimonious and racially charged, but on October 16, 1973, at the age of 35, Jackson won with 59% of the vote, becoming the first African American to be elected mayor of a major southern city. Jackson served three terms, first from January 1974 to January 1982, and later from January 1990 to January 1994. Jackson was mayor through the period when the separate Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) obtained a large amount of federal funding for a rapid-transit rail-line system, when construction began, and when MARTA began its first rail transit service in Atlanta and in DeKalb County in 1979 and during its continual expansion thereafter. As mayor, he celebrated in September 1990 when Atlanta was selected as the host city for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. As mayor, he accepted the Olympic flag at the 1992 closing ceremonies in Barcelona, Spain. He oversaw the completion of many planned public works projects, such as improvements to freeways and parks, and the completion of Freedom Parkway, which were expedited from 1990 to 1996 in preparation for the Olympic Games that began in August 1996.

In 1994, Jackson returned to the private sector as Chairman of Jackson Securities headquartered in Atlanta, and 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. 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. 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.