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 Dark red indicates that the area is over 90% African American in 2005 | |
| Total population | |
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| 2,120,112[1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Throughout Atlanta and its suburbs | |
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| Southern American English,African-American English,African-American Vernacular English,American English | |
| Religion | |
| Black Protestant,irreligion[2] |
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Black Atlantans form a major population group in theAtlanta metropolitan area, encompassing both those ofAfrican-American ancestry as well as those of recentCaribbean orAfrican origin.Atlanta has long been known as a center of Black entrepreneurship, higher education, political activism and culture; a cradle of theCivil Rights Movement.[3]
As of 2020, Metropolitan Atlanta contains the second largest Black population in the United States, following New York.[4] This represents a nearly five-fold numerical increase from 1970, when Metro Atlanta had the 13th-largest Black population in the nation. In 2010 Metro Atlanta's Black population modestly surpassed that of Chicago, with the gap widening as of the 2020 Census.[4] As per the 2023 American Community Survey's 1-Year Estimates, Metro Atlanta had 2,120,112 residents identified as Black alone[5] and 2,302,073 residents identified as either Black alone or Black in combination with other races.[6]
 | This article needs to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(May 2024) |
Changes to the Black population of the city of Atlanta from 2000 to 2010 are illustrated here:[7][8][9][10]
| Pop. 2010 | % of total 2010 | Pop. 2000 | % of total 2000 | absolute change 2000–2010 | % change 2000–2010 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 226,894 | 54.0% | 255,689 | 61.4% | -31,678 | -12.3% |
From 2000 to 2010 Atlanta saw significant shifts in the racial composition of its neighborhoods. (See:Demographics of Atlanta: Race and ethnicity by neighborhood) There was a decrease in the Black population in the following areas:
While there was an increasing Black population in these areas:
InMetro Atlanta,Black Americans are the largest racial minority at 32.4% of the population, up from 28.9% in 2000. From 2000 to 2010, the geographic distribution of Blacks in Metro Atlanta changed significantly. Long concentrated in the city of Atlanta and DeKalb County, the Black population there dropped while over half a million African Americans settled across other parts of the metro area, including approximately 112,000 in Gwinnett County, 71,000 in Fulton outside Atlanta, 58,000 in Cobb, 50,000 in Clayton, 34,000 in Douglas, and 27,000 each in Newton and Rockdale Counties.[11]
| Year | Black pop. in City of Atlanta | Black pop. in DeKalb County | Total Black pop. Atlanta + DeKalb | Total Black pop. Metro Atlanta | Proportion of Black pop. in Atlanta + DeKalb |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 255,689 | 361,111 | 616,800 | 1,189,179 | 51.9% |
| 2010 | 226,894 | 375,697 | 602,591 | 1,707,913 | 35.2% |
According to U.S. census data, the Atlanta area has the second largest population of Blacks, only behind theNew York City area.[12]
There is a BlackJamaican community in Atlanta. Jamaicans are concentrated in Stone Mountain, Decatur, Lithonia and Snellville.[13][14] There is also a Black Haitian community in Atlanta.[15]
African-born Blacks in Atlanta are mostly fromEritrea,Ethiopia,Ghana,Somalia,Liberia,Kenya andNigeria.[16]
Manysuburbs of Atlanta such as south and western suburbs including Henry County, Stone Mountain, Fayetteville, and Douglasville house a fast growing Black population.[17]
According toLendingTree, 11.3% of businesses in Atlanta are Black-owned, which is the highest rate in the United States.[18]
More than 11,000 Black millionaires live in Atlanta.[19]
In 1870,William Finch andGeorge Graham became the first African Americans to be elected to theAtlanta Board of Aldermen (now the Atlanta City Council), and no other until the election ofQ. V. Williamson to the Board in 1966. Since 1973, Atlanta has consistently elected Black mayors, and two in particular have been prominent on the national stage,Andrew Young andMaynard Jackson. Jackson was elected with the support of the predominantly white business community, including the chairmen ofCoca-Cola,Citizens & Southern National Bank, theTrust Company of Georgia, and architect andPeachtree Center developerJohn Portman. They were hopeful that a new progressive coalition would be forged between downtown and City Hall; but they were not prepared for the level of support for the goals of the Black community that the mayor provided through support for minority-based businesses and for neighborhood-based organizations.[20]
Carolyn Long Banks became the first Black woman to serve on theAtlanta City Council in 1980.
The Metro Atlanta counties of:Fulton,DeKalb,Cobb,Gwinnett,Clayton,Rockdale,Newton,Henry, andDouglas are each governed by a county commission that is chaired by an African- American. The position of chair is elected countywide. The remaining district level members of each respective county commission are also majority African-American.
Since then, there has been "a sometimes uneasy partnership between Black political clout and White financial power that has helped Atlanta move closer to its goal of becoming a world-class city."[21]
Atlanta is home to theAtlanta University Center (AUC), the nation's oldest and largest contiguous consortium ofhistorically Black colleges, comprisingClark Atlanta University,Morehouse College,Spelman College,Morehouse School of Medicine, andInterdenominational Theological Center. The first of these colleges were established shortly after the Civil War and have made Atlanta one of the historic centers of Black intellectualism and empowerment.[22]
Many of the nation's most accomplished African Americans matriculated through the AUC. See:Morehouse College alumni;Clark Atlanta University alumni;Spelman College alumnae
Morris Brown College is the first institution of higher learning in Georgia founded by African-Americans.[23]
Atlanta Metropolitan State College is a predominately Black institution.[24]
Clayton State University (CSU) is a historically white public institution 15 miles south of Atlanta that has been predominately Black since the mid-2000s.[24] In 2021, CSU appointed its first Black president.[25]
Georgia Gwinnett College is a formerly predominately white public institution 30 miles northeast of Atlanta that has been mostly Black since the late-2010s.[24]
TheAtlanta's John Marshall Law School is a historically white private law school that became Georgia's only mostly Black law school in the mid-2010s. In 2020, the law school hired its first Black dean.[26][27]
Emory University has one of the oldestAfrican-American studies departments in the nation. It began in 1971 and has expanded since its inception.[28][29][30]
TheGeorgia Institute of Technology consistently ranks among the top five institutions in the nation to produce the most Blackengineers at the bachelor's, master's, and doctoral levels.[31][32]
Georgia State University (GSU) is a historically white public institution that since the 2010s has had a Black plurality, with more Black students enrolled than any other non-profit university in the nation. GSU is the second largest university in Georgia and leads the nation in producing the most Black college graduates with bachelor's degrees annually.[33][34][35] In 2021, GSU appointed its first Black president.[36]
Atlanta has a well-organized Black upper class which exerts its power in politics, business and academia, and historically, in the religious arena. Mayors Maynard Jackson and Andrew Young were representative of the upper, not working class, and rose to national standing. The Black academic community is the largest of any US city's because of the presence of theAtlanta University Center (AUC), a consortium of six historically Black colleges (HBCUs). In business, Atlanta is home to the nation's largest Black-owned insurance company (Atlanta Life), real-estate development firm (H.J. Russell) as well as some of the country's top Black-owned investment and law firms, car dealerships, and food service companies. An old-guard Black elite, graduated from AUC schools and whose status dates back to the glory days of Sweet Auburn or before, guards its social circles from "new" Black money—families such asHerndon,Yates, Bond, Milton, Yancey, Blayton, Rucker, Aikens, Harper, Cooper, Dobbs and Scott. TheFirst Congregational Church is their church of choice.[37]
The concentration of a Black elite in Atlanta can be explained by:
In the 1920s, Hunter Street (now Martin Luther King Drive) and Collier Heights became the Black elite neighborhoods of choice, while today areas in far southwest of the city around Camp Creek Marketplace, neighborhoods such asNiskey Lake, are also popular.[37] Upperclass Black Americans also reside in Eastern Atlanta in Dekalb County which is the second richest predominantly Black county in the country.
ABlack mecca is a city to whichAfrican Americans, particularly professionals,[38] are drawn to live, due to some or all of the following factors:
Atlanta has been referred to as a Black mecca since the 1970s.[39]
TheNational Black Arts Festival has been based in Atlanta since the late 1980s. Throughout the year, the festival features performing arts, literature and visual arts produced by creative artists of African descent.[40]
The New Black Wall Street opened in 2021 is a 125,000-square-foot marketplace inStonecrest that houses over 100 Black merchants and entertainment.[41] The marketplace is inspired by the popular Black business district that was based inTulsa, Oklahoma.[42][43]
TheBlack Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame opened in 2021 near theMercedes-Benz Stadium.[44]
The Atlanta Jazz Festival inPiedmont Park is one of the largest free jazz festivals in the country and features mostly Black artists. The annual event is hosted by the City of Atlanta Office of Cultural Affairs.[45]
The A3C Festival & Conference is an annual fall event that mostly highlights African-American artists, creatives, innovators, activists, and entrepreneurs.[46]
TheOne Musicfest is an annual summer Hip-Hop/R&B concert held in Atlanta.[47]
House in the Park is a majorhouse music festival held inGrant Park every Labor Day weekend.[48][49]
The Gathering Spot is a popular networking and social club composed of primarilymillennial college-educated African-Americans.[50][51]
The Sweet Auburn Music Festival is a large free outdoor Black music event that place every fall in the historic Sweet Auburn district.[52]
The Taste of Soul Atlanta is a four-day annual summer event that celebratessoul food and African-American culture.[53]
Atlanta Black Restaurant Week is an annual event that highlights and celebrates the unique contributions of Black-owned restaurants and Black culinary professionals to the city's food scene.[54][55]
The HBCU Alumni Alliance 5K Run/Walk is an annual summer fundraising event in Atlanta.[56]
The Black Writers Weekend annual conference is based in Atlanta as of 2014. The conference is the nation's only entertainment award show and gathering for Black creatives in publishing, film and TV enthusiasts.[57]
The Atlanta Funkfest is an annual event soul and R&B concert held in the summer.[58]
The Juneteenth Atlanta Parade & Music Festival is one of the largest annualJuneteenth events in the nation.[59]
TheAuburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History opened in 1994 and is located in theSweet Auburn Historic District.[60]
There are several Black owned and operated comedy clubs and productions in the Atlanta area. Uptown Comedy Corner is one of the oldest Black comedy clubs in the nation.[61]
In 2009,The New York Times noted that after 2000, Atlanta moved "from the margins to becoming hip-hop's center of gravity, part of a larger shift in hip-hop innovation to the South." ProducerDrumma Boy called Atlanta "the melting pot of the South". Producer Fatboi called theRoland TR-808 ("808") synthesizer "central" to the music of Atlanta's versatility, used forsnap,crunk,trap, andpop rap styles.[62] The same article namedDrumma Boy, Fatboi,Shawty Redd andZaytoven the four "hottest producers driving the city".[62]
Black theater companies includeTrue Colors,Jomandi Productions andAtlanta Black Theatre Festival.
TheMEAC/SWAC Challenge is an annualhistorically Black collegefootball game showcasing a teams from theMid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) andSouthwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC). The game moved to theGeorgia State Stadium in 2018.[63]
TheCelebration Bowl is the onlyHBCU football bowl game in the nation. The bowl game provides a match-up between the champions of theMideastern Athletic Conference and theSouthwestern Athletic Conference in theMercedes-Benz Stadium.[citation needed]
The annualBlack College Football Hall of Fame ceremony is held in Atlanta. The event founded byGrambling State University alumni andNFL greatsDoug Williams andJames Harris, honors extraordinary football players who played at historically Black institutions.[64]
The annualBronner Bros. International Beauty Show is the largest in the world that primarily focuses on Black women beauty.[65]
The annual Taliah Waajid World Natural Hair Show bills itself as the world's largest natural Black hair show and conference.[66]
The Curl, Kinks, and Culture (CKC) Festival held annually in Atlanta is an event focused on celebrating natural Black hairstyles and culture.[67]
Atlanta has been deemed America's "Black Soccer Capital" due to the emerging presence of Black Atlantans supporting the city's MLS teamAtlanta United.[68][69]
Atlanta has one of the highest numbers of independent Black owned bookstores and is listed as one of the top destinations for readers ofAfrican-American literature.[70][71]
The annual Spelman College-Morehouse College parallel homecoming week better known as "SpelHouse Homecoming" attracts over 25,000 of alumni and visitors.[72][73][74] Clark Atlanta's annual homecoming week also attracts thousands of alumni and visitors to Atlanta.[75]
TheAtlanta Black Pride celebration is one of the largest in the world forBlack LGBT people. Historically, the event attracts nearly 100,000 participants. Atlanta has one of the highest concentrations of Black, openly LGBT people in the world.[76][77]
OnlyNew York City rivals Atlanta in the number of museums about Black history, art and cultural heritage. The King Historic Site andAPEX Museum are in theSweet Auburn area just east of Downtown:John Wesley Dobbs called "Sweet" Auburn Avenue "the richest Negro street in the world" in the early 20th century.[78] Most other African American museums are within walking distance of each other on theAtlanta University Center campus or in nearbyWest End, a neighborhood of Victorian houses which has become the center of the Afrocentric movement in Atlanta.
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| Atlanta timeline |
|---|
 Seal of the City ofAtlanta |
| History |
Before 1820
|
1820
|
1830
|
1850 pop. 2,572
|
1860 pop. 9,554
|
1870 pop. 21,879
|
1880 pop. 37,409
|
1890 pop. 65,533 |
1900 pop. 89,872 - metro 419,375
|
1910 pop. 154,839 - metro 522,442
|
1920 pop. 200,616 - metro 622,283
|
1930 pop. 270,366 - metro 715,391
|
1940
|
1950 pop. 331,314 - metro 997,666
|
1960 pop. 487,455 - metro 1,312,474
|
1970 pop. 496,973 - metro 1,763,626
|
1980 pop. 425,022 - metro 2,233,324
|
1990 pop. 394,017 - metro 2,959,950
|
2000 pop. 416,474 - metro 4,112,198
|
2010 pop. 420,003 - metro (CSA) 5,729,304
|
| See also:Timeline of Atlanta |
White people moved out of Atlanta in huge numbers from the years between 1960 and 1980 after Blacks started to move into the city.[79] During thewhite flight, when whites started moving to Atlanta's suburbs, Blacks became the majority of Atlanta's population.[80]
Slavery in the state of Georgia mostly constituted the main reason for early African American residency in the Atlanta area. The area that included Decatur was opened to settlement in 1823 following the forced abandonment of the area by theCherokee Nation; with the ceding of the area under theTreaty of New Echota in 1835, plantations of rice and, later, cotton were installed in the area. Most slaves were brought from major ports such asSavannah andCharleston.[81]
In 1850, the area which would become Atlanta, previously known as Terminus and Marthasville, had a population which included 493 African slaves, 18 free Blacks, and 2,058 whites. The general population of the area had only recently skyrocketed from a mere total of 30 residents in 1842 due to the building of two Georgia Railroad freight and passenger trains (1845) and theMacon & Western (1846, a third railroad) which connected the little settlement with Macon and Savannah. In the 1850s,Mary Combs andRansom Montgomery became the first two African-Americans to own property in Atlanta.[82]
In summer of the year 1851, around seven enslaved Black men were arrested for an attempted insurrection in Atlanta.Atlanta City Council had passed a wave of laws and restrictions on Black people in the city.[83]
African slaves in the Atlanta area became divided in their loyalties to the then-current status quo as theAmerican Civil War took place between the Confederacy, of which Georgia was a constituent member, and the Union states; the slavery regime also became harsher against both slave and free Africans, who were severely restricted in their movements by both local and state government in order to prevent desertion of the Africans to the Union side. However, many slaves from Atlanta took the chance to escape with Union soldiers underWilliam Tecumseh Sherman in hisMarch to the Sea following the razing of Atlanta to the ground; they followed his men to the Atlantic coast of Georgia, where they were granted land underSherman's Special Field Orders, No. 15 (later rescinded under presidentAndrew Johnson).[84]
In 1865, theAtlanta City Council vowed equal protection for whites and Blacks, and a school for Black children, the first in the city, opened in an old church building on Armstrong Street. The Methodist Episcopal Church's Freedman Aid Society founded a coeducational school for African American legislators that would later become Clark College (nowClark Atlanta University) in Atlanta. In 1870, following the ratification of the15th Amendment by the state legislature, the first two African American members,William Finch andGeorge Graham, were elected to the Board of Aldermen from the third and fourth wards, respectively,[85] while Radical RepublicanDennis Hammond sat as mayor.
According to the US Census and Slave Schedules, from 1860 to 1870 Fulton County more than doubled in population, from 14,427 to 33,336. The effects of African-American migration can be seen by the increase in Fulton County from 20.5% enslaved African Americans in 1860 to 45.7% colored (African-American) residents in 1870.[86] In a pattern seen across the South after the Civil War, freedmen often moved from plantations to towns or cities for work. They also gathered in their own communities where they could live more freely from white control. Even if they continued to work as farm laborers, freedmen often migrated after the war. Fulton was one of several counties in Georgia where African American population increased significantly in those years.[2]
In the aftermath of Reconstruction, which mostly ended in 1877, African Americans in Atlanta were left to the mercies of the predominantly white state legislature and city council, and were politically disenfranchised during theJim Crow era; whites had used a variety of tactics, including militias and legislation, to re-establish political and social supremacy throughout the South. By the turn of the century, Georgia passed legislation that completed the disenfranchisement of African Americans. Not even college-educated men could vote. However, while most Black Atlantans were poor and disenfranchised by Jim Crow, the gradual nationwide rise of the Black urban middle class became apparent in Atlanta, with the establishment of African American businesses, media and educational institutions.[citation needed]
Booker T. Washington, principal of theTuskegee Institute in Alabama,delivered a speech to the 1895Cotton States and International Exposition which urged African Americans to focus more upon economic empowerment instead of immediate socio-political empowerment and rights, much to the anger of other civil rights leaders, includingW. E. B. Du Bois, a graduate ofFisk University andHarvard, who would become one of the major civil rights activists of the first half of the 20th century.[citation needed]
Competition for jobs and housing gave rise to fears and tensions. These catalyzed in 1906 in theAtlanta Race Riot. This left at least 28 dead, 25 of them African American,[87] and over seventy people injured. Neighborhoods became more segregated as Blacks sought safety in majority-Black areas such asSweet Auburn and areas west of Downtown. As racial tensions rose, particularly resentment from working-class whites against better-off Blacks, segregation was introduced into more areas of public life. For example,Atlanta's streetcars were officially segregated in 1910, with Blacks forced to sit at the rear.
In 1928, theAtlanta Daily World began publication, and continues as one of the oldest African American newspaper in circulation. From the 1920s to the 1940s, theAtlanta Black Crackers, a baseball team in the Negro Southern League, and later on, in theNegro American League, entertained sports fans atPonce de Leon Park; some of the members of the Black Crackers would become players inMajor League Baseball following the integration of the Negro leagues into the larger leagues.Sweet Auburn would become one of the premier predominantly African American urban settlements to the current day.[citation needed]
Since the rise of the civil rights movement, African Americans have wielded an increasingly potent degree of political power, most resultant in the currently unbroken string of African American mayors of the City of Atlanta since the election of Maynard Jackson in 1973; the current mayor of Atlanta is one-term Mayor Andre Dickens. In addition, Atlanta's city council has long been majority Black. All elected mayors of Atlanta are and have been members of theDemocratic Party.[citation needed]
In 2008, Atlanta area residentVernon Jones ran unsuccessfully to become the first African American to win the Democratic primary for representation of the state in theUnited States Senate.[citation needed]
In January 2021, Atlanta area resident and Morehouse College alumnusRaphael Warnock became the firstBlack U.S. senator elected in Georgia and the first Black U.S. Democratic senator elected in theSouth.[88]
In May 2018, Atlanta area resident and Spelman College alumnaStacey Abrams became the first Black woman to win a major party nomination for governor in the United States. In November, she lost the controversial2018 Georgia gubernatorial election by less than three percentage points. Due to the election being so close, Abrams committed to running for office again.[89] In February 2019, Stacey Abrams became the first Black woman to give an officialState of the Union address.[90] In 2021, she announced she was running again for governor as promised but lost to incumbent RepublicanBrian Kemp by a much wider margin in the2022 Georgia gubernatorial election.[91]
Since 2010, gentrification has changed and improved many aspects of Atlanta. Gentrification of predominately African-American inner-city neighborhoods, particularly those in close proximity toDowntown Atlanta or theBeltLine, is one of the major reasons why housing costs within the city limits significantly jumped which prompted many lower-income African Americans to move outside the city seeking a more affordable cost of living. In 2019, Atlanta was named the fourth fastest gentrifying city in the United States.[92] In 2022, Atlanta was second in the nation for the highest inflation increase.[93] In 2023, Atlanta's steady population growth worsened the housing shortage which further increased housing cost within the city.[94] Since 1990, the African American resident percentage in Atlanta has dropped significantly, while the non-African American resident percentage increased significantly. The strongest growth of African Americans are now in the suburbs of Atlanta. The mayoral office of Atlanta is actively working on adding and maintaining affordable housing for low-income people in the city.[95][96][97][98]
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