Mayor Kasim Reed to Honor the 40th Anniversary of the election of Maynard Jackson

Maynard H. Jackson, Jr. was first elected as mayor on October 16, 1973. Mr. Jackson handily won the runoff with 59 percent of the vote, becoming the first black mayor of a major city in the South, the same year that Tom Bradley and Coleman Young won the mayoralties of Los Angeles and Detroit respectively.

Atlanta City Councilmembers Michael Julian Bond, C.T. Martin and Mayor Kasim Reed will honor the 40th Anniversary of the election of Maynard Holbrook Jackson, Jr. as the city’s first African-American mayor on Monday, October 7 at Atlanta City Hall, 55 Trinity Avenue, SW

A reception will be held at 12 noon on the 2nd floor of Atlanta City Hall (southwest atrium, adjacent to Atlanta City Council Chamber). A proclamation will be presented at 1 p.m. in the Council Chamber during the regularly scheduled meeting of the Atlanta City Council. Accepting the proclamation on the late mayor’s behalf will be his widow, Valerie Jackson, and daughter, Brooke Jackson.

Invited guests include former members of all three Jackson administrations, who served during his first two terms in office between 1974 and 1982 and third term beginning in 1990 until 1994.

Honorary host committee members for Monday’s anniversary observance include Atlanta City Councilmembers Yolanda Adrean, Keisha Lance Bottoms, Kwanza Hall, Felicia Moore, Joyce Sheperd, Carla Smith, Alex Wan, Aaron Watson, H. Lamar Willis, Cleta Winslow and Ivory Lee Young, Jr., as well as City of Atlanta Municipal Court Judges, the Honorable Terrinee L. Gundy and the Honorable Gary E. Jackson.