This is Democracy – Episode 127: Hopes for Democracy in Atlanta

[0:00:03 Speaker 0] This is democracy, a podcast that explores the interracial inter generational and inter sectional unheard voices living in the world’s most influential democracy. Yeah, Uh

[0:00:17 Speaker 2] huh. Mm.

[0:00:24 Speaker 1] Mhm. Yeah. Welcome to our new episode of this is Democracy. Today we’re going to discuss, uh, Georgia, Atlanta, Georgia, which, of course, is in the news every single day, perhaps in the news, more than anyone would want to see it in the news. It was the center of one of the most important contested races, uh, in our recent presidential election and the future of the United States Senate hinges on two Senate races in Georgia right now. And the most important, uh, and largest voting area in Georgia is, of course, the area around Atlanta. And today we’re going to talk to my colleague and distinguished scholar, Shirley Thompson, who grew up in Atlanta, about the changes she has seen in Atlanta and about what those changes have to tell us about the push and pull the tensions, the progress, the regressions in our democracy today. What do we learn about the changes in our democracy and the challenges we confront from looking at the historical evolution of Atlanta as seen through the eyes of Shirley Thompson with her scholarly and personal view. Uh, Shirley is a distinguished scholar. She’s an associate professor of American studies here at the University of Texas at Austin. She’s also the associate director of the John War Field Center for African and African American Studies. She’s a scholar of race, culture, law, economy. She’s really, wonderfully brings all of these, uh, perspectives together and understanding the evolution of American society. Her first book is called Exiles at Home. The Struggle to Become American in Creole, New Orleans. Um, my wife would say, Surely is one of these very smart scholars smarter than me who chooses to study places that are interesting to visit, like New

[0:02:13 Speaker 2] Orleans

[0:02:14 Speaker 1] and Shirley’s new book, Project, Shirley’s new book project, is titled No More Auction Block for Me, African Americans and The Problem of Property. She wrote a an article this month in Uh, New York review of books called Georgia on My Mind. A beautiful, uh, literary and analytical piece on the changes she has seen in Atlanta. And that’s in a sense that the starting off point for our discussion today, Shirley, thank you for joining us

[0:02:43 Speaker 0] Oh, you’re welcome. It’s my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

[0:02:47 Speaker 1] Before we turn to our discussion with Shirley, we have, Of course, Mr Zachary’s a scene setting poem. Uh, what is the title of your poem for this week? Zachary? Well, it’s actually a song,

[0:02:58 Speaker 2] and it’s entitled Don Quixote of Oakland and Sancho of the South Side.

[0:03:03 Speaker 1] Okay, well, uh, let’s hear some Don Quixote

[0:03:09 Speaker 2] now Don Quixote. He leaves his village, his public housing block in the inner city. He rides right out of Oakland on a horse of a broken Chevy, and he finds himself in the desert searching for the edge of a reservoir. Levy now Don Quixote. He is searching for the crusader of justice, but all he finds his broken old cities, old cars and people just us. And he’s wandering with his Sancho, some skinny kid from the south side. And together they are looking for something true from before we lied. The sun is still bright on the streets of Joshua Tree tonight and Don Quixote comes looking for freedom. And all he finds is the old Backstreet Wisdom and a series of aging pioneers. Oh, and Sancho is the son of what happens when racism has It’s fun, a product of Jesus, the Stevenson Expressway and some dream hidden on the dark side of the moon. Now there they are, the hoped for knights errant of Christendom, and they are hunting for some reason for the way things seem to be done. And they are. The sons and their sisters are the daughters of Vietnam and some memory of when it all went up in flames. Oh, the moon is dressed like a fair lady above the parking lots of Schenectady. And there they come to kids like they came out of a book. But they came from asphalt and hard knocks, looking for the heart that went away. And they say a black man was the president when they were born. But he must be a lie or long gone guy, someone only the old folks mourn. Now here they go, with the guitar and a cellular phone, followers of the road towards Liberty County or searching for friendship in the Texas toad, and they are wandering the mountains of Avalon. But it’s Avalon, New Jersey, and it isn’t even funny anymore. They pull their finger swords at the site of evil overlords, but they’re just stop signs in the brush. Oh, the tide is wide among the sands near ST Augustine, and there they are, swimming among the empty ghosts, holding lanterns, empty beer bottles, making democratic toasts, planning nothing for nobody but freedom. And here they come and maybe they will die in a prison cell regretting their old fashioned request. Or maybe they will pass, kidnapped in some swamp, still thinking they knew best. Or maybe they will cry themselves into eternity with open wounds and high flying yellow balloons that can barely get off the ground. Oh, the sun is still bright on the streets of Joshua Tree tonight, and Don Quixote comes looking for freedom, and all he finds is the old Backstreet Wisdom and a series of aging pioneers. Oh, and Sancho is the son of what happens when racism has It’s fun, a product of Jesus, the Stevenson Expressway and some dream hidden on the dark side of the moon.

[0:05:43 Speaker 1] My mind is really exactly exactly there’s so many wonderful contemporary and literary references there. What is your poem really about?

[0:05:51 Speaker 2] My poem is really about this sort of endearing image of two people in in America sort of wandering like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza and looking for the promises that our country has has made and seeing so many of them broken, uh, and contrasting it, really, with this sort of the sort of hidden pain beneath the veneer of prosperity across our country.

[0:06:17 Speaker 1] Well, that’s a perfect spot to turn to. To Shirley Thompson. Uh, surely I think your piece in the New York Review of Books in part inspired Zachary’s poem. Uh, tell us a bit about your adventure growing up in Atlanta because I think it’s so revealing about our society.

[0:06:33 Speaker 0] Yes, I want to thank Zachary for that poem because it captures so much of the spirit of my piece and where my mind was where I was when I was writing it. Um, you know, just to think about how the textures of specific places, um, kind of spark, uh, both memories of the past. You fall into kind of a trap, a love of, uh, trapdoor of memory. Um, but also, um, it inspires freedom dreams, you know, and thinking about the future and and how things could be different and and

[0:07:09 Speaker 2] thank you

[0:07:10 Speaker 0] so Yeah. So I, uh, was inspired to write this piece. Um, because, you know, I was losing sleep over the election like everyone else, and, um, was glued to my phone. Um, it had been three days since the actual election, and I was just watching these, you know, very small batches of of votes. Come in, um, and add to the totals. Um, and so I was watching this and also feeling nostalgic to about, um, my childhood home, Um, given the pandemic. Right. Um, so it’s been about a year since I’ve been back home to Atlanta to visit my mother, to visit my brother and his family. My sister in law. This is a trip I often take multiple times a year. Um, and so I was sort of in this nostalgic mode, um, watching this very exciting election unfold, um, you know, sort of notch by notch in front of me. Um, and so thinking about the the place is, um, you know that that, uh, were, um, beginning to matter beginning to sort of make themselves known on the national steam. And they were spaces that were really familiar to me. Um, having grown up in them, but I think fly under the radar. Um, when people sort of think about Atlanta, think about urban areas, think about black communities in urban areas. Um, they often, you know, sort of don’t really, um, understand the nuances of the place because American culture rarely drills down into the textures of of, of space and place To understand how you know, kind of people are eking out their lives there. So, um, all of these things were kind of swirling around in my my mind. Um, as I was watching the election unfold,

[0:09:26 Speaker 1] one of the really moving parts of your piece, I thought, Where was your reflections on, uh, busing, being a child who came of age, You and your brother, uh, in Atlanta when finally Atlanta started to at least make an effort to integrate schools. And it’s, of course, a project that is that has largely failed in cities like Atlanta and Austin and elsewhere. And you write for us, you and your brother. The bus was a world unto itself, setting off, setting out before sunrise. It wound its way through the East Side, picking up the cast of characters who for three years would be my fellow travelers in this weird experiment. In token integration, many people don’t understand what busing was like. The challenge is, uh, what what the experience was like. I think your reflections on that surely are really important for us today,

[0:10:19 Speaker 0] right? I think when people think about busing, they think about it from a point of view of, um, some sort of deficit. Um, in the black experience, um, blacks don’t have access, um, to resources. They don’t have access to the same, you know, kind of opportunities that white kids have. And on the face of it, that’s true to some extent. But there’s also a sense in which, um, busing required us to give up something. Um, that was really sort of special to us in order to, you know, um, participate in what was essentially an experiment. Um, the sort of completion of the promise of of brown v board with quote, all deliberate, all deliberate speed, right? I mean, that was that was the timetable. And that’s what happened. Um, you know, folks deliberated and deliberated. Finally, 25 years later, Atlanta, metro Atlanta has a busing plan in place. Um uh, for us the, you know, the Children of parents who went to segregated schools. Um, you know, sort of had to enact, um, that plan, Um, and we did it. We kind of, you know, did it, um, really, by jumping into the deep end because no one knew how it would pan out. Our parents, um, hadn’t had any experience with integrated schools. Um, and, uh, certainly, uh, those kids in the white schools where we were going didn’t have much experience around black people by design. So we were kind of the, you know, the bridge, if you will, between black Atlanta and white Atlanta. Um, we you know, elementary school kids bore that burden. Um, and it was stressful in ways that are predictable and also, um, that were, uh, quotidian as well as dramatic. Right. Um, but there were also moments of grace and pleasure and solidarity and community among us. Um, that, um that was really special. So I wanted to capture that paradox of, um, you know, sort of the fear and anxiety. Um, you know, that, um, really recalls the sort of anxiety of someone like, um uh, you know, uh, the little rock nine. Or you know, the kids who integrated schools back in the fifties and sixties. Um, but, uh, so that was there? Definitely. But there was also a kind of sense of excitement and adventure, um, and intimacy, Um, on that bus, Among those of us who were making that journey,

[0:13:35 Speaker 2] What does it look like today? How has the face of integration, particularly in terms of schools, changed? Since when? When you were in school, when you were on that school bus?

[0:13:46 Speaker 0] Well, I don’t think that it’s much different. Um, actually, um, you know, schools are still, uh, terribly segregated in most major metro areas. That’s certainly true here in Austin. Um, uh, and their various plans, one of which is named the majority to Minority or M two m um, here in Austin and elsewhere to, you know, to have kids, um, mix it up or have families you know, kind of choose to to have the kind of, uh, integrated experience. But for the most part, um, schools remain pretty segregated. And I think that due to the dynamics of white flight, which, um, continue, um, the seventies, um, and eighties are kind of the paradigmatic moment of of white flight. Um, Kevin Kruse has a really, you know, sort of important history of Atlanta entitled White Flight. Because it sort of tracks these demographic shifts in the wake of the civil rights movement. Um, and and shows how whites continually, um, you know, sort of sought to barricade themselves in homogeneous communities and and hoard resources, um, for themselves and their Children. Um uh, and so it’s a dynamic that you know, is ongoing. I think, um, you still see that sort of hoarding of resources, especially around schools? Um, in most urban areas, Uh,

[0:15:31 Speaker 1] one of the striking elements of this also that you touch on in your piece and that Kevin Cruz and others have written about also is the overlap between the school issues and suburbanization. You talk about how your family moved from DeKalb to Gwinnett County? I think these are all counties we now know. Well, having watched those those votes come in a minute by minute, as you described, um uh, but as as your parents and other families from diverse backgrounds move into these other almost suburban oasis than the whites leave is part of the story, right?

[0:16:05 Speaker 0] Yeah. And I think what’s so interesting? Atlanta is, in some ways, a kind of microcosm of that because the city is so suburban. Um, and the process has been I mean, we’re sort of and the third or fourth cycle of, um, you sort of, uh, dislocation and reshuffling of populations, um, into suburbia, Um, such that they are established black suburbs as well as white suburbs as well as you know, kind of suburbs that are gentrifying as if they’re urban and suburbs from which whites are fleeing because they’re afraid of the impact of a kind of proximity to blackness on, um, on their property values. So there’s this perceived, um, you know, kind of, um, danger for them that their property will will lose value if blacks move in in in large numbers. Um, and it becomes like I say in the article. It kind of self fulfilling prophecy. Um, when you, you know, try to sell, um, property when so many people in the neighborhood suddenly try to sell, then that sort of tanks, the property values. Um, so you know, this, um, this, uh, the suburban landscape of Atlanta has been, um you know, kind of a kind of provided a model for understanding suburban life and the rest of the country and in a in a more complex way than is usually talked about in the media. I think you know, Trump kind of, um, you know, sort of betrayed this this sort of lack of knowledge of what suburbia is, um, when he was appealing to the suburban mom, um, you know, and begging her to like him. Um, in a way that that, uh, you know, sort of showed that he believes still, And I think a lot of other people do that Suburban moms are, you know, kind of middle class white soccer moms, you know, homogeneous group of people. Whereas suburbia, Um, today is very diverse. Racially, ethnically. Um, um, in terms of class, um, status. Um, so there’s a lot more, you know, kind of heterogeneity and in suburbs. Um, these days, and I think Atlanta is kind of at the vanguard of these demographic shifts in suburbia just because of how long the trend, um, of white flight and, um, continued white flight. These these, you know, sort of several cycles now of it. Um has affected, um, the neighborhoods around around Atlanta,

[0:19:00 Speaker 1] and and so I guess that that brings us surely to to really important question that I think you’re you’re you’re so uniquely positioned to explain because of your deep scarlet background on your personal experience. How do we understand the voters then, in these communities, you’re describing voters, Quite frankly. Like your parents who you talk about in your piece, right who have moved into these suburban communities have been upwardly mobile, are very highly educated, but still not not accepted in white Atlanta or whatever has become of white Atlanta. How do we understand what they are voting for, what they’re looking for in our democracy today?

[0:19:37 Speaker 0] Well, I think that, um, you know, one of the Yeah, the key thing. So I think understand about black voters in Atlanta is how diverse, Um, that voting bloc is if you can even call it a block. Um, and how, um, just how differentiated and stratified, uh, black, uh, Atlanta is and has been, and and its politics has really reflected that, um, you know, Atlanta is famously known as the black mecca or a, you know, a powerful black mecca kind of, um, you know, node of black political power, economic power, cultural power. Um, and you know that sort of, uh, that status that’s the city status is a mecca. Kind of, um, arose in the seventies, you know, in the wake of white flight. Um, uh, black Atlantans kind of took the reins of control. Um, but what what also happened is a kind of a kind of, uh, there’s There’s a disconnect between, um the interests of the black elite and more sort of working class or impoverished black communities in Atlanta. Um, that makes the politics. They are very complex and dynamic. Um, there’s a sense in which the black elite needs, uh, working and poor population, Um, in order to, you know, sort of, uh, you know, kind of enact its its plans and policies and exercise its interests. Um, but at the same time, uh, you know, sort of working class folks realize that there’s a divergence there, and it’s sort of, um comes to a head in key moments. One of these moments was the sort of mobilization, um, around Atlanta’s bid for the Olympics in 1996 and how the, uh black elite. Um, uh, the interest of the black elite began to diverge really sharply from those of of the masses of black Atlantans, Um, and really work to kind of set the stage for, um, dispossession, um, and kind of pushing out of black, um, poor and working class people out of the city into the southern suburbs, primarily in eastern suburbs. Um, so that you get a kind of push back, um, from, um, middle working class folks and and impoverished folks, Um, and and a kind of point at which they have been able to organize around themselves. Um, So there’s a very, uh, you know, kind of there are various kinds of of organized, uh, black interest groups in the city, um, that are vying for public recognition and public voice, and, um and sometimes, uh, they forged strategic alliances. Um, um, that, you know, may or may not hold up. Um, So there’s a kind of political savvy within black Atlanta communities that I think lends itself to the kind of organizing and mobilization and public debate and discussion. Um, that is produced, um, this rallying of support behind, um, the Democratic Party. Um, this time. And what,

[0:23:53 Speaker 1] as you see it in so far as this coalition that that Stacey Abrams and others have worked so hard to put together? What do you see as its particular goals? Obviously, it doesn’t overlap in every way with what President elect Joe Biden is arguing for. So how do we understand where that coalition is placing its priorities?

[0:24:16 Speaker 0] Well, I think it’s It’s very grassroots. It’s building, um, organizations at a kind of almost neighborhood, um, community level, um, that people can used to sort of participate in, uh, electoral politics at the presidential and, you know, sort of federal level. Um, but also, these same organizations, um, can be used to lobby for very specific, more immediate needs at the local level as well. So I think it in building infrastructures that are legible to people, um, in their neighborhoods, a wide range of people, not just the, you know, the kind of political and cultural elites who obviously have a lot to benefit by, you know, sort of participation and democratic, uh, you know, sort of practices and structures. But people who otherwise might might have felt left out, um, are beginning to come together, um, to advocate for for their for their interests as well. Um, and hopefully they’re they’re building. You know, these, um, sort of organizational infrastructures that are useful to them, um, and whatever way that takes shape at any given moment, Um, and I think Abrams and not just Abrams, but, you know, a host of other, um, grassroots organizations and mobilizations. Um, um are kind of filling those gaps, um, and and building a structure, Um, that, you know, hopefully it will last, I think, beyond this election. Um, but hopefully can be, um, sort of use for a wider range of civic goods.

[0:26:14 Speaker 1] Well, and that that takes us to the question I wanted to to close with Shirley. We always like to try to take the history that we discuss each week on the podcast and and show how it can often offer hope and and offer pathways forward. Because there’s there’s so much disillusioned and so much negativity around us. Uh, and I think history offers offers some of that, but it also offers a reason for hope. Uh, what what are some of the most hopeful signs that you see? What are the things you’re you’re hoping to see more of?

[0:26:42 Speaker 0] Well, this sort of grassroots organization gives me hope. Um, when, um, people who otherwise, um, you know, or who have in the past felt left out of the process find their voice and their particular ways. Um, that gives me hope, because it it it it means that they, you know, kind of, um, you know, in exercising their, you know, kind of power at this moment, you know, kind of might be inspired to, you know, kind of create other moments, other opportunities for expressing themselves. I will say that my hope is it’s a kind of Du Bois. Ian Hope, um he has this passage and souls of black folk where he talks about hope. Um, um, hopeful, but not hopeless. So it’s a kind of way of hoping against hope. My father, the minister would say, um, it’s a practice of continuing to hope, even when things don’t look great That I, I think may take root in a larger, you know, sort of in a more sustained way. Um, in Atlanta and I say hopeless hope because we’re still talking about a pattern of white flight that is very kind of destructive and very aggressive that builds barriers and boundaries and polices. And, sir, veils them. Um And so I think in these suburbs, you really see, you know, kind of the lines of battle being drawn up. And that’s what kind of you know, pushes back against the hope and makes it a hopeful, Um, but it’s not hopeless, because I really do feel that black communities in Atlanta and elsewhere if organizer up to the task and they know what they’re fighting against,

[0:28:44 Speaker 1] if I might I I wanted to read two paragraphs near the end of your piece because I think they capture it better than anything I’ve read. And I feel like I’ve tried to read everything available that I can get my hands on. That these two paragraphs surely so beautifully, I thought summed up what you just said that this mix of of of hope, uh, and continued concern and and maybe we might even say, a mix of optimism and pessimism. Um, you’re talking about your communication with your mom while you were watching the election returns. Come in. Uh, suddenly my phone beeps jarring me awake again. I see a text from my mom, who has also been up all night eagerly tracking the Georgia returns. I think we were

[0:29:22 Speaker 2] all up

[0:29:24 Speaker 1] like me. She knows that in a world marked by gentrification and white flight changing, demographics aren’t always what they are cracked up to be. And diversity is often just a snapshot of a single moment. In longer, more nefarious processes, she wonders anxiously, Will we pull this off? She’s talking about this election, but she’s also looking ahead. As someone who participated in some of the earliest sit ins of the civil rights movement while the college student in North Carolina, she believes in the ability of a student organizers such as Stacy Abrams and the thousands of others who are mobilized black voters. You’ve just been talking about this surely, to produce lasting change in the balance of the electorate, but also for black people in their everyday efforts to claim space. But she also knows that every inch of progress will be contested in an updated variation on what segregationists of old boldly dubbed massive resistance. Those committed to white flight are are destructive lot in ways large and small. They would rather destroy their own property than cede ground to their black fellow citizens. This is your hopeless hope,

[0:30:28 Speaker 0] right?

[0:30:29 Speaker 1] Zachary? I’m curious as someone who pays close attention to these issues, because this is very similar to many of the issues we confront in Austin and in other cities around the country. This is American democracy today, front and center, and it’s all it’s warts and all its possibilities. All its limits. Um, and I know you’ve thought about this, particularly your public school that turns out to be pretty segregated. Um, you know, how do you react to all this? Do you see in Atlanta Hope and do you see lessons for your generation going forward?

[0:31:01 Speaker 0] I do. I

[0:31:02 Speaker 2] think, that my generation has made a lot of progress at seeing the racial barriers in our society and particularly those that affect our

[0:31:12 Speaker 1] nation as a whole.

[0:31:13 Speaker 2] But I do think there really is a struggle to get people to recognize the racial injustice in their own communities and the very injustice that they benefit from. I think also it’s it’s really hard to get people out of old modes of thinking about race and about racial justice, and I think our history. Teaching has really failed us in the sense that we have for too long been taught that the struggle for racial justice ended in 1968. Uh, and that, uh, and that the work has already done when it’s so clear every single day that that’s not true.

[0:31:50 Speaker 1] I think that’s so well, said Zachary. And that follows so well from from the lessons in Shirley’s piece in her conversation with us today. Uh, Shirley, thank you so much for joining us. I really think you’ve highlighted, uh, both the possibilities and the limitations and and the way we think about these inherited structures and how we have to recognize them and work through them. I think that’s really, really what you’re doing in a brilliant, thoughtful and eloquent way. So thank you, Shirley.

[0:32:15 Speaker 0] You’re welcome. It was my pleasure. There’s a lot of fun, and I have a new poem I I want to look at. So thanks to Zachary for that

[0:32:24 Speaker 1] we will. We will send you a copy of his of his poem. It’s It’s one of the features of our podcast. I think people often listen for his poems when they when we talk to them. They mentioned that most of all, thank you, Zachary, for your poetry and for your insights and most of all, thank you to our listeners. Thank you for joining us for this week of This Is Democracy.

[0:32:51 Speaker 0] This podcast is produced by the Liberal Arts Development Studio and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harrison Lemke,

[0:33:02 Speaker 1] and you can find his music at Harrison Lemke dot

[0:33:05 Speaker 0] com. Subscribe and stay tuned for a new episode every Thursday featuring new perspectives on democracy, Mhm