Atlanta Through the Archives

Increased Development, Community Activism, and Pushes for Integration (1970s)

Summary

Atlanta in the 1970s was characterized by increased development, community activism, and continuous attempts to integrate the all-white Northside.

By the early 1970s, city-wide opinion of public housing was low and many viewed state-sponsored projects as slums. While this change was occurring, development in the city was also taking place. Hartsfield-Jackson Airport grew, the city expanded the I-75/85 connector, and MARTA began operating. Some of these new developments threatened black businesses, homes, and communities, and when such threats presented themselves, they were met with powerful community resistance. At the same time, black organizers in the city fought to integrate the all-white neighborhoods of Atlanta’s Northside by establishing a low-income public housing project in the region. In response, members of the Northside neighborhoods came together to protest and block proposed projects, often aided covertly by the Aldermanic zoning board, and insisting that their hesitancy was not racially motivated but rather out of concern for economic and safety interests.