STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES

ATLANTA — The time to act is now.

Our city—the cradle of civil rights, justice, and progress—is under attack. A radical right-wing movement has seized control of major institutions and is working to erase decades of progress. If we remain silent, we risk losing everything that has made Atlanta the moral compass of the South and a beacon for freedom-loving people everywhere.

The Problem:

African Americans and other underserved communities are facing an existential threat. MFBEs—born from policies rooted in fairness and opportunity since the days of Mayor Maynard Jackson—now contribute over $18 billion to our state’s GDP and employ more than 54,000 Georgians (Georgia Minority Supplier Development Council, 2022). Still, Donald Trump without as much of a whimper, has essentially decertified all minority and women-owned businesses effective October 3 and is moving aggressively to withhold funding. Our successes are being threatened by an unhinged, extreme right-wing while billionaire oligarchs exploit our pain, scapegoating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). They are turning the very values that built this city into political targets. We cannot and will not go back.

Beyond our pocketbooks, our civil liberties including our free speech are being ripped from us. American history is being rewritten to glorify slavery and erase the terror of Jim Crow and institutional racism. Books that need to be read are being burned or banned. Diseases that kill us will remain around in the foreseeable future because funding for promising research to find cures has been eliminated. Women have been stripped of autonomy over their own bodies returning many of them to dark dangerous alleys.

On a de facto basis, racism has been legalized and legitimized. Racial superiority and misogyny have been openly embraced my many right wing conservatives. Immigrants who helped build this nation are being hunted, profiled, and demonized. We must stand up, speak out, and organize—before it’s too late.

Pledge of Action:

Preamble: The Soul of Atlantainvites the community to come together and form a united front, using all means required, to push back against attacks on local governments’ MFBE programs, DEI, and diversity initiatives in general. These programs have promoted fairness, equal opportunity and democracy.

• We affirm that DEI and minority and female enterprise programs (MFBE) have been incubators of Democracy, economic ladders into the mainstream economy, and wealth generators in African American and other underserved communities.
• We encourage all businesses we patronize to announce publicly their commitment for diversity, fairness and equal opportunity and their support of Atlanta’s efforts to defend its MFBE program.
• We stand in solidarity with mayors and local government officials who are fighting to protect their diversity initiatives, including MFBE programs.
• We demonstrate courage by uniting, raising our voices and declaring that attacks on MFBE and DEI programs are morally wrong.
• We stand together in public opposition to the rightwing movement toward authoritarianism that is taking over our Democratic institutions.

We the undersign support this Statement of Principles in total:

Andrew Young, former U.S. Ambassador and Atlanta Mayor, 1982-1990

Bill Campbell, Former Atlanta Mayor, 1994-2002

Shirley Franklin, Former Atlanta Mayor, 2003-2010

Kasim Reed, Former Atlanta Mayor, 2010-2018

Keisha Lance Bottoms, Former Atlanta Mayor, 2018-2022

Jabari Simama, former Atlanta City Councilman