In the Air Tonight: White North Fulton vs. Black South Fulton County

The secession of North Fulton into a new county is the start of BRA's collapse

Reading the book White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century America) gives you the impression there was some grand opposition to Black-Run America (BRA) being implemented in Atlanta.

There wasn't.

White people just fled the city and created what is now metro Atlanta, home to the worst traffic in America and the steepest property value drops in all the nation.

Those white people who remained in the city - ensconced in Disingenuous White Liberal (DWL) enclaves - made a deal with the emerging Black establishment in the 1960s that the dwindling white majority in Detroit failed to make before the riots of 1967 forced their hands; it was a Faustian Pact that won't end pretty.

No deal with the devil ever does (call that a tease for the forthcoming The Devil Went Down to Georgia article).

This is why the following story published at the Atlanta Journal Constitution on May 7 is so interesting; battle lines between the white Northside and the very Black Southside are being drawn:

The latest eruption of Fulton County's north-south tensions has one elected official calling out another for publicly taking swipes at the Northside.

Liz Hausmann, who represents most of north Fulton, has asked Vice Chair Emma Darnell to stop insulting her and her district, and while she's at it, stop haranguing county staffers called before the commission dais. 

"All this does is continue the drumbeat to separate the county," Hausmann said.
The spat is another setback in Chairman John Eaves' efforts to improve the county government's image. The commission directly governs less than 10 percent of the population but provides libraries, criminal justice, health services, senior centers, property tax assessments and other services to nearly 1 million people. 

Last week, while talking about unincorporated south Fulton's share if voters in the region approve a new transportation sales tax in July, Darnell told Hausmann to pipe down because she doesn't represent that area. Hausmann had stated that $2.9 million per year, the south's projected share for local projects, is a significant sum. 

The commission is unincorporated south Fulton's governing body, making decisions on zoning matters and its property tax rate, among other things. Hausmann pointed out that she would be voting on which transportation projects south Fulton gets.
Darnell said later, while talking about buying new cell door locks for the county jail, that she never agrees with Hausmann on anything because of the area she speaks for. 

Hausmann told Darnell in a letter Friday, copied to the whole board, that it's time for her anti-north rhetoric to stop. 

North Fulton, mostly white, affluent and conservative-leaning, makes up a third of the county population. 

Dissatisfaction with the county led four Fulton communities -- three of them in north Fulton -- to vote to form cities during the past decade, changes made possible by Republican gains in the Legislature. There's also a movement to split the six Northside cities into their own county. 

Darnell, who represents northwest Atlanta and part of south Fulton, has railed against such efforts. She did not return phone messages or emails seeking comment Monday and Tuesday.

South Fulton is full of Black people whose mere existence is predicated upon the redistribution of tax dollars collected from the North Fulton residents. Jim Goad profiled some of those residents in Blight of the Living Dead. As the AJC article points out, those residents of North Fulton are largely white.

Nothing has changed. 

Tired of playing Atlas for Fulton County's Black residents, the largely white residents of Sandy Springs, Johns Creek, and Dunwoody have decided to finally shrug. The catastrophic effects to Black Atlanta would be instanteously felt were this to happen, as the city becomes Detroit-ed overnight:

In the cradle of the civil rights movement, a new secession effort is under way that would break off Atlanta's predominantly white, wealthy suburbs to the north from poorer, black neighborhoods in the south.There's a renewed push to take some suburbs out of Fulton County, Georgia's most populous and home to most of the city of Atlanta, and put them under the now-extinct Milton County.Its supporters hope resurrecting the county would give residents there more responsive government. 

But opponents say the measure is racially motivated and will open up a deep rift between black and white, rich and poor in a state with a complicated racial history. The area that would be split off is more than 75 percent white, while a large block of the remaining portion of Fulton County is 90 percent minority."It sends a message when you say the hometown of Dr. Martin Luther King is going to be split apart in a kind of latter-day secessionist movement," said state Sen. Vincent Fort, an Atlanta Democrat. 

It was frustration with Fulton County that led to the creation of the new cities of Sandy Springs in 2005, Milton in 2006, and Johns Creek in 2006. Those suburban enclaves — along with Alpharetta, Roswell and Mountain Park — would constitute the newly formed Milton County.What used to be Milton County is now largely white and Republican and affluent. Atlanta and its southern suburbs are mostly black, are controlled by Democrats and have neighborhoods with some of the highest poverty rates in America. Buckhead, a trendy Atlanta neighborhood known for its clubs, restaurants and mansions, would remain in Fulton County. 

"There's no doubt in my mind that race is part of the equation here and it has been since Day One," said Brooks.

This is why in March of 2011, the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus declared war on white flight:

The Georgia Legislative Black Caucus filed a lawsuit Monday against the state of Georgia seeking to dissolve the city charters of Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, Johns Creek, Milton and Chattahoochee Hills. Further, the lawmakers, joined by civil rights leader the Rev. Joseph Lowery, aim to dash any hopes of a Milton County. 

The lawsuit, filed in a North Georgia U.S. District Court Monday, claims that the state circumvented the normal legislative process and set aside its own criteria when creating the “super-majority white ” cities within Fulton and DeKalb counties. The result, it argues, is to dilute minority votes in those areas, violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. 

“This suit is based on the idea that African Americans and other minorities can elect the people of their choice,” said Democratic State Sen. Vincent Fort. 

According to the 2010 census, Fulton County is 44.5 percent white and 44.1 percent black. About 54 percent of DeKalb County residents are black, and 33.3 percent are white. 

Sandy Springs, created in 2005, is 65 percent white and 20 percent black. Milton, formed a year later, is 76.6 percent white and 9 percent black. Johns Creek, also formed that year, is 63.5 percent white and 9.2 percent black. Chattahoochee Hills, formed in 2007, is 68.6 percent white and 28 percent black, while Dunwoody, created in 2008, is 69.8 percent white and 12.6 percent black.

Metro Atlanta in 2012 offers the most important domino in the ultimate collapse of Black-Run America (BRA) legitimacy. Though the white people who form the aristocracy, the establishment of Atlanta are some of the most vile humans to have ever existed (as evidenced by the white business community - the executives of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce - attempts to cover-up the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal), they will - like rats - eventually scurry from the sinking ship that is Atlanta.

Recall that in 2009, the "Black Memo" was circulated among the Black political elite of Atlanta as to why Black people must unite around mayoral candidate to ensure that Black political gains remained intact:

The Black Mecca (Atlanta) is financially underwater

A memo arguing that African-Americans should unite behind a single black candidate in the race for mayor of Atlanta is about to become a prime topic of debate. 

The material, which we include below, is said to be distributed by Aaron Turpeau, a long-time City Hall figure, on behalf of something called the Black Leadership Forum. 

Introduction 

The debate over the best strategic option for black leadership and the African American community as we approach the Mayoral election in Atlanta has become critical based on the fact that for the last 25 years Atlanta has represented the breakthrough for black political empowerment in the South. 

It is debatable to what extent the objective socio-economic and political position of the African American community has improved. At the same time, most would agree that the Jackson [Maynard Jackson, Atlanta's first Black mayor, who was elected in 1973] breakthrough represented an unprecedented opportunity for black political representation nationwide. 

A passionate argument has been made for us to develop a unity of purpose and position, and for that to be defined immediately, given the short amount of time remaining between now and November 2009 election day (two and ½ months from now). 

There are unstated assumptions that need to be examined. Perhaps the most critical factor is the lack of an agenda against which to evaluate candidates. An agenda, beyond just electing a Black Mayor, would allow us to move from the margins of the debate to controlling the expectations associated with gaining our support.

Back in 1988, the Atlanta Journal Constitution published a number of investigative article by Bill Dedman, which became known as The Color of Money (available fully here as a PDF). This report detailed how Atlanta's white banks weren't lending money to Black people to pursue the American Dream of home ownership.

The value of homes in Metro Atlanta has been devastated by the availability of cheap credit, which resulted in some of the highest foreclosures rates in the nation. All of this in the mindless pursuit of putting Black people in the position to own homes, a goal that Bill Dedman once won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting that they were rightfully denied for a lack of collateral or credit (a punishing take down of Dedman is coming, for this report was instrumental in passing legislation that ultimately birthed Steve Sailer's Minority Mortgage Meltdown).

Atlanta is the domino that must be pushed first; that must fall first. No one cares about 90 percent Detroit anymore, but the Black Mecca in the Dirty South is the vibrant home of America's favorite Black celebrities.

There was no opposition to BRA becoming the law in Atlanta. But BRA's legitimacy is on the line in Atlanta (the Black political elite know this, hence the memo from 2009).

The push of that domino - the first domino - will come when DWL residents of the Northside attempted to form their own county. The Department of Justice will attempt to intervene, thereby showing that white people have only one role and one duty in BRA: to continue working and paying taxes to support Black people's proliferation (and, increasingly, other non-white minorities).

The Black Mecca is underwater. Once the push comes, the legitimacy of BRA will end. The salvation of Real America ironically begins in the same city where the dream of the Confederacy was burned to the ground.

From all ashes rise a new hope.