By LEE N. HOWELL
Politically Speaking

As much as us suburbanites hate to admit it, we are dependent upon Atlanta.

No, we do not depend upon Atlanta for our quality of life — Lord knows, most of us have it better than those folk who live in the crime-ridden and congested inner city or, even, traffic-snarled and polluted Buckhead.

Indeed, by most any standard of measurement, the folks who live in the suburbs have it better than the folks who live in the city.

(Obviously, that is why so many of them are trying to move out here among us!)

But, we are dependant upon Atlanta for one simple reason: If it was not for the booming Big A, there would be no booming Fayette or Coweta counties.

Oh, sure, there would still be a county called Fayette and another called Coweta.

But, we'd all still be dirt farmers — though we would probably have to have a day job to support our addiction to the land.

And, that is the point: We would be hard put to find that day job in Fayette or Coweta County or anywhere else around here if it wasn't for Atlanta.

Atlanta grew and so did we.

But, why did Atlanta grow?

Today, we can look around and cite a hundred different reasons, all of which are valid.

Atlanta grew, we point out, because of its location and its people who have an infectious, rambunctious spirit that refused to be put down or kept down.

Look at what happened after the late, great tribulation, that War of Northern Aggression which some newcomers now refer to as the Civil War.

Whether it was General William T. Sherman's determination to punish Southerners who burned Atlanta — or Southern defenders who burned it to keep its wealth and produce from falling into enemy hands — look what Atlanta's people did in the years after that fire.

The rest of the South was being trampled down by Yankee occupation forces, but Atlanta was coming back, rebuilding, and becoming the centerpiece of the New South.

Yes, Atlanta grew because of its people and their spirit which refused to be defeated.

Or, we might say that Atlanta grew because it was not afraid to try something new.

After all, we were built as a hub for the railroads at a time when many towns were refusing to let the steel rails be laid which would have brought those mighty Iron Horses to town.

And, in the 1920s, it was the vision of our political leaders who jumped at the chance to turn a deserted racetrack into an airstrip and lay the basis for Atlanta's becoming an aviation town.

Yes, we were never afraid of reaching out to something new.

But, I believe there is another reason Atlanta grew and why it still grows.

Back then, Atlanta was just another sleepy, Southern town — not any bigger than Memphis or Birmingham.

However, our leaders made a conscious decision nearly four decades ago which has made all the difference in the world.

We decided to accept the change that was being thrust upon our region and our nation and to work with the forces of revolution and renewal, rather than against them.

As former Atlanta Constitution editor Gene Patterson once pointed out, we learned that “in order to keep the black man in the ditch, we had to jump in and hold him down.”

“That was just too high a price for Atlantans to pay,” Patterson said.

Our reward for doing the right thing in the Sixties was the economic boom of the Seventies, the Eighties, and the Nineties.

It was the relatively peaceful change — especially when compared to places like Birmingham with their dogs and their fire hoses — from a racist society to one where worth was decided by qualifications, not color, that made it possible for Atlanta to become the economic and political center of the South.

Those thoughts may have a somewhat ironic ring to them when one looks around the county we call home and sees the disparate ratio between the number of minority citizens and the number of county employees of color.

But, the truism is still true: Do the right things and growth will come.

[Lee N. Howell is an award-winning writer who has been observing politics and society in the Southern Crescent, the state, and nation for more than a quarter of a century. He lives in Griffin.

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