Black Atlantans form a major population group in the Atlanta metropolitan area, encompassing both those of African-American ancestry as well as those of recent Caribbean or African origin.

Atlanta has long been known as a center of Black entrepreneurship, higher education, political activism and culture; a cradle of the Civil Rights Movement.

[12] Atlanta is one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States, and a large portion of that growth is due to an influx of Black residents.

Since 1973, Atlanta has consistently elected Black mayors, and two in particular have been prominent on the national stage, Andrew Young and Maynard Jackson.

Jackson was elected with the support of the predominantly white business community, including the chairmen of Coca-Cola, Citizens & Southern National Bank, the Trust Company of Georgia, and architect and Peachtree Center developer John Portman.

Since then, there has been "a sometimes uneasy partnership between Black political clout and White financial power that has helped Atlanta move closer to its goal of becoming a world-class city.

The first of these colleges were established shortly after the Civil War and have made Atlanta one of the historic centers of Black intellectualism and empowerment.

[25] Clayton State University (CSU) is a historically white public institution 15 miles south of Atlanta that has been predominately Black since the mid-2000s.

GSU is the second largest university in Georgia and leads the nation in producing the most Black college graduates with bachelor's degrees annually.

[37] Atlanta has a well-organized Black upper class which exerts its power in politics, business and academia, and historically, in the religious arena.

Mayors Maynard Jackson and Andrew Young were representative of the upper, not working class, and rose to national standing.

Russell) as well as some of the country's top Black-owned investment and law firms, car dealerships, and food service companies.

An old-guard Black elite, graduated from AUC schools and whose status dates back to the glory days of Sweet Auburn or before, guards its social circles from "new" Black money—families such as Herndon, Yates, Bond, Milton, Yancey, Blayton, Rucker, Aikens, Harper, Cooper, Dobbs and Scott.

[38] The concentration of a Black elite in Atlanta can be explained by: In the 1920s, Hunter Street (now Martin Luther King Drive) and Collier Heights became the Black elite neighborhoods of choice, while today areas in far southwest of the city around Camp Creek Marketplace, neighborhoods such as Niskey Lake, are also popular.

[46] The A3C Festival & Conference is an annual fall event that mostly highlights African-American artists, creatives, innovators, activists, and entrepreneurs.

[49][50] The Castleberry Hill district (mainly Peter Street) has the largest concentration of Black businesses and popular social spaces in the nation.

[65][66] Afropunk Atlanta is a week-long fall festival that includes live music, film, fashion, and art produced by Black artists.

The conference is the nation's only entertainment award show and gathering for Black creatives in publishing, film and TV enthusiasts.

Producer Fatboi called the Roland TR-808 ("808") synthesizer "central" to the music of Atlanta's versatility, used for snap, crunk, trap, and pop rap styles.

[93] The same article named Drumma Boy, Fatboi, Shawty Redd and Zaytoven the four "hottest producers driving the city".

The event founded by Grambling State University alumni and NFL greats Doug Williams and James Harris, honors extraordinary football players who played at historically Black institutions.

[106] Atlanta has one of the highest numbers of independent Black owned bookstores and is listed as one of the top destinations for readers of African-American literature.

[119] Slavery in the state of Georgia mostly constituted the main reason for early African American residency in the Atlanta area.

[120] In 1850, the area which would become Atlanta, previously known as Terminus and Marthasville, had a population which included 493 African slaves, 18 free Blacks, and 2,058 whites.

In 1870, following the ratification of the 15th Amendment by the state legislature, the first two African American members, William Finch and George Graham, were elected to the Board of Aldermen from the third and fourth wards, respectively,[124] while Radical Republican Dennis Hammond sat as mayor.

[3] In the aftermath of Reconstruction, which mostly ended in 1877, African Americans in Atlanta were left to the mercies of the predominantly white state legislature and city council, and were politically disenfranchised during the Jim Crow era; whites had used a variety of tactics, including militias and legislation, to re-establish political and social supremacy throughout the South.

Du Bois, a graduate of Fisk University and Harvard, who would become one of the major civil rights activists of the first half of the 20th century.

As racial tensions rose, particularly resentment from working-class whites against better-off Blacks, segregation was introduced into more areas of public life.

[127] In May 2018, Atlanta area resident and Spelman College alumna Stacey Abrams became the first Black woman to win a major party nomination for governor in the United States.

[129] In 2021, she announced she was running again for governor as promised but lost to incumbent Republican Brian Kemp by a much wider margin in the 2022 Georgia gubernatorial election.