Ivan Earnest Allen Jr. (March 15, 1911 – July 2, 2003) was an American businessman who served two terms as the 52nd mayor of Atlanta, during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

This plan would become his roadmap as mayor for creating an economic surge that established the infrastructure, business, education, arts, sports, and international presence that are the foundations for modern Atlanta.

[2] Convinced that the South could never thrive economically under segregation, Allen supported the demands of African Americans for their accommodation at public facilities.

That same year, his father's name was published for the first time in the Social Cities Register, an annual list of elites in Richmond, Atlanta, Charleston, Savannah, and Augusta.

[1] At one point, he led a student protest against Governor Eugene Talmadge when the board of regents abolished the School of Commerce at Tech and moved it to the University of Georgia.

During one summer as a college student he served as postmaster, strung tennis rackets, and worked as a counselor for young campers at Camp Greenbriar in Alderson, West Virginia.

In March 1946, Allen Sr. asked his son to return to the family business, in light of the fact that his partner, Charles Marshall, was in poor health and had decided to retire.

[2] During World War II, he served as a supply officer and directed the field division of the Selective Service System in Georgia for the United States Army.

[3][5] When the War ended, an old college friend who was also the progressive young Governor of Georgia, Ellis Arnall, went to Washington and asked the Secretary of Defense to release Allen from his duties.

Lane, Jack Glenn, Philip Alston, Richard Rich, Lawrence Gellerstedt Jr., and others, he founded The Commerce Club, which served as a venue for business networking and hospitality.

He alluded to the fact that no Atlantan in forty years had won the race for governor, mostly as a result of rural Georgian apprehension towards the leaders from the "large, liberal cities".

Allen wrote, "As a businessman I have analyzed the market and found that I am not a saleable product...No matter how clear and unequivocal I made my support of segregation, I was still from Atlanta".

[5] In his book, Allen wrote about going to Paris immediately after the crash: "I realized how insignificant I was, but I knew I had to assume the posture of representing these families and, indeed, the entire city of Atlanta, Georgia.

[8][11] His building program, with its emphasis on developing downtown, was opposed by some of Atlanta's black leaders as not adequately meeting the need for low-income housing.

Eventually, however, Allen was deeply affected by daily, firsthand dealings he faced with racial issues, as well as the profound questions African American citizens posed to him about their humanity and the cultural system that refused to recognize them.

[2] He painstakingly negotiated agreements for the accommodation of African Americans at 18 private and public facilities including hotels, swimming pools, and restaurants.

Many Atlanta restaurants and other public facilities desegregated by mutual agreement between their owners and Mayor Allen before the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"[8][12] In 1966, a riot broke out in Summerhill, a neighborhood south of the Atlanta Stadium, when a white police officer shot a black resident.

Mayor Allen went to great lengths to ensure the city remained peaceful when nearly two hundred thousand people gathered to mourn Dr. King's death.

[3] "I was convinced now that voluntary desegregation of public facilities, worked out on a local level, had gone as far as it was going to go in the South and much of the rest of the United States....", Allen wrote.

[2] In 1963, President John F. Kennedy made a direct request asking Ivan Allen Jr. to testify before the U.S. Congress in support of a federal law mandating public accommodations for African Americans.

Against the counsel of even Atlanta's most prominent black leaders, Allen chose to go to Washington and deliver his testimony, knowing it would most likely ruin his political career and deeply affect his personal and business relationships.

Nevertheless, with the support of his wife and very few others, Allen risked his place in society, his political future, the safety of his family, and ultimately his life to advocate the public accommodation of African Americans.

Just one month after Allen's testimony, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech, also calling for racial equality and an end to discrimination, later proving to be a very defining moment in the Civil Rights Movement.

[2] Excerpts from Allen's testimony were published in newspapers the day after he spoke in front of Congress: "I am firmly convinced that the Supreme Court insists the same fundamental rights must be held by every American citizen.

Therefore, any failure by Congress to pass the [Civil Rights] bill would amount to an endorsement of private business setting up an entirely new status of discrimination throughout the nation...

By the time he stepped down, Atlanta was at the forefront of progress in public accommodations, school desegregation, voting rights, housing, and employment.

Awarded for the first time in 2011, it recognizes those around the world whose life and work embody Mayor Allen's moral imperative and compassion in shaping a better future for humankind.

Nonviolent Peace Prize in 1981, the Shining Light Award in 1995, and was inducted into the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame at the Martin Luther King Jr.

His commitment to urban transformation founded in social justice became a cornerstone of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at Georgia Tech.