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Sunday, May 16, 2010 | 2 a.m.
During the civil rights era of the 1950s and 1960s, Atlanta promoted itself as “The City Too Busy to Hate.” Atlanta mayor William Hartsfield used this phrase to promote Atlanta’s urban growth and to indicate the city would not succumb to the evils of racial prejudice and violence.
This moniker distanced Atlanta from other big cities in the South, which by implication had plenty of time to hate. This clever marketing strategy helped make Atlanta the world city it is today. The label also struck people as legitimate — Atlanta was not full of angels, rather it was too focused on economic development to deny civil rights to its citizens.
The South was poised to boom after World War II. President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal public works improvements brought electricity, power and technology to the region. The war boosted Southern industry in the manufacture of steel, ships and aircraft.
By the 1950s, an entire super highway grid was under construction, one that eventually linked all major southern cities. Albert Gore Sr. (former Vice President Al Gore’s father) chaired the Senate transportation committee and ensured that the South got an extra helping of federal dollars and road projects under the 1956 Interstate Highway Act.
Finally, the South’s right-to-work laws reduced union power and lowered labor costs. Only one issue held the South back — race relations.
Atlanta’s leadership understood this basic fact and devised a brilliant campaign with Northern business interests. The city attracted Northern industries and branch offices by downplaying its racial tensions.
Atlanta promoted itself in a positive light, and northerners went “all in.” Atlanta’s chief rival at the time was Birmingham, Ala., an equal urban center in many ways, also poised to boom in post-World War II