Six decades ago, Atlanta’s business elites gave the civil rights movement a shot in the arm when they packed a dinner celebrating the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1964 Nobel Prize win.
Up until that point, many had refused to embrace the work of the city’s native son. But the urging of Coca-Cola’s powerful leaders — and threats that the company could leave Atlanta if their peers did not come on board — prompted a turnaround. The event quickly sold out, sending a message to the world that Atlanta stood behind King and his work to create a “Beloved Community.”
With voting rights and Black political power once again at the national forefront, progressive activists, voting rights groups, African American faith leaders and their allies are hoping they can once again lure Georgia’s business community into the fray.
A trifecta of events this week is setting the stage. The General Assembly’s special session that could redraw Georgia’s congressional and legislative districts in favor of Republican candidates kicks off on Wednesday, just a few days before the Juneteenth holiday. A few blocks away, downtown Atlanta will play host to eight matches of the World Cup, the kind of international sporting event many of Georgia’s biggest companies worked hard to attract.
Redistricting opponents are planning a series of events near the state Capitol to voice their disapproval. And some Democratic elected leaders haven’t been shy about calling out companies by name as they seek to pressure GOP leaders to revisit their plans.
“Where are our businesses here in the state of Georgia? Why are you not standing with us?” said state Sen. Nikki Merritt, D-Grayson, chair of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus, at a news conference last month. “Georgia Chamber, you are silent. Coca-Cola, you are silent. Delta, you are silent. We need you in this moment.”
So far, Georgia’s biggest corporate powers have indicated they plan to sit out what they see as a hyperpartisan fight. Spokespeople for major business groups, Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines and several of the region’s largest employers either declined or did not comment for this story.
Fewer options
Black leaders, Democrats and voting rights groups were furious this spring when the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority gutted Section 2 Voting Rights Act, which allowed people to challenge political maps they believed to be racially discriminatory. Under the majority opinion, creating seats on the basis partisanship is fair game as long as there is no overtly discriminatory intent.
Within hours of the Supreme Court’s ruling, Republican governors in states across the South greenlit efforts to redraw majority-minority congressional districts held by Democrats.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
While the underlying law remains in place, legal experts say it is now virtually impossible to use successfully to strike down new maps.
Opponents of the redistricting effort acknowledge that with the courthouse doors effectively closed to them, their remaining tools for pushing back are limited.
Republicans control of both chambers of Congress, and there aren’t enough votes to pass federal voting rights legislation Democrats favor named for the late civil rights icon and Georgia U.S. Rep. John Lewis. Ditto for a state-level Voting Rights Act like the versions that recently advanced in New Jersey and Maryland.
Critics can still register their anger at the ballot box. Democratic leaders point to high turnout during last month’s primaries, particularly among the Black women who make up the backbone of their voting coalition.
And then there is mass mobilization.
The Georgia NAACP and faith leaders are leading a day of prayer on Tuesday, when Georgia is holding its primary runoffs, and a caravan around the state Capitol on Wednesday. Other events sponsored by a constellation of left-leaning groups are also planned throughout the week.
Fallon McClure, Southeast deputy regional director for the Working Families Party, said getting the region’s companies involved is crucial.
“When they weigh in, legislators, and Republican legislators more importantly, are listening,” she said.
Some activists are raising the prospect of boycotts if prominent Atlanta companies don’t joint them.
“You’re going to start hearing asks from us to start making your voice heard through economic sanctions against some of these companies if they don’t start stepping up,” Lauren Groh-Wargo, CEO of the voting rights group Fair Fight, told a prominent podcaster last week.
Jamal-Harrison Bryant, senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Stonecrest, said African American voters should spend their money at Black-owned businesses and financial institutions to assert their “economic sovereignty.”
Credit: Jamal-Harrison Bryant
Credit: Jamal-Harrison Bryant
Thr goal would be to “build the kind of Wall Street that they won’t let us live on,” Bryant said during a voting rights event on Thursday. “Our great first weapon of defense is our dollar.”
Bryant helped spearhead a boycott of Target last year after the retailer retreated from its diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
Case by case
While it initially took some arm twisting to get Atlanta’s business community involved in the civil rights movement, the resulting partnership between the city’s business titans and Black leaders helped lay the groundwork for the Atlanta’s economic growth.
Since then, the state’s business community has chosen its spots when deciding in which political debates to get involved.
Their trade groups have been active players in shaping tax overhauls, tort reform and other legislation that could impact companies’ bottom lines.
Politically delicate social debates, however, have been more case by case — especially as the Trump administration has amped up the pressure on large institutions for speaking out on issues like DEI and the Israel-Gaza war.
Some of the state’s biggest companies fiercely opposed “religious liberty” legislation in 2016 that was ultimately vetoed. But they were virtually silent when Gov. Brian Kemp signed a similar version last year.
Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
As anti-abortion legislation advanced through the Georgia Legislature in recent years, many company leaders stayed quiet.
On racial justice fights, some of the biggest corporate players were far more vocal. Arthur Blank, the owner of the Atlanta Falcons, supported his players on the football field as several knelt during the national anthem to protest racial injustice in 2017. Three years later, Home Depot, the retail behemoth Blank co-founded, announced a $1 million donation to the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law as the country reckoned with the deaths of several unarmed Black men.
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
During past redistricting fights, local companies generally stayed mum. Such legislation is typically viewed as parochial and almost toxically partisan — and often ends up in court.
Issues involving voting more broadly have been somewhat different. When the chief executives at Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines chose to come out forcefully against Georgia’s 2021 voting law on the last day of that year’s legislative session, they triggered retaliation from GOP legislators who were caught off guard. In response, House Republicans sprung to action, voting to end a lucrative tax break on jet fuel.
Republican leaders were also unmoved when, days later, Major League Baseball announced it would be pulling the All-Star game from Georgia that year in response to the voting law.
This time around, companies are showing little thirst for getting involved in the fight, at least for now.
Representatives from the Georgia Chamber and Metro Atlanta Chamber declined to comment for this story. So did the Arthur Blank Foundation. Spokespeople for Delta and Coca-Cola didn’t respond to requests for comment.
A Home Depot spokesperson said in a statement the company believes “all elections should be accessible, free and fair.” The Vinings-based home improvement giant said it supports “broad voter participation” and maintains a website where workers can check their voter registration and learn about candidates.
Suhas Sridharan, a professor at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, said corporations used to speak out more on political issues. But that’s changed as the political climate has become hyperpolarized. Companies don’t want to take stances that could alienate a large subset of customers.
“What we’re seeing right now is a lot of companies trying to adopt positions of what you might call institutional neutrality or consistently choosing to not take a position,” Sridharan said. “That wasn’t as much the case maybe five years ago.”
For a company to get involved in an issue, she said, “you have to make a business case.”
Lisa Borders, the former president of both the WNBA and the Atlanta City Council, said she believes that business case is already there.
“What these legislators are currently contemplating is turning Atlanta and the state of Georgia into a two-class system where one group of people has all the power, political, financial and otherwise, and a subclass beneath them,” she said.
Borders added, “If you disenfranchise … a major group of your customers, you’re actually hurting your business and not living up to your fiduciary responsibility.”
— Staff writer Greg Bluestein contributed to this article.
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