Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn: A Saga of Race and Family

In Atlanta, a city hyped during the 1996 Olympics as the South's most progressive city, Peachtree Street is the main commercial avenue of white business power; Auburn Street, known as Sweet Auburn, is the old center of the city's black community. Their intersection is rather insignificant, a fact mirrored in the racial segregation that has always characterized Atlantan society. Pomerantz has traced the history of the city, and the development of race relations from the city's founding to the present day, through the experiences of two emblematic and influential families: that of Ivan Allen Jr., a white mayor in the 60's; and that of Maynard H. Jackson, the city's first black mayor. The result is a vividly humanized and objective history.