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.Is Atlanta still considered a Black mecca?

In 2025 the Black alone population is estimated to represent 46% of the total Atlanta city population, an increase of 6% compared to 2020. As of 2020, Metropolitan Atlanta contained the second-largest Black population in the United States, following New York. This represented a nearly five-fold numerical increase from 1970, when Metro Atlanta had the 13th-largest Black population in the nation. In 2010 Metro Atlanta's Black population modestly surpassed that of Chicago, with the gap widening as of the 2020 Census. As per the 2023 American Community Survey's 1-Year Estimates, Metro Atlanta had 2,120,112 residents identified as Black alone and 2,302,073 residents identified as either Black alone or Black in combination with other races.

Demographics

Changes to the Black population of the city of Atlanta from 2000 to 2010 are illustrated here:City of Atlanta Quick Facts, U.S. Census Bureau Pop. 2010 % of total 2010 Pop. 2000 % of total 2000 absolutechange 2000–2010 % change 2000–2010 226,894 54.0% 255,689 61.4% -31,678 -12.3%

From 2000 to 2010 Atlanta saw significant shifts in the racial composition of its neighborhoods. (See: Demographics of Atlanta: Race and ethnicity by neighborhood) There was a decrease in the Black population in the following areas: In NPU W (East Atlanta, Grant Park, Ormewood Park, Benteen Park), the Black population went from 57.6% to 38.0%, and the white proportion rose from 36.5% to 54.8% In NPU O (Edgewood, Kirkwood, East Lake area), the Black population went from 86.2% to 58.7%, and the white proportion rose from 11.3% to 36.9%. In NPU L (English Avenue, Vine City), the Black proportion of the population went down from 97.5% to 89.1%, while the white proportion rose from 1.3% to 6.1%. Note that there many infill residential units were added in the King Plow Arts Center area, which falls under English Avenue but which in character is an extension of the Marietta Street Artery and West Midtown. In NPU D, stretching from West Midtown along the border of Buckhead and northwestern Atlanta, westward towards the river, the white proportion rose from 49.3% to 59.2% with the Black proportion dropping from 36.5% to 23.9%

While there was an increasing Black population in these areas: In NPU X (Metropolitan Parkway corridor), the Black proportion of the population rose from 59.5% to 83.2%, while the white, Asian and Hispanic proportion dropped about three percentage points each. NPU B (central Buckhead) became more diverse, with the white proportion dropping from 82.8% to 75.5%, the Black proportion rising from 5.9% to 12.3%, and the Asian proportion from 3.1% to 5.3%

In Metro Atlanta, Black Americans are the largest racial minority at 32.4% of the population, up from 28.9% in 2000. From 2000 to 2010, the geographic distribution of Blacks in Metro Atlanta changed significantly. Long concentrated in the city of Atlanta and DeKalb County, the Black population there dropped while over half a million African Americans settled across other parts of the metro area, including approximately 112,000 in Gwinnett County, 71,000 in Fulton outside Atlanta, 58,000 in Cobb, 50,000 in Clayton, 34,000 in Douglas, and 27,000 each in Newton and Rockdale Counties.U.S. Census 2010 vs. 2000 population estimates by race

Year Black pop. inCity of Atlanta Black pop. inDeKalb County Total Black pop.Atlanta + DeKalb Total Black pop.Metro Atlanta Proportion of Black pop.in Atlanta + DeKalb 2000 255,689 361,111 616,8001,189,179 51.9% 2010226,894 375,697602,591 1,707,913 35.2% 2020246,906 407,451641,923 2,186,815 29.4%

According to U.S. census data, the Atlanta area has the second-largest population of Blacks, only behind the New York City area. The Atlanta area surpassed the Chicago area in 2010 for the second-largest Black population.

There is a Black Jamaican community in Atlanta. Jamaicans are concentrated in Stone Mountain, Decatur, Lithonia and Snellville. There is also a Black Haitian community in Atlanta.

African-born Blacks in Atlanta are mostly from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Somalia, Liberia, Kenya and Nigeria.

Many suburbs of Atlanta such as south and western suburbs including Henry County, Stone Mountain, Fayetteville, and Douglasville house a fast growing Black population.

According to LendingTree, 11.3% of businesses in Atlanta are Black-owned, which is the highest rate in the United States.

More than 11,000 Black millionaires live in Atlanta.

Political activism In 1870, William Finch and George Graham became the first African Americans to be elected to the Atlanta Board of Aldermen (now the Atlanta City Council), and no other until the election of Q.V. Williamson to the Board in 1966. 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. They were hopeful that a new progressive coalition would be forged between downtown and City Hall; but they were not prepared for the level of support for the goals of the Black community that the mayor provided through support for minority-based businesses and for neighborhood-based organizations.

Carolyn Long Banks became the first Black woman to serve on the Atlanta City Council in 1980.

The Metro Atlanta counties of: Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, Gwinnett, Clayton, Rockdale, Newton, Henry, and Douglas are each governed by a county commission that is chaired by an African- American. The position of chair is elected countywide. The remaining district level members of each respective county commission are also majority African-American.

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."

Higher education

Atlanta is home to the Atlanta University Center (AUC), the nation's oldest and largest contiguous consortium of historically Black colleges, comprising Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Spelman College, Morehouse School of Medicine, and Interdenominational Theological Center. 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.

Many of the nation's most accomplished African Americans matriculated through the AUC. See: Morehouse College alumni; Clark Atlanta University alumni; Spelman College alumnae

Morris Brown College is the first institution of higher learning in Georgia founded by African-Americans.

Atlanta Metropolitan State College is a predominately Black institution.

Clayton State University (CSU) is a historically white public institution 15 miles south of Atlanta that has been predominately Black since the mid-2000s. In 2021, CSU appointed its first Black president.

Georgia Gwinnett College is a formerly predominately white public institution 30 miles northeast of Atlanta that has been mostly Black since the late 2010s.

The Atlanta's John Marshall Law School is a historically white private law school that became Georgia's only mostly Black law school in the mid-2010s. In 2020, the law school hired its first Black dean.

Emory University has one of the oldest African-American studies departments in the nation. It began in 1971 and has expanded since its inception.

The Georgia Institute of Technology consistently ranks among the top five institutions in the nation to produce the most Black engineers at the bachelor's, master's, and doctoral levels.

Georgia State University (GSU) is a historically white public institution that since the 2010s has had a Black plurality, with more Black students enrolled than any other non-profit university in the nation. GSU is the second-largest university in Georgia and leads the nation in producing the most Black college graduates with bachelor's degrees annually. In 2021, GSU appointed its first Black president.

Upper class

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. The Black academic community is the largest of any US city's because of the presence of the Atlanta University Center (AUC), a consortium of six historically Black colleges (HBCUs). In business, Atlanta is home to the nation's largest Black-owned insurance company (Atlanta Life), real-estate development firm (H.J. 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. The First Congregational Church is their church of choice.

The concentration of a Black elite in Atlanta can be explained by: the early establishment of Black colleges in the city immediately after the Civil War, producing graduates who remained in the city as leaders the high proportion of Blacks in the general population (as compared to New York or Chicago), providing a large market for goods and services After the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot, Blacks removed their businesses from downtown Atlanta to seek safety; during the same period, explicit segregationist legislation was introduced, which had the effect of producing a concentrated and dynamic separate Black business community in the refuges of Sweet Auburn and the area around Ashby Street (now Rev. Dr. Joseph E. Lowery Boulevard).

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. Upper-class Black Americans also reside in Eastern Atlanta in Dekalb County which is the second richest predominantly Black county in the country.

Black mecca

A Black mecca is a city to which African Americans, particularly professionals, are drawn to live, due to some or all of the following factors:

superior economic opportunities for Blacks, often as assessed by the presence of a large Black upper-middle and upper class Black political activism in a city leading Black educational institutions in a city a city's leading role in Black arts, music, and other culture harmonious Black-white race relations in a city

Atlanta has been referred to as a Black mecca since the 1970s.

Culture and recreation The National Black Arts Festival has been based in Atlanta since the late 1980s. Throughout the year, the festival features performing arts, literature and visual arts produced by creative artists of African descent.

The New Black Wall Street, opened in 2021, was a 125,000-square-foot marketplace in Stonecrest that housed over 100 Black merchants and entertainment. The marketplace was inspired by the popular Black business district that was based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The New Black Wall Street closed in April 2026, due to low interest and operational issues.