Mayor Bottoms Resigns, Thoughts on Her Legacy
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced last week that she would not run for reelection. As the Bottoms era comes to a close, we now grapple with its meaning. I believe her legacy will be shaped in part by her willingness to grapple with and commemorate a part of our city’s past that so many of us still struggle with—the history of the Atlanta Child Murders.
Between 1979-1981, Black children, mostly Black boys, and young men, were turning up missing only later to be found dead. Law enforcement officials would eventually determine, I imagine long after many Black parents, that these were pattern killings.
Wayne Williams would be catapulted into Atlanta history, infamy, and lore, when he was stopped on a bridge 40 years ago this month, by the police, investigating the murders. Chasing fame, Wayne Williams sought success in the music and entertainment industry. However, from the point at which he became a suspect, then charged, and finally convicted of the killings, he achieved fame as the Atlanta monster.
“ We are a city still grieving. Atlanta has always been the ‘Black Mecca,’ except for Black poor and working-class people.”
To this day, I promise you, just uttering the name “Wayne Williams,” in Atlanta, especially among Black people of a certain age and generation, will undoubtedly elicit a strong reaction. We are a city still grieving. Atlanta has always been the “Black Mecca,” except for Black poor and working-class people.
Not everyone thinks Wayne Williams is guilty. There are those in this city that maintain that Wayne Williams was not and could not be the person behind the Atlanta missing and murdered children.
Today, Wayne Williams remains in prison. However, for many of us, the families and communities directly impacted, the case has never been closed. We never received justice. There are Black people in this city even now, that believe it was the work of the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists.
Bottoms, perhaps in her own way, to bring closure and healing to this trauma that still infects our city, used her magnificent platform to insist that we all remember and take action. Working with the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, there was an effort to reexamine the evidence surrounding the Atlanta missing and murdered children investigation, using the more sophisticated technology available now. Bottoms attempted to strike a careful balance between the people that wanted to never revisit this horror again, and those of us who insist upon it, and she did so with great aplomb.
Screen Capture of Atlanta Child Murders Victims (via WXIA-TV 11 Alive)
As of this writing, I’m certain there are many who are assessing the legacy of Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. Though she may only serve one term, in our post-pandemic world, 4 years seems like 40. I hope that whoever follows her continues the work of seeking remembrance and justice for Atlanta’s missing and murdered children.
Charles Stephens is the Founder of the Counter Narrative Project (CNP).
