Atlanta’s living former mayors have quietly closed ranks to defend the city’s long-running minority contracting program, rolling out a new alliance called the Soul of Atlanta Coalition and standing shoulder to shoulder at Big Bethel AME Church in a show of political muscle. For the group, the city’s Equal Business Opportunity rules are not just procurement paperwork, they are treated as core to Atlanta’s economic development strategy and to the legacy of former Mayor Maynard Jackson. Their campaign is unfolding just as shifting federal policies and court rulings are reshaping how disadvantaged business programs operate across the country.
Former mayors step into the debate
As reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mayor Andre Dickens joined former mayors Andrew Young, Shirley Franklin, Kasim Reed, Bill Campbell and Keisha Lance Bottoms at an Oct. 30, 2025 rally to formally launch the coalition. The lineup put every living former Atlanta mayor on the same side of the issue. “History will judge us for how we weather this storm,” Bottoms told the paper, as the group vowed to protect the program credited with helping build Atlanta’s Black business class.
Federal orders and a DOT rule set off the fight
The mayors’ pushback follows national moves to pare back DEI initiatives. In January 2025, the White House issued executive orders instructing federal agencies to remove diversity language from grants and contracts, according to the White House. On Oct. 3, 2025, the U.S. Department of Transportation followed with an interim final rule that removed race and sex based presumptions from the DBE and ACDBE programs and required unified certification programs to reevaluate every certified firm, per the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Money already at stake at the airport
Those regulatory shifts have already hit Atlanta’s bottom line. Airport leaders declined to sign new FAA grant language that disavowed DEI and, in the process, forfeited roughly $37.5 million in federal grants, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in September 2025. City and airport officials say they are weighing their options and possible workarounds while continuing to administer the city’s Equal Business Opportunity program, officials told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Jackson’s legacy is at the center
Atlanta’s minority contracting playbook traces back to the 1970s and the administration of Mayor Maynard Jackson, who required minority participation on major city projects and dramatically increased contract dollars flowing to minority owned firms. The New Georgia Encyclopedia details Jackson’s role in boosting minority participation in city contracting and in shaping Atlanta’s approach to inclusive procurement, a history that now looms large over the current fight.
Legal and policy stakes
Private lawsuits targeting the federal DBE program have driven much of the recent legal pressure, prompting courts to scrutinize how those programs operate and helping set the stage for DOT’s October rule. That rule paused goal setting and pushed certifying bodies to recertify firms under a more individualized standard. For a closer read on how those cases intersect with the rule change, legal and industry observers at Clark Hill have outlined how recent rulings and rulemaking together have forced agencies and contractors to rethink participation goals and counting rules.
What comes next in Atlanta
The Soul of Atlanta Coalition says it plans to keep organizing, from student outreach to online platforms that spotlight minority business success, while Atlanta’s mayor and city council decide whether to tweak program language or gear up for courtroom battles. For local firms that rely on municipal and airport work, the uncertainty is less theoretical and more day to day, since recertifications, paused goals and shifting federal grant terms all affect how and when companies can be counted on city projects.
Whether Atlanta ultimately chooses to reword participation rules to lean on small business language, to defend race aware tools in court, or to mix and match those strategies, the fight has welded local history to federal policy in a way that will test how the city balances principle, money and legal risk.
