A new documentary “Maynard,” recently debuted at the DOC NYC Festival in New York, offering a fresh look at the racially charged political and economic climate of the early 1970s, which parallel strangely enough to modern times.
The film’s director, Sam Pollard, who previously worked as editor for Spike Lee, is bringing the movie to today’s masses to “give this new generation of young people – black, white, Latin, Asian – an introduction to one of the most important politicians of the last half of the 20th century,” he was quoted as saying to NBC News.
An Atlanta lawyer and Morehouse man, Jackson forged relationships with the city’s power players early on, failing in a bid for the U.S. Senate in 1968 and earning the position of vice-mayor in Atlanta the following year.
In 1973, Jackson’s victory in a runoff election against his white incumbent firmly established him as the leader not only of a new Atlanta but of the “New South.” He immediately got to work by shaking up the white-dominated field of municipal contracts, making sure at least a quarter of them went to minorities.
He also rode shotgun over the expansion of the Atlanta airport, which now bears his name.