Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens joined leading Black mayors during the Global Black Economic Forum’s Summit at the 2023 Essence Festival of Culture.
Along with Dickens, the event featured New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell; Mayor Eric Adams of New York City; Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles; Mayor Andre Dickens of Atlanta; and Mayor Justin Bibb of Cleveland.
Marc Morial, President of the National Urban League, and the Reverend Al Sharpton, President of the National Action Network, also made introductory remarks.
The recent discriminatory rulings by the Supreme Court proved to be a hot button topic.
“We’re going to start going back and take a stronger look at HBCUs,” Dickens said. “So Atlanta has a high concentration of HBCUs. We have a lot of Black folks who are educated, and great talent coming out of the city of Atlanta. But I think that Democrats got to start thinking about what we have to do.”
Dickens continued, “Democrats have to start doing what we should do, and it’s time to implement. When we got the ball, we need to do something with it. So you saw [Donald] Trump appointed three justices in his four years. When we got the ball for four years, eight years, we need to do something from a judiciary standpoint. On one Friday, you end up having three historically discriminatory laws passed. We don’t have to just think about it, start doing it. We don’t need any more reports, studies or anything. It’s time to start getting the job done.”
The group of mayors also discussed solving the issues of violence and affordable housing that continues to impact cities nationwide.
