ON A SUNNY WEDNESDAY in November, Keisha Lance Bottoms went to the Atlanta City Detention Center, a water-stained hulk of concrete with slits for windows glaring out over Peachtree Street. She was there on a kind of valedictory tour, showcasing her accomplishments as she gets ready to leave the mayor’s office. “I thought this one was dead in the water,” she would tell me later of the deal that is turning part of this facility into a “diversion center”—a place where cops can bring people with behavioral problems that is not jail or the hospital. The floor inside was a ratty mix of linoleum and pilling brown carpet, and a podium had been set up for the event. That’s where Bottoms started to cry. “I’ve been crying a lot lately,” she admitted, wiping away tears.
The tears could mean a lot of things at this point: pride or disappointment or relief that it’s all going to be over soon. Bottoms’s time in office has been marked by dizzying highs (she was on the shortlist to become Joe Biden’s vice-president in 2020) and shocking lows, like her sudden announcement in May that, after a solitary term, she wouldn’t run for reelection that fall. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. When she took office in 2018, magic was the theme of her inauguration, a term she used liberally to describe the election that lifted her, “a girl named Keisha,” to the highest office in America’s so-called Black mecca. “I truly believe it was the energy and inspiration of generations of Black-girl magic that fueled our victory,” the mayor said in her first big speech, at Morehouse College. “I am Atlanta magic. You are Atlanta magic. We are Atlanta magic.”
Denne historien er fra January 3-16, 2022-utgaven av New York magazine.
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Denne historien er fra January 3-16, 2022-utgaven av New York magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Early and Often: David Freedlander - Momentum vs. Machine The Trump and Harris campaigns battle it out for every last vote.
WIth two weeks left to go, the contours of the 2024 presidential election are clear: Both campaigns need voters who usually don’t vote, and Kamala Harris needs to bring the Democratic coalition, including its Trump-curious members, back home.While the Republican side plans to spend the remaining days of the contest trying to lure low-propensity voters to the polls, the Harris team will attempt to persuade voters of color to return to its side and will try to increase numbers among white voters in previously red suburbs.
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