TELL an Atlantan that you’re about to drive from their city to Birmingham, Alabama, around two hours west, and he may joke: “Don’t forget to set your watch back 50 years.” In the middle of the last century the cities were equally prosperous, more or less: Birmingham from iron and steel, Atlanta from consumer-facing companies. But during the civil-rights era Atlanta changed with the times, billing itself as “the city too busy to hate”, while Birmingham became “Bombingham”, infamous for violent racist attacks that killed, most notably, four little girls in a Baptist church. In the ensuing years Atlanta became a global city, while Birmingham stagnated.
On March 1st, Randall Woodfin, Birmingham’s young Democratic mayor, tried to steal a march on Atlanta. “Hey, @Delta,” he tweeted. “It’s me again. Birmingham is open for business. Call me.” That was after Georgia’s Republican-controlled legislature passed a bill stripping Delta—Georgia’s fifth-biggest private employer—of...Continue reading
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