Much of Atlanta’s  development into the prosperous metropolitan area it is today can be traced back to Mayor Ivan Allen Jr.'s tenure as mayor in the 1960s. Mayor Allen commissioned many highways, constructed a stadium, brought two major league sports teams to the city, exponentially increased commerce, and widened the Atlanta airport, along with many other improvements. Although he was a key leader in the expansion of the city, Allen is often portrayed--and regularly portrays himself--as having played an integral role within the advancement of civil rights in Atlanta. While Allen did champion integration and support black business in the city, it is also the case that Allen’s actions did not always benefit Atlanta’s black communities and sometimes worked directly against them. 

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The Summerhill Riots of 1966 demonstrate local black Atlantans’ frustrations during this period of massive urban development that resulted in their disenfranchisement and erasure in the name of civic progress and urban renewal As the Summerhill Riots, also described as the Atlanta Rebellion by black activists, shows the structural inequities of poverty were often forgotten in favor of more easily acceptable narratives of political and cultural success. When Mayor Allen intervened in the Summerhill Riots, an act he portrays as a spontaneous and inimical martyrdom for Atlanta, the archival documents found in the Ivan Allen Digital Archive from Allen’s own administration paint a more nuanced and complex legacy. ​

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