Atlanta Re-opens the 1970s Missing and Murder Children Cases
Over 40 years ago, the city of Atlanta, Georgia closed the books on the “missing and murdered” children cases. From about1977 through 1981, 28 Black children and young adults disappeared from Atlanta streets in an impoverished section of the city.
These youngsters, both male, and female were never again seen alive. Fear gripped Blacks in the city “too busy to hate.” The law enforcement authorities and the mainstream media was slow to recognize there was a mass murderer afoot in Atlanta.
In the early days, save for reports in the Black-owned Atlanta Daily World newspaper, there was hardly any coverage given to this story. Without media coverage, the police were slow in recognizing there might be a connection to the missing children reports that were mounting at the pace of a disco drum-beat.
When the child murders started, Maynard Jackson had just become the first Black person elected mayor in a major southern city. The white power structure that had run things in Atlanta since 1847 did not adjust well to the loss of their political power base at city hall.
Tension mounted when Jackson sought to replace the Chief of Police with Reggie Eaves, a law school classmate from Boston, Massachuset. The old chief vowed not to move out of his office. Gun-toting officers on both…
