A new documentary film, called MAYNARD, about former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson, directed by award winning director Sam Pollard, will screen at the newly renovated 42nd annual Atlanta Film Festival on April 14 at 7 pm at the Palace Cinema located at 1142 Euclid Avenue NE Atlanta, GA 30307 in Little Five Points. The film, profiling the life and achievements of Maynard Jackson, one of the trailblazers in post-Civil Rights era, includes heartfelt interviews with a host of political personalities such as President Bill Clinton, Al Sharpton, Vernon Jordan, Ambassador Andrew Young, Rev. Joseph Lowery, Jesse Jackson, former Atlanta Mayor’s Sam Massell, Bill Campbell, Shirley Franklin and Kasim Reed, in addition to Jackson’s family, co-workers, and life-long friends.
 
Maynard Holbrook Jackson II became first black Mayor of a southern city — Atlanta, Georgia -- in 1973; following four years of service to Atlanta as its first Vice Mayor (president of the Atlanta City Council).
The film is an exploration into a man who had dreams and ambitions to be a public servant for his people seeing that it was the next logical step in the journey that had been started by Dr. King, and so many others who had blazed the trail during the years of horrific segregation.
 
Widely acclaimed as one of the nation’s pre-eminent statesmen and politicians, he was elected Atlanta’s mayor for three terms (1974-1982 and 1990-1994) and is credited with cementing the city's reputation as the seat of the “New South” and a bastion of wealth, political power, business clout, and education for women, African Americans, and equal rights for the LGBTQ communities.
 
Jackson made political history in 1968 when he captured more than 200,000 votes statewide in an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate against fellow Georgian Herman Talmadge. He thought that the route to racial equality for African Americans, women, and LGBT lay with transforming the government, building economic power, and demanding that the nation's white leaders concede to the needs of minorities and poor residents of inner cities.
 
“When you think about the civil rights movement, one usually thinks about what happened in the 50’s and early 60’s, Dr. King, SCLC, and SNCC. But there was another part of the civil rights struggle and
what happened when the walls of segregation were broken and integration was close at hand. There was a group of African American politicians whose job it was to work within the system and make change happen. Maynard Jackson was on the front of the line. This is his story,” explains Pollard.   
 
As Mayor, he pushed for affirmative action programs that ensured minority owned businesses received a proportionate number of municipal contracts, and he worked to alleviate poverty among Atlantan’s. His policies and blueprint for growing American cities became the template used amongst government municipalities and private corporations around the U.S.A.  He is considered the “Father” of Affirmative Action and it is now time that his story be told to remind the world that human rights remain subject to 21st century enslavement.  Maynard’s story will inspire, motivate, remind us of the power of the vote, and has the ability to evoke positive change on a global level.
 
Today, many Americans are expressing concern that the “new face” of politics is disrupting the once cemented advocacies for the advancement of Americans.  The major setbacks in equal rights for all people are now confronted by presidential ideals that can disenfranchise millions of American citizens. Almost 50 years ago, Maynard Jackson Jr. championed voting rights and voter turnout at unprecedented levels that made him the first African-American Mayor of Atlanta, GA at 35 years old. Jackson believed that achieving social change did not rest in violence, but in using legal powers and political inroads that civil rights activists in the 1960s were able to secure.
 
Directed by Academy Award nominee, Emmy winner and four-time Peabody Award winner Sam Pollard (“Slavery by Another Name”, “Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me”, “Two Trains Runnin’”), Maynard is produced by Maynard Jackson III, Wendy Eley Jackson, Dolly Turner, Winsome Sinclair, Daphne McWilliams, Jason Orr, Donald Jarmond, and Autumn Bailey with cinematography by Henry Adebonojo who worked on the Academy Award nominated documentary “I Am Not Your Negro”.  Executive producers of the documentary include Brooke Jackson Edmond, Elizabeth Jackson Hodges and C. Howie Hodges.
 
Tickets to MAYNARD at the Atlanta Film Festival are at the box office at http://atlantafilmfestival.com or (470) 296-0170.