Hattie B. Dorsey led Atlanta’s efforts to create ‘holistic’ communities

At Hattie B. Dorsey’s memorial service, it was no coincidence that three Atlanta mayors paid tribute to the woman who championed affordable housing long before it became the city’s top priority.

Dorsey, founder of the Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership (ANDP), died on May 25, just six days before her 85th birthday.

His life was celebrated June 8 at Lindsay Street Baptist Church.

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens explained that “cities are powered by the energy and boldness” of bold people. He said Dorsey was one of those “little black women” who helped fuel Atlanta.

“Sit down and listen to them,” said Dickens. “They will tell you what they think.”

Dickens said he first met Dorsey in 2013, when he was first running for city council. Former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin encouraged him to get to know Dorsey.

“From the moment I met her, she had an opinion,” Dickens said. “His opinions had an influence on the head and the heart. This lady legend told me about affordable housing. Let me show you how to do it.

It was Dorsey who helped convince Dickens to make “affordability” his gospel.

“She was a decade ahead of her time,” Franklin said during the service. She remembers being first introduced to Dorsey by Dan Sweat when they were considering creating the ANDP to focus on affordability in mixed-income communities. “This is now our mayor’s priority.”

Dorsey was the oldest of 11 children, which Franklin said gave her leadership skills to get people on board with her vision of a more equitable Atlanta.

“She was serious and glamorous, determined but loving and kind,” Franklin said. “She expanded her network to others.”

The third mayor to speak was Andrew Young.

“What Hattie did in her real life was take the spirit of the Lord and put it in the gumbo pot, simmering it with seasonings,” Young said. “To go to Hattie’s with Shirley and eat that gumbo, she would have given you the life lesson you needed that day.”

I remember knowing Dorsey in the late 1980s, when she was developing plans to create the ANDP – the entity she would later lead for 15 years.

Dorsey was the first person to tell me about “holistic” communities. She said it was important to create mixed-income and mixed-use communities, places where residents could learn, shop, play and receive services.

“Clearly, Atlanta is the leader in holistic communities,” said John O’Callaghan, who succeeded Dorsey as ANDP president. “I’m not surprised that she was a visionary who brought cutting-edge national concepts to Atlanta and the country with mixed-income and purpose-built communities. ANDP is just one of the seeds she planted.

Other architects of Atlanta’s holistic approach to communities were present at the service. Egbert Perry, CEO of Integral Group, and Renee Glover, former CEO of the Atlanta Housing Authority, were present at the service. They helped create the Hope VI model that transformed the Techwood Homes public housing project into the mixed-income community of Centennial Place before the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

O’Callaghan, who has worked at ANDP for 18 years, said other cities often travel to Atlanta to learn more about the model, one that Dorsey helped design. When he first met Dorsey, he was working for former Atlanta Mayor Jackson early in his third term. He was tasked with helping with one of Jackson’s initiatives – housing – and O’Callaghan was able to benefit from tutorials from Dorsey.

Nathaniel Smith, founder of Partnership for Southern Equity, explained how Dorsey mentored him.

“She spoke truth to power,” Smith said, adding how she helped raise him. “I didn’t invite you into these rooms with the powerful to keep quiet. Speak.

Since then, Smith has spoken out.

“Hattie was amazing,” Smith said. “She was so powerful that she took a city too busy to hate and made sure it wasn’t a city too busy to care.”

The Rev. Anthony AW Motley of Lindsay Baptist Church said Dorsey was a mentor to so many people in Atlanta.

“We are gathered here to celebrate the life of an incredible woman, a Renaissance woman, a pioneer, a woman who broke the glass ceiling, a woman who championed civil rights and human rights, women’s rights and the rights of everyone.

The program revealed several facts about Dorsey that many of us didn’t know. At age 11, she battled rheumatic fever and spent three years at St. Francis Hospital and Children’s Cardiac Sanitarium in Roslyn, New York.

She later began her graduate studies at Spelman College before transferring to Clark Atlanta University to study secretarial science. In 1963, she joined the administration of Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. as a personal assistant, becoming the first black employee in the mayor’s office. She also used her secretarial skills to work for U.S. Representative Charles Weltner in the 1960s.

Dorsey was also politically active, serving as first vice chair of the Georgia Democratic Party. She also served as chair of the Georgia Democratic Party’s Women’s Caucus until 2022.

Like Young said, Dorsey had that special sauce.

“We didn’t have a plan, but we had a spirit that tied things together,” said Young, who then addressed Mayor Dickens. “When you catch hell, Mayor, find out what Hattie put in that gumbo. “

Later, Young said Dorsey found ways to contribute in Atlanta.

“Hattie always had ideas, suggestions and an order,” Young said. “You want to know why it’s a big city? It’s thanks to people like Hattie Dorsey who put divine seasoning on it.

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