Atlanta’s new mayor heralded a new posture of collaboration with the city’s international community Tuesday at the relaunch of what he said would become an annual luncheon at City Hall with the Atlanta Consular Corps.
Andre Dickens cast the diplomats, binational chamber leaders and trade officials representing more than 70 countries as key allies in his plan to move the city forward and grow its global profile.
“This is my first year. They guarantee me that I have four, and I’m going to take as many as necessary to get to eight, God-willing, so we can do this eight times, if you will, over and over again. I want to make sure that we are welcoming to the international community,” Mr. Dickens told the diplomats in a speech.
Some have complained privately that the administration of Keisha Lance Bottoms, who decided not to seek re-election last year, had de-prioritized the city’s relationships with the local consular corps, especially as the pandemic and amid racial justice protests consumed much of the latter part of her tenure.
Upon taking office this January, Mr. Dickens was invited to address the corps at one of its monthly luncheons, a bid to set a new tone for future engagement. But Mexican Consul General Javier Diaz de Leon said the new mayor turned that invitation on its head, promising instead to bring the group into City Hall.
“I thought it was befitting to show our welcoming spirit, to show our commitment to you, to show our hospitality to make sure we saw your faces and invited you into our spaces so that we can start this journey together,” Mr. Dickens said in his remarks.
After shaking all the hands in the room, the mayor reinforced his motto: “I draw circles, not lines,” pointing to the importance of Atlanta’s immigrant and expatriate communities for the city’s growth in culture and commerce.
Mr. Dickens praised his Office of International Affairs, especially Director Vanessa Ibarra, for their steadfastness and persistence in maintaining and even advancing the city’s ties during the pandemic.
Ms. Ibarra said she had never seen the mayor, members of city council, the Office of Immigrant Affairs (Welcoming Atlanta), the city-run Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the consular corps, binational chambers and trade offices come together at City Hall.
“I’ve been with the office close to eight years now, and we have never had this happen during this period, so I think it is very symbolic,” she told the city leaders and diplomats gathered at the city’s gothic-style old council chambers.
Ms. Ibarra pointed to the consulates as key partners in telling the city’s story to the world, framing Atlanta as a place where myriad agencies and partners work in solidarity to get big things done, both in investment and trade but also when it comes to making residents and visitors feel included. In a typical (non-COVID) year, the city hosts up to 100 delegations. She personally has welcomed visitors from some 150 countries.
Mr. Diaz, the Mexican consul general, said Mr. Dickens has been a “breath of fresh air” in his active engagement with the immigrant community, continuing a long tradition at City Hall, which has worked closely with his consulate and others, especially when the challenges of the pandemic necessitated a heightened level of outreach. Atlanta values its foreign-born population, Mr. Diaz said, as full members of the community.
“They may have different different religions, different ethnicities, but they’re all part of the city, and the city appreciates immigrants, and this is a very important voice that has always been there,” said Mr. Diaz, who has served more than five years in Atlanta and as its longest serving member carries the title of dean of the consular corps.
He engaged the mayor in a fireside chat after lunch, posing a few questions submitted by the diplomatic community. Mr. Dickens discussed the city’s efforts to foster racial equity, housing affordability and equitable growth, noting that Atlanta can provide local solutions to global problems while also learning from the experiences of its counterparts around the globe. As evidence of his faith in city-to-city exchange, Mr. Dickens will be headed to Washington in a few weeks as chair of the Truman Center for National Policy’s City and State Diplomacy Task Force.
It’s important for Atlanta not only to honor the legacy of Andrew Young and others who saw its global potential, but to build on the platform they set up: a city that is home to the country’s third largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies, an unrivaled film and music scene, a bona fide tech hub with 40 corporate innovation centers and a thriving cluster of nonprofits involved in global health and other sectors, the mayor said.
Atlanta has always “punched above its weight,” but Mr. Dickens said it’s time that the city’s presence in the world matched the gravity of its assets — one reason he is rooting for the FIFA World Cup to bring 2026 matches (hopefully the final) to the city.
He likened Atlanta’s standing to a young person finding their way in the world.
“In my mind, we’re in college. We’ve come out of high school; we’ve gone through our teenage years. We’re now ready for college graduation. This is where we really let the world see our work. We’ve grown; we’ve come over these challenges of growing pains and understanding where our place is in the world. But now we stand tall, and Atlanta can really be a partner internationally. We have assets that we should communicate broadly,” Mr. Dickens said.
The mayor said the luncheon is the first step in showing himself to be more accessible to the diplomatic corps, and he invited those assembled to provide him feedback when they felt like he was not measuring up to their expectations. He noted that he would also listen to advice from Ms. Ibarra and the rest of his international-affairs team.
“I want to make sure that we have the best example that you can have in the nation of a community that’s ready to work with the international community,” he said. “Like I said, we’ve grown. We’re on an international stage now. We’re about to graduate from college soon. So it’s necessary for us to build these relationships, because we really need the world to see Atlanta as just as competitive and as vital to the American sense of commerce and culture as you see these three or four other places like New York and Los Angeles, etc. So, we’re in it to win it, and we want you guys to be the ambassadors and the support mechanisms for me and the team to be able to do that.”
Ms. Ibarra ended the event by plugging the international Consular Ball to be held on Sept. 17, which will return as a fundraiser for the Georgia Council of International Visitors after a pandemic-era hiatus. This year’s theme is Lights, Camera, Action: Atlanta Showtime. Learn more here.
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