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Atlanta mayor Bottoms praised for response to unrest in city

Andrew Harnik
/
AP

  ATLANTA (AP) — When the United States erupted in unrest following Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968, his hometown of Atlanta was one of the few major cities to maintain relative peace. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms invoked that history in a passionate and deeply personal plea for protesters to go home.

“When Dr. King was assassinated, we didn’t do this to our city,” Bottoms said Friday night. “If you care about this city, then go home.”

The protests are quickly becoming a high-stakes leadership test for Bottoms just as her national profile is rising. She is under consideration to be presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s running mate — and even if she isn’t tapped for that role, many Democrats view Bottoms as a rising star within the party.

Protests in Atlanta over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white officer in Minneapolis pressed a knee into his neck, turned violent before Bottoms spoke. Police cars were smashed and CNN’s headquarters was vandalized as protests shook a city that prides itself as the birthplace of the civil rights movement.

Bottoms addressed the crowds both as a mayor and a mother.

“I am a mother to four black children in America, one of whom is 18 years old,” Bottoms said. “When I saw the murder of George Floyd, I hurt like a mother.”

When she heard of the potential of protests, Bottoms said she called her son to find out where he was.

“I said, ’I cannot protect you and black boys shouldn’t be out today,’” she said.

Her message to protesters: “You’re not going to out-concern me ... about where we are in America. I wear this each and every day.”

Bottoms’ remarks were widely praised.