ATLANTA – Incumbent Mayor Kasim Reed is still riding high after winning a second four-year term with 84 percent of the vote.
In an interview with theGrio published this month, the mayor talked about his first-term accomplishments and plans for the city of Atlanta over the coming years.
In part two, Reed gives his views on race in America, President Obama’s historic election and re-election and the legacy of late Nelson Mandela.
“If you talk to a child today and you ask them can they be president no matter what their race is, they believe they can be president,” Reed said.
“The president and the first lady understood that when they offered themselves for office. They understood that they were changing the trajectory of all children in the United States because the ceiling of race and ethnicity has been moved.”
Reed, who met Mandela as a student at Howard University when he visited the campus in 1994, said, “His impact will be felt for decades and I think that he is easily one of the most important and impressive human beings that’s lived in this century and the last.”