Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has received a lot of praise for a passionate speech that has denounced the violence in her city and the rest of the United States of America after thousands of African American rioters vandalised public property to property to protest the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minnesota police earlier this week.
"What I see happening on the streets of Atlanta is not Atlanta. This is not a protest. This is not in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr.," Bottoms said at a news conference. "This is chaos."
Bottoms, an African American herself said, "I am a mother to four black children in America, one of whom is 18 years old. And when I saw the murder of George Floyd, I hurt like a mother would hurt," Bottoms said. "And yesterday when I heard there were rumours about violent protests in Atlanta, I did what a mother would do, I called my son and I said, 'Where are you?' I said, 'I cannot protect you and black boys shouldn't be out today.'"
In early July of 2019, Bottoms spoke out forcefully against planned Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Atlanta, and other cities, telling CNN at the time that her city was "not complicit in what's happening."
Bottoms is a former judge and a city council member. She campaigned for the post of Mayor of Atlanta on a Democrat ticket and was sworn into office in 2018. He speech has received nationwide praise, even using her as an example of how leadership should be.
