The Trump administration’s crackdown on diversity programs arrived last month for Atlanta’s airport, with a demand to cancel inclusion policies or lose federal funding. Mayor Andre Dickens refused — forfeiting tens of millions of dollars for the world’s busiest aviation hub.

But for Dickens, who’s led the city since 2022, it was worth it. Atlanta is, after all, the place that gave rise to the US civil rights movement; the city that promoted itself in the 1960s with the slogan that it was “too busy to hate.”

The mayor’s statement summed up the dilemma he faced after refusing to make changes. “The city is currently evaluating all options to ensure alignment with our long-held values, local policy and federal law,” Dickens said.

His balancing act tells the story of Atlanta in the age of the Trump presidency. Since the ‘60s, the city has built its reputation as a place where the shared interests of economic progress and corporate growth have been intertwined. Some of the country’s most iconic companies — and biggest employers — have long called it home.

Now, not all of them are following the mayor’s lead.

At Coca-Cola Co., references to racial and gender representation have been removed from the corporate website. Home Depot Inc. and United Parcel Service Inc. have replaced mentions of diversity, equity and inclusion with “respect for all people,” and “inclusion and belonging.”

The corporations are just three of a growing number of household names that are making changes to their DEI policies, after President Donald Trump assailed the initiatives with a series of executive actions that labeled them as illegal.

The companies that built their fortunes and legacies in Atlanta find themselves in a precarious squeeze play: trying to comply with the orders while holding on to the community relationships and corporate values they’ve spent years building, often with the support of local civil rights leaders and organizations.

“These companies are backing away from DEI, and it’s hurting their relationships in the communities,” said Reverend Jamal-Harrison Bryant, an Atlanta-area pastor who has led a recent boycott against Target Corp. for eliminating its diversity initiatives. “It’s a real bone-chilling time.”

Nobel Prize Unites the City

When Martin Luther King Jr., then an Atlanta-based pastor, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, just as legal segregation was ending, local White business leaders were reluctant to attend a dinner in his honor. It was then-Coca-Cola president Robert Woodruff who corralled them to celebrate King’s return to the city, in an early example of executives deciding that inclusivity was good for business.

“Woodruff figured out early on that he had to sell to everybody,” said F. Sheffield Hale, chief executive officer of the Atlanta History Center. “He convinced White business leaders to do what they had to do.”

It was the making of what would become known as “The Atlanta Way,” a partnership between business, community and political leaders working together to unlock the city’s economic growth. Maynard Jackson, who became Atlanta’s first Black mayor in 1974, burnished the arrangement when he insisted on minority participation in contracting programs — most notably at the city’s airport, now the busiest in the world.

The legacy of Jackson’s program is still part of the airport’s DNA today, with a commitment that 25% of business should go to minority-owned firms and another 10% to women-led organizations — exactly the initiative that the Trump administration wanted cancelled.

Across the US, many of the country’s vast panoply of programs, funds and goals that fit together under the umbrella of DEI can trace their roots to Atlanta’s example, where King’s advocacy helped forge support for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which made it illegal to discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

“This nation, through Atlanta, has already done the demonstration model as to the value of diversity,” said Kenneth Neighbors, a law partner at McGuireWoods in Atlanta who’s also chairman of the firm’s diversity & inclusion committee.

Some 50-plus years later, corporate DEI efforts were turbocharged after the 2020 death of George Floyd, whose filmed murder by a police officer brought racial oppression to life for many Americans. In response, corporations made loud pledges to economic equality, framing diversity as a business imperative.

It didn’t take long for momentum to stall. Conservative activists started targeting corporate DEI programs — either via shareholder votes or public campaigns — and companies stopped touting their efforts so loudly. Then, in June 2023, the Supreme Court ended race-conscious admissions at universities, sparking fears that the workplace could be next.

“These recent actions are designed to interfere with the success of Black people,” Andrew Young, the 93-year-old former UN ambassador, Atlanta mayor and US congressman, who worked closely with King, said in an interview. “I would have hoped we’d have more lasting impact,” he said.

Roots in Corporate Diversity

For Atlanta’s most prominent companies, the backlash has posed a threat to corporate reputations that were built over long and challenging years.

In 2000, Coca-Cola settled a lawsuit by Black employees alleging discrimination, paying $192.5 million and tying executive pay to diversity goals. It later hired its first diversity chief, doubled board diversity, and aimed for women to hold half of senior roles by 2030.

But momentum started fading after 2021, when its top lawyer quit after controversy over a diversity plan for outside firms. And now under Trump, a string of executive orders targeting DEI practices in government has added pressure — including for federal contractors like Coca-Cola, which supplies drinks to the military and other institutions.

In February, conservative activist Robby Starbuck — who has successfully pushed for DEI rollbacks at major US corporations — said he was investigating Coca-Cola. Soon after, the company’s annual report dropped mentions of diversity goals and language that called DEI a growth driver, while at the same time warning that a less diverse workforce could be a risk to business. Coca-Cola hasn’t named a new DEI chief since May. A representative for Coca-Cola didn’t respond to a request for comment.

After months of pressure from conservative groups, including Starbuck, Atlanta-based Home Depot also removed its DEI policy from its corporate website this year. Instead of including a breakdown of its workforce demographics and saying it would increase its pipeline of diverse suppliers, Home Depot’s annual report this year touted “Respect for All People” and “a culture that welcomes everyone.”

A representative for Home Depot said it remains committed to an inclusive culture, and that the recent communications changes reflect an intentional effort to focus on specific goals, actions and outcomes.

“I’d encourage elected Democrats to emulate the much wiser executives at public companies who’ve made sweeping changes to remove divisive DEI policies,” said Robby Starbuck, who has advised government agencies on efforts to eliminate DEI. “They understand the legal eventualities and financial ramifications far better than the two-bit actors who make up much of our political class today.”

Even UPS, which in 1994 moved its headquarters from Greenwich, Connecticut to Atlanta — bringing along a community of Black workers who stockpiled equity and became wealthy when the company went public a few years later — hasn’t been able to shield itself from the DEI backlash. In its most recent annual report, “diversity, equity and inclusion” was replaced by “workforce representation,” and language detailing how leveraging diverse perspectives drives growth was deleted.

A representative for UPS said that throughout its history the company has embraced different perspectives as drivers of its success, and that it is still dedicated to this approach.

Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., said in an interview that the White House executive orders targeting diversity are “undoing what my parents and others sacrificed their lives for.”

By the end of 2023, as backlash against corporate DEI grew, Black employees had lost most of the gains they made in the workforce since 2020, a Bloomberg analysis of data provided to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission showed.

Even so, many companies are still supporting diversity efforts behind the scenes, said John Hope Bryant, an Atlanta-based entrepreneur.

Businesses that have publicly scaled back DEI programs have mostly made small changes, Bloomberg News has reported.

It’s not yet clear whether the latest pullbacks from DEI will affect hiring or promotions. Companies must still report workforce data to the EEOC by race and gender, but the 2025 figures won’t be available until next year.

“These companies are not backing down from making decisions that are good for business,” Bryant said. “Diversity isn’t just part of the moral fabric — it is an economic engine.”

Boom and Bust of DEI Training

Right in the middle of downtown Atlanta, the city’s sprawling National Center for Civil and Human Rights sits next to the World of Coca-Cola on land donated by the soft-drink maker, offering sightseers an immersive experience into both America’s consumer culture and its pursuit of equality.

The center has long offered DEI training, but after Floyd’s murder, demand soared. Interest was so high that the non-profit monetized the workshops, charging about $8,000 for two sessions from a list of options, including “Applying the Lessons of History to the Workplace.”

“People were looking at Atlanta and how it overcame how divided our country had been,” said Philip Polk, who leads the educational program at the center. “If Atlanta was able to get past this notion of racial division, what’s the secret sauce?”

The boom didn’t last long. After the Supreme Court decision on college admissions and the legal challenges to DEI programs, demand for the training started to wane, said Polk.

Earlier this year, the center ditched DEI in the title and renamed the program “Culture Connections.” Interest has started to rebound, Polk said, but “there’s still a lot of uncertainty and confusion,” from companies unsure exactly what they’re allowed to do.

A couple minutes walk away, at the Coca-Cola museum, tourists pass by a huge vault, touted as the home of the secret formula for the company’s signature drink. Nearby, tucked inside a drawer, is a 1965 letter from King, thanking Coca-Cola for bringing the city together to fete him.

“I must confess that few events have warmed my heart as did this occasion,” King wrote. “It was a testimonial not only to me but to the greatness of the city of Atlanta, the South, the nation and its ability to rise above the conflict of generations and really experience that beloved community where all differences are reconciled and all hearts in harmony.”

____

—With assistance from Bill Haubert and Jeff Green.

©2025 Bloomberg News. Visit at bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.