With the Georgia State University Convocation Center filled with residents, community leaders, and elected officials, Andre Dickens was sworn in Monday for a second term as Atlanta’s 61st mayor, delivering an inaugural address that blended gratitude, momentum, and a clear challenge for the work ahead.
The ceremony marked the official swearing-in of Atlanta’s city leadership for the new term, including members of the Atlanta City Council, the City Council President, and judges of the Municipal Court of Atlanta, underscoring a shared responsibility across branches of city government to serve residents in the years ahead.
Thanking Atlantans for returning him to office with more than 85 percent of the vote, Mayor Dickens reflected on a lifelong commitment to the city that raised him and the progress achieved over the last four years. But the tone of the address made clear that this moment was not about celebration alone. It was about finishing the work.
Four years ago, Dickens said, Atlanta faced enormous questions about recovery, safety, housing, and opportunity. Today, he pointed to results. The city invested at a historic scale in affordable housing and homelessness prevention, opened hundreds of rapid rehousing units, and advanced more than 13,000 affordable housing units citywide. Through the Year of the Youth, Atlanta invested more than $40 million in young people and hired more than 19,000 youth at a living wage.
The mayor also highlighted major public safety gains, including one of the largest reductions in violent crime in the nation and fewer than 100 homicides in 2025. Youth-related crime dropped by more than half, while Atlanta Public Schools achieved the highest graduation rate in its history. At the same time, the city expanded parks and the BeltLine, reconnected communities to the Chattahoochee River, invested in small businesses, raised the city’s minimum wage, and earned its first-ever AAA bond rating.
“Across every measure,” Dickens said, “the Phoenix of Atlanta continues to rise.”
Still, the mayor emphasized that progress alone is not enough. Drawing from the biblical story of David, Dickens framed poverty and inequality as Atlanta’s modern-day Goliath, a challenge the city is no longer willing to manage or accept as inevitable.
“As a young man, I identified with David,” the mayor said, noting that leadership begins not in the palace, but in the field. “Atlanta understands that story, because leadership in this city has always begun in our neighborhoods.”
Dickens described neighborhoods long underestimated yet rich in resilience and possibility, explaining that this understanding shapes the defining work of his second term: the Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative, focused on ensuring every neighborhood in Atlanta is safe, healthy, connected, and whole.
Invoking the moment David faced Goliath, the mayor reminded the audience that David did not negotiate with the giant or accept him as permanent. He defeated him. In that same spirit, Dickens said Atlanta is done managing poverty, tolerating inequality, and accepting violence as destiny.
“These forces are not permanent,” he said. “They are not unbeatable, and they do not get the final word.”
The mayor outlined five priorities guiding the next four years: affordable housing, neighborhood investment, opportunities for youth, public safety, and ethical, effective government. Where Atlanta has already “thrown those stones,” Dickens said, the results have been undeniable, benefiting not just individual neighborhoods but the entire city.
City Council leadership echoed that commitment. Newly sworn-in Council President Marci Collier Overstreet emphasized partnership, fiscal responsibility, and accessibility, pledging to work alongside the mayor and council colleagues to deliver policies with real, measurable impact for residents. She pointed to the City Council’s unanimous passage of a $3 billion fiscal year 2026 operating budget as a strong foundation for the work ahead.
As the ceremony concluded, with city leaders officially sworn in and ready to serve, Mayor Dickens returned to the theme that defined both his address and the moment.
“Atlanta is a group project,” he said. “And we are ready to face our giants head-on.”
With applause filling the arena, the message was clear. Atlanta’s leadership enters the next four years aligned, energized, and committed to moving the city forward together.
