Shipman names Atlanta City Council chairs after criticism for leaving Black female leadership out
Doug Shipman, former CEO of the Woodruff Arts Center and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, was elected president of Atlanta City Council in November 2021.
Courtesy of Doug Shipman
Atlanta City Council President Doug Shipman announced he is making a change in committee leadership just hours before the council was scheduled to meet Tuesday.
Shipman says he will keep Councilmember Marci Collier Overstreet as chair of the zoning committee instead of Councilmember Matt Westmoreland.
That’s after an ad published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Sunday paper, paid for by Overstreet and Councilmember Andrea Boone, alleged that Shipman denied all Black women on the council a chance to chair committees.
The two councilmembers said they were surprised by Shipman’s actions since he is the former CEO of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. They said that should have made him more sensitive to the diversity needs of the city.
“There was no reason why a Black woman should not have been in his committee structure after nearly four decades,” Boone said.
Shipman first responded in a letter to the council that he made a point to meet with councilmembers one-on-one and that Boone and Overstreet did not reach out to him about their concerns before publishing the ad.
A spokesperson from the AJC said prices for advertisements in the paper vary, but on average, a half-page ad costs about $3,600. According to Boone, the ad was paid for by personal funds.
Shipman announced in early December that he planned to appoint Westmoreland to chair the zoning committee and Liliana Bakhtiari to chair the Committee on Council. At the time, the committees were chaired by Overstreet and Boone, respectively.
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