Nathaniel Smith on Building an Atlanta That Works for Everybody

By ButterATL · June 9, 2026 · Updated September 21, 2026

Who this is

Nathaniel Smith is a native Atlantan from Kirkwood who founded and leads the Partnership for Southern Equity, a multi-issue racial equity organization working across the American South. He's the child of activists who worked with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and he built the organization from a single grant into a group with 16 years of policy and organizing work across metro Atlanta. This episode published June 9, 2026.

What the conversation covers

This is an edited summary, not a transcript.

Smith opens with his own Atlanta story: growing up in Kirkwood in the 1990s, watching the Olympics accelerate gentrification pressure on his neighborhood, and seeing speculators knock on elderly residents' doors with lowball offers while code enforcement was used to push out legacy homeowners. He connects that firsthand experience directly to the work he does now.

He traces the founding of the Partnership for Southern Equity to a 2008 equity summit he organized in New Orleans while working at Emory University, shortly after Hurricane Katrina. That gathering convinced him Atlanta needed an organization built specifically around the word equity, at a time when almost nobody in the city's civic or philanthropic circles used that language. What started as a loose group called Equity Atlanta grew into an organization that now works on climate justice, transit, housing, and youth power building across the South.

Smith walks through concrete work the organization has done: helping expand transit into Clayton County for the first time in decades, raising emergency funds during COVID-19 when he says established donors were disproportionately funding white-led organizations, and pushing the Beltline's board, which he sat on and resigned from, over insufficient affordable housing commitments.

The conversation turns pointed when Smith describes tax allocation districts and large development projects like the Beltline as tools that can heal a community or damage it, depending entirely on who holds the power making the decisions. He argues Atlanta's early Black political power came from poor Black women organizing and voting, not from wealth alone, and that the city risks forgetting that history as it keeps talking about plans without following through on implementation.

Takeaways

• Smith grew up in Kirkwood in the 1990s during what he calls the crack epidemic, then watched Olympics-era investment accelerate gentrification and displacement in the same neighborhood (00:04:29).
• The Partnership for Southern Equity traces back to a 2008 equity summit Smith organized in New Orleans while working at Emory University, shortly after Hurricane Katrina (00:08:36).
• He remembers his organization's first funding as a small check from the Mayor Reynolds Babcock Foundation, calling it the moment he "thought I made it" (00:12:29).
• PSE organizing helped expand MARTA transit into Clayton County for the first time in more than 30 years (00:13:52).
• Smith resigned from the Atlanta Beltline board over inadequate affordable housing commitments; he says the resulting pressure led to a leadership change and additional affordable housing funding (00:20:50).
• He argues Atlanta's Black political power originated with poor Black women organizing and voting, not with wealth accumulation alone, a point he ties directly to why voting rights still matter as much as economic power (00:29:35).

In their words

"Kirkwood in the 90s during the crack epidemic." (00:04:33-00:04:36)

"My first little $500 check" from the Mayor Reynolds Babcock Foundation, "and I thought I made it." (00:12:31-00:12:40)

"Organized people is power the same way organized money is power. We have to organize all of it in order for us to move forward." (00:31:11-00:31:19)

Why it matters for brands working in Atlanta

This is our take, not Smith's. Smith's account of the Beltline is a useful check on the version of Atlanta's growth story that brands usually hear, which is the ribbon-cutting version. He's describing the same project from the side of the people who got priced out along the way, and he's specific about the policy mechanisms, tax allocation districts among them, that made that displacement possible.

For any brand or institution partnering with Atlanta neighborhoods or civic projects, his framing is worth sitting with: a development tool is neutral until you look at who's holding it and what they value. Smith's argument that Atlanta talks about plans more than it implements them is also a direct challenge to any brand campaign that treats a splashy announcement as the finish line rather than the start of the accountability that follows it.

Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/B9k64UrnJ00. Butternomics is hosted by Brandon Butler.