By Gabriel Kenedi
Published on
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Little Toulouse know it but the Pink City is twinned with the metropolis d’Atlanta (United States), since 1975 ! Student exchanges, cultural exchanges and economic partnerships have united the two cities since that date.
A love story
Why this twinning between Toulouse and the ninth city of the United States, capital of the state of Georgia? To find out, you have to go back to the 1950s.
At that time, as reported l’association Toulouse Atlanta, Irène Dobbs, a young African-American student from Atlanta, comes to Toulouse to do her doctorate in French literature. So she leaves without her fiancé, Maynard Holbrook Jackson. Crazy in love and unable to wait, Maynard Holbrook Jackson chooses to cross the Atlantic in order to marry his sweetheart… in Toulouse !
In tribute to his parents
25 years later, their son, Maynard Jackson, becomes the Atlanta’s first African-American mayor. In homage to his parents, he then proposed to Pierre Baudis, the mayor of Toulouse, a twinning, which will be carried out in 1975 (at the same time as that carried out with the city of Kiev, editor’s note).
“In Atlanta, we found a more than kind, warm welcome: for the Mayor, Mr. Jackson, Toulouse is adorned with old memories that make it incomparable. His parents had lived in our city, were married there and the warmth of our welcome was made of memories, but also of promises ”, explained. Pierre Baudis when signing the twinning charter, in Toulouse, on April 7, 1975.
April 7, 1975: Maynard Jackson, Mayor of Atlanta, is visiting Toulouse where he meets his counterpart Pierre Baudis to sign the twinning charter between the two cities@atlantaarchives @ATLHistCenter#archives #history #Photography#GeorgiaOnMyMindhttps://t.co/p3uarNdZ0o pic.twitter.com/ByK30YeWd4
– Toulouse Archives (@ToulouseArchive) April 7, 2019
Many twinnings
In addition to Atlanta and Kiev, the City of Toulouse has been twinned since 1962 with Tel Aviv (Israel), and since 1981 with Bologna (Italy), Chongqing (China) and Elche (Spain),
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A second visit in 1993
From then on, close links unite the two cities. Reelected mayor of Atlanta in 1990, Maynard Jakson went to Toulouse for the second time, as part of the twinning, in 1993, with his second wife, Valérie Richardson. The opportunity for Maynard Jakson to do a new wink to his parents.
As the Toulouse-Atlanta association relates, when he came to the Pink City, “Dominique Baudis was able to offer him, in addition to three pétanque balls, thea copy of his mother’s marriage certificate. Maynard Jackson could not hold back tears as he read this document. The couple took the opportunity to renew their wedding vows at the Capitol ”.
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