Time to Get TUFF: The Rise of the Tenant Movement in Atlanta Public Housing

This paper gives careful consideration to the central role that the organization Tenants United for Fairness (TUFF) played in improving living conditions for Atlanta’s public housing residents as well as in shifting the political landscape of the city. This paper will argue that the rise and success of TUFF was not the result of the waning political power of the “moderate coalition,” but rather, was foundational to the beginning of a “regime change” that would challenge paternalistic governance. While TUFF, founded in 1969, was supported by organizations such as the Atlanta Legal Aid Society and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, it created opportunities for individual public housing residents, many of whom were African American and female, to gain agency and a political voice. Thus, by examining both TUFF’s tactics as well as documents created by the group such as the “Tenants Bill of Rights” and the Poor People’s Newspaper, this paper seeks to change the narrative that tenants were either the root of public housing’s problems or were passive victims. Instead, this paper contends that public housing residents were citizen participants, educated in regards to their rights and actively working to see that those rights were both acknowledged and met. The actions of TUFF led to better living conditions for residents, the creation of a formal grievance process, and tenant representation on the housing authority’s board of directors. While historians have documented the national struggle for civil rights, efforts by local groups to turn that legislation into reality as well as assert their agency to enact change have received less attention.