Page 117 - The Jazzsipper Novel

116

THE JAZZ SIPPER

have become. The question was a good thought provoking question, but with
Regina he had to know; but on his terms he thought.

As the time got closer and closer for him to be discharged from the military
he realized that New Orleans was not a viable place to move back to. He had
heard a lot about Atlanta, Georgia. It was called the Mecca for black people
and one of the most progressive cities of the south really in the U.S., a lot of
guys who were leaving the military were migrating to Atlanta. Vance decided
with three months left in the military that he would take his last two weeks of
leave and check the city out. Vance decided to use the $5,000.00 he was
holding in his emergency fund, because it was definitely an emergency to find
a place to live, if it was not going to be New Orleans. The Tidewater area was
definitely out of the question.

When Vance got to Atlanta on his two week vacation he was surprised
about how big the area was, it was a major international city. Vance soon
realized why they called Atlanta the Mecca for blacks, the city seem to be
predominantly black. It was the home of the civil rights movement, it had a
slew of black colleges and it had a huge black middle class. But what caught
Vance’s eye was the entrepreneurship of the city as a whole; it felt like
everyone in the city was running or owning their own businesses. Vance really
was interested in the street vendors they seemed like they really enjoyed what
they were doing and it seemed like a very profitable business to get into.
Throughout his two week stay he lived in the downtown area at a pretty decent
upscale hotel. He picked the minds of the hotel staff and the vendors in the
area to learn everything he could about Atlanta and the street vending
business. He even went down to the Atlanta Development Authority and filed