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Mayor’s Office of Communications
55 Trinity Avenue, Suite 2500 • Atlanta, Georgia 30303

Statement on Passing of Former City Council President Marvin Arrington, Sr.

ATLANTA—Mayor Dickens has issued the following statement on the passing of former City Council President Marvin Arrington, Sr.:

‘Making My Mark: The Story of a Man Who Wouldn’t Stay in His Place.’

That is what Marvin Arrington, Sr. titled his autobiography, and it could not have been more fitting.

Judge Arrington has passed and Atlanta has lost a lion.

I cannot, at this moment, think of a single person who loved Atlanta more than he loved us. And we will always be grateful that he indeed ‘wouldn’t stay in his place.’ If it is true that love ought to look like something, then Judge Arrington’s love of Atlanta came in the form of working hard to see his hometown grow into its greatness and pushing us to be better, to do better. Yet he never asked more of us than he was willing to give.

He was Atlanta through and through. A ‘Grady Baby,’ Judge Arrington graduated from Clark College and later became one of Emory University Law School’s first Black graduates. He served on the Atlanta Board of Aldermen, and later as president of the Atlanta City Council. He was an accomplished lawyer and Superior Court Judge.

I am honored to call him my Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity brother and I am honored to have known him as one of the exceptional leaders of Atlanta.

On behalf of this entire city, I am sending my sincere and heartfelt condolences to his son Marvin Jr., daughter Michelle, and the entire Arrington family.  We pray that a merciful God grants you comfort and peace during this difficult period.

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