(majestic music) (majestic music continues) - Hello, I'm Jeff Hullinger inside the Atlanta History Center.

Dr.

Raphael Bostic is the president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

Each and every day, he and other members of the Federal Open Market Committee set the direction of the country's monetary policy, establishing fiscal strategies and long-term goals for the respective banks, while engaging with local business and community leaders.

If you think helping guide a $30 trillion economy is a bit stressful, you're probably right.

But Dr.

Bostic has found a way to get away from that stress, at least for an hour or two, with a hobby he says he literally stumbled upon.

I laced up my hiking boots and joined him one spring morning to learn more about the man and his newfound passion.

(birds chirping) (birds chirping) Like many who call North Georgia home, I've hiked the trails of Kennesaw Mountain Battle Park: ever-challenging, always interesting, this morning, no different.

Today's walk, the pursuit of ornithology, the glory and the appreciation of birds.

(gentle music) - [Raphael] Yes, yes.

- [Jeff] Now, we got a pretty good day weather-wise.

Sharing the Noses Creek Trail journey with me on this chilly April morning, an economist, academic, and public servant, the 15th president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, as we hike toward a favorite advocation.

- [Raphael] Atlanta's very interesting because it's got unique geography.

It's really in a good spot on the migration trail.

So when the birds are migrating up... Ooh, turkey vulture.

- [Jeff] Optics matter here, identification a defining aspect of this outdoor hobby.

With birdwatching, it's more than a wing and a prayer.

- So when the birds are migrating up from South America, the Caribbean, you know, they're on these long, long flights.

And so at some point they start to get tired.

And Kennesaw Mountain is like the first high thing they see.

And so it's a place where birds will often stop.

And so they call it dropping out, and they'll overnight.

And so this is a place at this time of the year where you'll see a lot of birds that actually nest in Canada and stuff as they're coming through.

- [Jeff] Is this the best time of year to spot birds?

- [Raphael] Every time of the year is great.

This is a good time for high varieties of birds because of the migration.

And so there are lots of birds that you'll see at this time of the year that you'll really only see at this time of the year or when they're flying down.

But Georgia and Atlanta has a ton of birds pretty much year-round.

- [Jeff] Dr.

Raphael Bostic is a passionate, dedicated bird watcher.

He is providing a tutorial for my untrained eyes.

- So today we'll see a lot of robins, cardinals, titmice, some warblers, sparrows, some jays.

You'll see blue jays.

You're hearing some robins right now.

And so it's a good time.

Maybe if we're lucky, we'll see a tanager.

In the summer, there's a lot tanager.

And some orioles are starting as well to move.

So it's a very nice time of the year.

And then it's also before the bugs come out.

- [Jeff] The bugs impact almost every outdoor Southern summer hobby, and President Bostic has learned quickly to adapt; a New Jersey native, a Harvard alum, the 58-year-old financial leader earned his master's and doctorate from Stanford, and discovered an adult affinity for nature, a pivot from indoors to outdoors.

- [Raphael] The wood thrush.

It's almost got like a flute-like call.

And they're gonna be pretty low out there.

- [Jeff] Like, how low are we talking?

- [Raphael] So you see this long branch across there?

It'll be from that probably down.

- How many variety of birds would you say are with us this morning?

- It's probably 50 to 60.

On a good day around here... That was a spotted towhee, eastern towhee.

On a good day, you can see 80 or 90 species.

This time of year has a good amount of variety, which is quite nice.

- What first peaked your interest into this hobby?

- This is a dumb-luck hobby, on some level.

My partner, now husband, and I were driving across the country to go to our next job in DC, and decided to do a national park tour.

And so we were going to all these national parks.

We had two different styles of hiking.

I was a get to the end of the trail type of guy, and Jeff was the journey is the point.

And so I'd be marching along, and I would be way ahead, and then wound up like saying, "Well, I should probably wait."

And then started noticing all these things bouncing around that I hadn't noticed before.

And then Jeff's sister got us a bird guide and a feeder.

And then so with study and engagement and then getting connected with some people who were actually quite good birders, who took me under their wing, you're just gonna get much better at it.

And now I'm the slow one on the trail.

- Being taken under the wing is a good thing.

- Exactly.

Yeah, I guess that's true.

(Jeff laughs) I hadn't really thought of it like that.

But just being out in the woods is great.

And, you know, it's peaceful.

It's very natural.

- And a new advocation, hobby, passion was hatched.

The calm is most welcome from a high-pressure job.

So when you were a kid growing up in New Jersey, did you envision the life that you now find yourself immersed in?

- Not at all (chuckles).

It's a funny thing.

I thought I was gonna be an engineer or a sports broadcaster.

- Sports broadcaster?

Really?

- I love sports.

- You know, I did the Atlanta Falcons for years on radio.

Is that a job that you would like?

- Oh my goodness, that would be amazing.

That would be amazing.

- I'm sorry we didn't get to work together.

- I know.

I would've really enjoyed that.

Yeah, I was a huge sports fan growing up.

And, you know, basketball, baseball, football.

Even today when, you know, I watch my games, I'm yelling at the TV making my commentary in real time.

And so it's a lot of fun.

- [Jeff] Shouldering the burden of inflation, economics, unemployment, navigating the complexity of American politics and policy while dealing with the specter of public life; the solitude, with reflection, offers a welcome respite from a demanding Atlanta life.

Atlanta has been satisfying for you.

- Atlanta's been great.

It's been very, very interesting.

I've learned a lot.

So this job is interesting, because, you know, it's a big job from an economy perspective.

So I get to talk to a lot of business leaders.

I've learned a lot about how industry works and sort of what it takes to be successful in business, which has been quite interesting.

But because of what we're doing and because, you know, the Federal Reserve has two mandates: it's inflation, but also maximum employment.

We're thinking hard about like what does work look like and how do people get to work?

And that's much more of a micro in neighborhoods, in communities.

Are the schools working?

Are there workforce development and training opportunities?

Is there capital if you want to start a small business?

Like, how do all of these things work?

Which has then brought me in contact with community groups, local governments, county governments that are trying to contribute to things.

And so I get to see lots of challenges, but I also, going around my Sixth State District, a lot of innovation, a lot of folks have figured some things out.

And then you see, it's like, oh my goodness, this is just incredible.

- I think you really make an interesting point that I think is lost on a lot of people when they get, you know, totally caught up in national politics, whether it's the presidency or the US Senate or the House of Representatives.

Real change comes through county commissioners, it comes through city councilmen, it comes through the small aspects of American government that exact big change.

But we're not really schooled in such a way.

And it's not as sexy as, you know, protesting against a president or being supportive of another candidate of which you may subscribe to the ideology.

- So the nice thing about the local is that it's like a huge experiment.

There are experiments happening all over the place, and that's where, in many regards, knowledge gets created.

That's where we learn about what works.

And then the goal, I think, is to find those things and then find ways to elevate them so they can be done at scale.

So a lot of the federal policies emerged from things that started as an idea in some local community, found out that it worked, and then all of a sudden that became the story.

You see this time and time again.

And, you know, we're trying to create more of those stories that then create new understandings.

- [Jeff] President Bostic made national headlines appearing before a moderated Atlanta discussion at Emory, making it clear that the Fed must avoid acting hastily in response to ever-evolving economic policies.

And the complexity of American politics is such that what might have been one way years ago no longer is.

- Well, you know, the world is always evolving.

And, you know, opportunities for innovation, you know, create new opportunities and new ways of working.

And, you know, for me, I'm terrible with technology.

I always want to be the last adopter.

But technology always gives, it means that there are different ways you can do things and different ways that you can change and be present in the economy.

And that's been very interesting.

So trying to keep track of that is something that I've really wanted to do.

But also try to make sure that as new technologies emerge and evolve, that the creators are thoughtful about making sure that they become accessible to everyone, so that everyone has the same chance to take advantage of them and do new and interesting things.

- It's a great challenge.

It's one thing for the academics of economics and all of these wonderful things that you've accomplished in the world of academia, but being a public figure is a very, very different dance.

- We're at this conference, and I'm talking; these people start like standing around me.

And I was like, "What are you doing?"

I let you talk to the famous person.

They're like, "No, we want to talk to you, 'cause we like your stuff.

And you're really famous."

And I was really stunned.

Like, it was an interesting thing.

And what it really taught me is that you don't know who's watching, and you don't know of what you're doing is gonna like catch someone's attention and get them to really think about you.

(gentle music) - [Jeff] President Bostic also employs the same measured response when identifying birds by sight or sound.

(bird chirping) - So that call is a robin.

(birds chirping) - Oh, oh, right on the sign.

- I see it.

- That's a phoebe.

- Preening for us.

- Uh-huh.

- And then on the trail... Where did it go?

It just flew up.

I think that was a chipping sparrow.

(birds chirping) Oh!

Yeah, they're in that low branch in the front.

- Mm-hmm.

- Ooh!

(birds chirping) That's a white-breasted nuthatch.

If you look on the tree trunk, on the tree on the left, you see it flying down, walking down the trunk?

- I do.

- On the left-hand side.

That's a white-breasted nuthatch.

(birds chirping) It's a bluebird to the right.

- [Jeff] Men of accomplishment like yourself always have to be fueled by the next thing.

Or ambition for someone like you looks very different from a lot of other people.

How does that spell out for you at this point in your life?

- [Raphael] You know, it's funny.

I'm not like a long term, three years from now, I want to be in a warm place or something like that.

I really just try to do things that I really like, that I enjoy, that have a passion about, and do them to the best of my ability.

And what I've found is that when I do that, people seem to notice it.

It allows me to be in conversations that are interesting, and then new opportunities will present themselves.

And for me, I think the thing I've tried to always be open to is anything could be an opportunity, even the unexpected.

And so like this job, 12 months before I was in the role, it was not on my list at all.

- Really?

- Not at all.

You know, I was a happy professor in Los Angeles at USC, and a headhunter just called me and said, "Do you think you'd be interested?"

And I was like, "That sounds pretty interesting as a position."

Throw my hat in the ring, never really thinking that I would get it.

And then here we are.

So just staying open, you just never know what the future will bring.

- [Jeff] But today, the boardroom, the news conferences, the suit and tie are on hold.

The psychological break is most welcome.

- Yeah, it's actually a very interesting type of little meadow.

You'll see like for places like this, you're gonna look for things bouncing around in the grasses.

But you're also gonna try to see, 'cause there are a bunch of good edges here.

So you'll get flycatchers and things that will get perched on the outskirts, and then they'll fly out, catch something, and then go back.

It's called catching things on the wing.

(bright music) - And it's beautiful.

(bright music continues) (bright music fades) Serving in his second term, Dr.

Bostic could be appointed to a third, but will have to leave that role in 2031 when he reaches the Federal Reserve's mandatory retirement age of 65.

One part of our financial ecosystem that the Federal Bank president is all too familiar with is the economic engine that is Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

And while the birds seen at that field are far less rare, a plane takes off and lands at the airport every 30 to 45 seconds.

Its financial impact has come at a cost.

You can still find remnants on the current 4,700 acre facility of what came before, and those impacted by its continual growth and change.

An old cemetery, hardly newsworthy, old family plots and long-gone church cemeteries dot in Atlanta that has grown 100-fold since most were established, many times fully enveloping them, or worse, completely erasing them from public conscience, usually in the name of progress.

But this one is different, unique, something truly keeping those buried here from resting in peace.

(airplane roaring) - [Hannah] This is the world's busiest airport.

There are no breaks.

- [Jeff] Under the mighty roar.

And these souls are used to it after 70 years, sadly.

- This is the the quietest, most peaceful spot in the airport.

- [Jeff] This cemetery sits in the middle of one of the busiest airports in the world, Atlanta's own Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

And it's not the only one.

Just down the road sits another, the Hart Family Cemetery.

Both are situated between runway four and five in a small green space surrounded by miles of pavement and concrete, moving passengers on commuter and jumbo jets to destinations far and wide.

- You know, we can't even imagine all of this happened on this land.

And these gravestones will only last as long as their descendants are here to tend them and fight for them.

So it's just really remarkable that like so much around here has changed.

But this is one little slice of the history that makes you think about all that's happened before.

- Hannah Palmer is a local author that has studied the impacts of the airport on the surrounding areas.

You know, I think sometimes we think of Hartsfield-Jackson as this behemoth, which it is, the biggest economic engine in the state; and you can make the argument, in the Southeast, and I think it is.

Nothing was gonna get in the way of that, just nothing.

And nothing has.

- Except maybe these two small cemeteries that are located between the runways.

- [Jeff] Her book "Flight Path: A Search for Roots beneath the World's Busiest Airport," follows her personal journey to find out what happened to her childhood homes as the airport grew, wiping out not just the neighborhood she grew up in, but in many cases the whole communities.

How far away are we from where Mountain View was?

- I think maybe it's about two miles to the east of here.

- At what point did it completely disappear from our consciousness?

- Late '70s is when the city lost its charter.

And then from there, by the early '80s, city of Atlanta was buying out all of the homes and relocating residents and businesses.

- [Jeff] And swallowing up places like College Park and Hapeville as well.

- [Hannah] That's right, you know, where we're standing was rural, but College Park to the west, Hapeville to the north, and Mountain View to the east were densely populated.

Lots and lots, hundreds of homes and businesses were relocated to make way for the domestic terminal and the sort of cargo area that was built in Hapeville, that they relocated hundreds of families.

- But to understand why this all took place, you first have to know how this airport became the behemoth that it is today.

In 1910, Coca-Cola owner Asa Candler bought 300 acres of farmland just south of the small town of Hapeville; hoping to cash in on the automobile craze happening at the time, He built a racetrack.

The other newfangled invention, the airplane also made appearances at the flying exhibitions at the track.

When the public and Candler lost interest in the new fads, the land went quiet, but aviation continued to grow in importance.

And by 1925, Atlanta needed an airport.

So Candler leased the land to the city and turned it into Candler Field.

City Council member William Hartsfield pushed to turn the property into a major airport, and by 1929, the city wanted to buy the land.

Hartsfield persuaded the city to spend around $94,000, about 1.8 million in today dollars, to purchase the site.

Throughout the 1930s, the airfield was upgraded and expanded.

The first passenger terminal was built as commercial aviation took off.

Delta Airlines moved their headquarters there and created a hub.

By the time World War II had started, commercial and military training flights made it the busiest airport in the country.

It would become a familiar theme.

New runways were paved, and an old army hangar was converted into a temporary passenger terminal.

By the end of the war, developers in the surrounding towns began to build small ranch-style tract homes for GIs returning from the war, many finding jobs related to the airport, and at the Ford Motors plant built in Hapeville.

In 1959, the jet age arrived, and it was apparent that a new terminal was needed.

That opened in May of 1961.

By 1964, the airport had two east/west runways.

You can see some of the neighborhoods protruding between them.

William Hartsfield, who went on to become Atlanta's mayor and was so instrumental in creating the airport, died in 1971.

It was renamed in his honor.

The international moniker was added that year when Eastern Airlines started service to Mexico City.

Deregulation of the airline industry occurred in 1978, and that meant more airlines trying to use the increasingly crowded space.

A terminal that was designed to handle 18 million passengers annually was now handling 42 million.

Yet again, a new terminal and layout was needed.

Work began on the Midfield Terminal that we all know and love today.

the plan would require over 1200 acres of surrounding land to be acquired.

Mayor Maynard Jackson would lead the charge for the new facility, costing over $500 million.

It would officially open in September of 1980 and be the world's largest passenger terminal; continued expansion and added runways would be the formula for the next 40 years.

(airplane roaring) What was it like being a little girl growing up in the shadow of the airport?

Must have been kind of exciting.

- It was.

It was.

To be able to see the planes take off and land, and at the time, sometimes we'd go out to the edge of the airport and watch 'em take off and land.

But as the planes were built larger and the airport started gradually expanding, the noise just became almost deafening.

- Sue Nunnally grew up in a College Park neighborhood that bordered the airport.

Roughly speaking, where would we be in the old Newton East states?

- Just probably about a quarter of a mile up where the back of the rental car agency is.

That would've been the corner of our street.

That was Oak Hill Drive.

- They saw firsthand how the city used eminent domain to force their parents and neighbors out of their homes.

When this first started to sort of rear its head in the early 1970s, was there optimism that was rooted in the strength of neighborhood, or maybe some false lights from local politicians?

I mean, at some point you realize this is a giant octopus that simply is not going to be defeated.

- [Sue] I think my parents had hoped that they could maybe fight the city of Atlanta and maybe try to keep their neighborhood, keep their homes; and maybe if they just added storm windows and all the things that you could, HVAC systems that would insulate them from the noise, that maybe they could stay.

And it just did not become a reality.

It was just very sad, 'cause I think they had a home that they had paid for, and it was their dream home.

- Do you remember the sort of, I don't know, the collective feel of when the verdict had come in here, that everybody was gonna have to go, what it was sort of like?

I mean, you know, it's almost like being deported in sort of a strange way.

- It is.

It is.

And some of the words that were used in some of the paperwork that my parents had kept for years and years, it was displacement, relocation, and acquisition.

And it was a very, it was a cold process.

But from the side of the city of Atlanta, they needed to follow certain steps to take the homes that were there.

- [Jeff] And they always missed it, even when they were gone, right?

- They did.

They always referred to it as the home place.

And you always knew they were talking about the home on Oak Hill Drive.

- [Jeff] Finally forced out, Nunnally says her family were able to bring one keepsake.

- Their most prized possession of everything they owned was not something inside the house, but it was the hundreds of azaleas that they had raised.

When they bought another place in Fayette County, they decided to take as many of the azaleas as they could.

They probably moved 50 or so, and they let other folks take them as well.

They were very connected to that, and they loved growing them.

- No one can argue about the importance or financial impact that the airport has on the region.

It's the state's largest employer, with more than 63,000 people directly employed from its operations, contributing over $66 billion to the state's economy.

It's on and off again role as the world's busiest airport means over 100 million passengers pass through its halls and gates each year, and attracts businesses from around the world because of its international connectivity.

Even Sue Nunnally understands why the neighborhoods around the airport were destined to disappear.

When you see this and you see what Hartsfield-Jackson has evolved into, what do you sense, what is your reflection like in 2025?

- Hmm.

Well, of course it's changed over the years.

I mean, I am grateful for the airport.

- And your husband's a pilot, so there's a sort of irony to that.

- There is, there is.

I mean, we love planes and we love travel.

And so the ease of coming up to the Atlanta airport, wherever from the suburbs, wonderful to have that option.

- [Jeff] Hannah Palmer agrees, but also understands the importance of remembering what and who came before.

- The landscape is ancient.

It's haunted.

You know, we can't even imagine all that's happened on this land.

And these gravestones will only last as long as their descendants are here to tend them and fight for them.

So it's just really remarkable that like so much around here has changed.

But this is one little slice of the history that makes you think about all that's happened before.

I enjoy how the families that are buried here are disrupting the development of the airport.

They're kind of holding a space in time and holding, you know, a glimpse of the past that is in conflict and contrast with the rest of progress at the airport.

- Since the 1970s, Atlanta city leaders have debated whether a second airport might be needed.

They even bought two large tracts of rural land, around 20,000 acres, north of Atlanta.

But that debate has yet to be settled.

for Georgia Legends, I'm Jeff Hullinger.

(majestic music) (majestic music continues) (majestic music ends)