Wes Jordan Seeks Charlie Croker’s Public Support for Fareek

Wes Jordan’s effort to enlist Charlie Croker as a public supporter of Fareek Fanon turns a private legal crisis into a test of Atlanta’s racial and political alliances. Jordan does not claim Fareek is innocent; he wants a prominent white figure to insist that the accused man’s rights be protected and that the public not rush to judgment. By taking Roger White through sharply contrasting parts of the city and asking him to help bring Croker aboard, Jordan makes the proposed endorsement both a political tactic and an argument about who is seen, heard, and believed in Atlanta.

An inevitable public story

Jordan begins by warning Roger that the allegation will become public whether or not the press brings it out. Too many people already know, he says, so the important question is no longer whether the story will emerge but what will happen afterward. Roger has no clear answer. Jordan’s warning gives the drive its urgency: the mayor is preparing for a public crisis before the press has fully seized it, and he wants Roger to help shape the response.

The ride also places the request within Jordan’s account of how Atlanta’s political arrangements work. He distinguishes the city’s practice from straightforward bribery: politicians and developers exchange support through visible community benefits, such as day-care and youth centers, clinics, parks, and swimming pools. The account helps explain the transaction-minded setting of Jordan’s appeal, though his immediate request is for public support rather than a specific construction project.

A drive through Atlanta’s divisions

Jordan directs Dexter Johnson to take Piedmont Avenue toward Tuxedo Park and says he wants to show Roger Inman Armholster’s house. The route passes through the old Black Downtown, once a center of Black business, professional life, and social activity. Jordan recalls its earlier prominence as Sweet Auburn, then points to how much has changed: Black Society moved west, and an elevated highway now cuts through the old district. The King memorial draws tourists, but they do not stay to spend money in Sweet Auburn.

Jordan frames the geography as a map of unequal visibility. Ponce de Leon divides Black and white Atlanta on the east side, he explains, while the railroad tracks serve as the boundary on the west. He tells Roger that two-thirds of Atlanta’s land and 70 percent of its population lie behind them, yet Olympic visitor guides cropped their maps so that South Atlanta barely appeared. Roger admits that he is not especially sorry about the omission, a response that leaves Jordan’s point about the city’s unseen majority hanging between them.

After the Buick passes the polished center and crosses Northside Drive, the change is abrupt. They reach the University Center near Morehouse College, Spelman College, and Clark Atlanta University, then continue toward The Bluff. Jordan asks Roger to take in the surroundings, including young people watching the car and the damaged houses around them. He identifies the collapsing one-story house nearest them as the place where Fareek grew up, before entering Georgia Tech three years earlier.

The case Jordan chooses to take on

Jordan describes the contrast between Fareek’s childhood surroundings and his prospects as a nationally known football player. He points to the nearby crack house and to children serving as runners for dealers, then stresses that Fareek came from this neighborhood and nevertheless reached Georgia Tech and All-American status. In Jordan’s account, Fareek’s future could include contracts worth millions; his ascent makes him an example for young people who feel trapped in an inner-city neighborhood.

That story is set against Elizabeth Armholster’s very different background. Jordan recalls that Roger has seen her family’s house in Buckhead, describes her father as president of Armaxco, and notes her connection to the Piedmont Driving Club. The two homes, Jordan argues, are exactly the kind of contrast the press will seize upon. The juxtaposition makes the accusation more than a dispute about two individuals: it is liable to become a story about class, race, and the distance between the city’s top and bottom.

Jordan says he has decided to act for Fareek, while acknowledging that he does not know what happened. He will not call Fareek innocent. Instead, he proposes defending his rights and reminding the public of the journey from The Bluff to national sports stardom. He also sees a political opportunity: public support could answer Andre Fleet’s charge that Jordan avoids Black issues. Jordan’s stated position therefore combines a procedural appeal for fairness with a response to a rival’s criticism, without resolving the underlying allegation.

Why Jordan wants Croker

Jordan expects the case to intensify racial tension on a scale not seen since the late 1960s. He does not want his own public defense of Fareek to look like an attempt to polarize the city, and says he cannot afford to alienate his friends at the higher elevations. For that reason he wants a prominent white person to make a parallel appeal for restraint and recognition of Fareek’s rights. Roger suggests Herbert Richman, but Jordan considers him an ineffective choice: he regards Richman as a predictable liberal whose support would carry little weight with the establishment.

Jordan names Charlie Croker instead and asks Roger to help secure him. Croker appears useful to the plan for two reasons that Jordan links together. He was a Georgia Tech running back celebrated as the Sixty-Minute Man, giving Jordan a way to appeal to shared experience of athletic stardom; and he belongs to the Piedmont Driving Club, placing him within the establishment Jordan wants to reach. Jordan even points out that Croker’s Buckhead house is near Elizabeth’s, making the developer a figure who can be presented as belonging to the same social world as her family while also sharing Fareek’s football background.

Roger’s position and the scene’s turn

Roger doubts that Croker will respond as Jordan hopes, calling him a Cracker through and through and warning that success seems unlikely. Jordan answers that the attempt cannot be left to luck: Roger must help make it happen. The request thus places Roger between his role as Fareek’s lawyer and the mayor’s broader political strategy. He is not merely asked to advise Jordan; he is asked to use his connection to Croker to help create a public alliance.

As Roger looks around The Bluff, he imagines its ruined homes beside the palazzo in Buckhead and Croker’s mansion. The contrast makes Jordan’s proposed coalition appear both strategically apt and politically precarious. Roger wonders how he became involved in a conflict he had hoped to leave behind and yearns for the respectable world of his law firm. The scene ends with Jordan asking Dexter to demonstrate a little police magic; Dexter gets out of the Buick and speaks into his radio as the watching youths stare. The moment does not resolve the recruitment effort, but it leaves Roger with the scale of the coming confrontation plainly before him.