Atlanta Race Riot of 1906
By
John C Abercrombie
Day 3 of the 2023 Mini-series Race Riots and Massacres in America. We not only provide these topics, but discuss them every Sunday at 4:00 pm Eastern, 1:00 pm Pacific. Bring your questions and comments and join us for stimulating conversation.
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Atlanta is the most populous city in the state of Georgia. The county seat of Fulton County and falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. Today the metropolitan area has a population of 6.1 million people.
Originally founded as the terminus of a major railroad, it became the convergence point for several railroads which spurred its rapid growth. During the Civil War it was strategically important for the Confederacy until it was captured in 1864. The city was almost completely burned to the ground during William Tecumseh Sherman’s March to the Sea.
It rebounded and became a national industrial center and unofficially the capital of the “New South”. It also became a manufacturing and technology hub.
Today it is often referred to as the center of the American Civil Rights Movement, home of Dr Martin Luther King and his associate Dr. Ralph David Abernathy. Hartsfield-Jackson Airport is one of the busiest in the world.
By the 1880s, after the Civil War, Atlanta had become the hub of the regional economy. The population had grown to 89,000 in 1900 and demonstrating the rapid growth to 150,000 by 1910. The Black population was also growing rapidly 9,000 Blacks in 1880 had become 35,000 by 1900.
This growth put pressure on municipal services and the city saw increased job competition between Blacks and Whites. These conditions caused heightened class distinctions and led the city’s White leadership to adopt restrictions intended to control the daily behavior of the growing working class, with mixed success. Such conditions caused concern among elite Whites, who feared the social intermingling of the races, and led to an expansion of Jim Crow segregation, particularly in the separation of White and Black neighborhoods and separate seating areas for public transportation.
The emergence of a Black elite in Atlanta also contributed to racial tensions in the city. During Reconstruction (1867-76), Black men gained the right to vote, and as Blacks became more involved in the political realm, they began to establish businesses, create social networks, and build communities. As this Black elite acquired wealth, education, and prestige, its members attempted to distance themselves from the Black working class, and especially from the Black men who frequented the saloons on Atlanta’s Decatur Street.
Many whites, while uncomfortable with the advances of the Black elite, also disapproved of these saloons, which were said to be decorated with depictions of nude women. Concern over such establishments fueled prohibition campaigns in the city, and many Whites began to blame Black saloon-goers for rising crime rates in the growing city, and particularly for threats of sexual violence against White women.
The candidates for the 1906 governor’s race played to White fears of a Black upper class. In the months leading up to the August election, both Hoke Smith, the former publisher of the Atlanta Journal, and Clark Howell, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, were in the position as gubernatorial candidates to influence public opinion through their newspapers.
We began to see the ingredients that make up the violence that engulfs America. A growing Black middle class obtained through business acumen and hard work and the ever presence of insecurity by Whites about the ability of their women to be faithful to them. May be spurred by the actions that these White men had acquired by their lust for Black women.
Smith and former Populist Thomas E Watson inflamed racial tensions when they insisted that Black disenfranchisement had to take place to ensure that Blacks were kept “ in their place”. This may seem like a simple position, but it is loaded with wrong. First disentrancement rolls back all of the gains made possible by the Civil War. It takes away the right to vote and so much more.
“Keeping them in their place” is a blatant statement that can be taken as putting them in the position of second-class citizens. They have no rights as citizens of America. This is the sentiment of those who uplift the confederates as heroes. It was honoring those fighting to prevent the equality of Black citizens and while it is part of American history does not make it something that needs to be maintained into infinity. These attitudes have hindered and continue hinder full citizenship for all.
Blacks only sought economic and social equality. By denying them, Whites could maintain the unequal social order.
Howell claimed that the Democratic White primary and poll tax were sufficient to limit Black voting. Again, we see another vestige of racism. Many Southern states insisted on having all-White primaries, which closed Blacks out of the process. This is not the case with Republicans who were welcoming all which is a juxtaposition of commonly believed practice of today. To further inflame the people, Howell insisted that Smith was not the racial separatist he claimed to be, and that Smith had cooperated with Black political leaders and could not be relied upon to advance the cause of White supremacy.
As if White supremacy was not enough, the Atlanta papers, the Journal and the Constitution, the Atlanta Georgian and the Atlanta News carried many stories about White women being assaulted by Black men. Keep in mind that these are only charges, not guilty verdicts.
These newspapers provoked anger with White readers, featuring stories, editorials and cartoons warning of rising crime and the danger to White women and the possibility of rape by Black men. They played up the Black saloons claiming they encouraged drunkenness and licentious behavior by “uppity” Blacks looking for equality with Whites. These stories fanned the White paranoia to the breaking point in late September when violence erupted.
On Saturday afternoon, September 22 the Atlanta newspapers reported four alleged assaults on White women, none of which were ever substantiated. Intentional journalism malpractice? Throughout the day the papers printed more and more lurid details, again unsubstantiated. White men and even boys gathered to protest. Attempts by City leaders to calm the increasingly indigent crowds failed.
The mob went forth assaulting hundreds of Blacks, attacking Black-owned businesses. Two barber shops were destroyed, and the barbers killed by the mob. The mob attacked street cars, entering them, and assaulting Black men and women. The militia was called, streetcar service was suspended but the mob dis not let up. The militia restored some semblance of resolvableness around 2:00 am.
On Sunday, September 23, the Atlanta newspapers reported that the state militia had been mustered to control the mob; they also reported that Blacks were no longer a problem for Whites because Saturday night’s violence had driven them off public streets. While the police, armed with rifles, and militia patrolled the streets and guarded white property, Blacks secretly obtained weapons to arm themselves against the mob, fearing its return. Despite the presence of law enforcement, White vigilante groups invaded some Black neighborhoods. In some areas African Americans defended their homes and were able to turn away the incursions into their communities. One person who described such activity was Walter White, who experienced the riot as a young boy. The incident was a defining moment for White, who went on to become secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and he later described the event in his 1948 memoir A Man Called White. See post *
These and so many other events in American history are hidden from the general public. Not because they did not happen but there are many people who feel uncomfortable talking about them and facing facts that do not show us in the best light. It is one of the paradoxes that exists as we exclaim that we must know history, or we will have to relive that experience. This is easy to agree with except we are not given the true facts of our history. How are we to learn from half-truths?
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Atlanta Massacre
The 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre & The Truth of History
In September 1906, a mob of 5,000 white people killed 25 African Americans over a four-day killing spree that began in the Five Points neighborhood of downtown Atlanta. Though it is a defining moment in Atlanta’s history, the 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre is largely unknown and unrecognized today. A coalition of Atlanta organizations is working to change that.
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Book
Rage in the Gate City: The Story of the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot
During the hot summer of 1906, anger simmered in Atlanta, a city that outwardly savored its reputation as the Gate City of the New South, a place where the races lived peacefully, if apart, and everyone focused more on prosperity than prejudice. But racial hatred came to the forefront during a heated political campaign, and the city’s newspapers fanned its flames with sensational reports alleging assaults on white women by black men. The rage erupted in late September, and, during one of the most brutal race riots in the history of America, roving groups of whites attacked and killed at least twenty-five blacks. After four days of violence, black and white civic leaders came together in unprecedented meetings that can be viewed either as concerted public relations efforts to downplay the events or as setting the stage for Atlanta’s civil rights leadership half a century later.
Rage in the Gate City focuses on the events of August and September 1906, offering readers a tightly woven narrative account of those eventful days. Fast-paced and vividly detailed, it brings history to life. As June Dobbs Butts writes in her foreword, “For too long, this chapter of Atlanta’s history was covered up, or was explained away. . . . Rebecca Burns casts the bright light of truth upon those events.”
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The following book is a great addition to the above and can be used to answer and further your search for ancestors that can bring pride to you. We come from strong roots, discover and take pride!
Black Roots: A Beginners Guide To Tracing The African American Family Tree
Trace, document, record, and write your family’s history with this easy-to-read, step-by-step authoritative guide.
Finally, here is the fun, easy-to-use guide that African Americans have been waiting for since Alex Haley published Roots more than twenty-five years ago. Written by the leading African American professional genealogist in the United States who teaches and lectures widely, Black Roots highlights some of the special problems, solutions, and sources unique to African Americans. Based on solid genealogical principles and designed for those who have little or no experience researching their family’s past, but valuable to any genealogist, this book explains everything you need to get started, including: where to search close to home, where to write for records, how to make the best use of libraries and the Internet, and how to organize research, analyze historical documents, and write the family history.
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-more than 100 illustrations and photographs of actual documents and records you’re likely to encounter when tracing your family tree
-samples of all the worksheets and forms you’ll need to keep your research in order
-a list of the traps even experienced researchers often fall into that hamper their research
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The Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 | Georgia Stories
On this episode of Georgia Stories, a racist governor, sensationalized headlines and Jim Crow laws sparked rage in a mob of white men who randomly beat and killed black men in Atlanta. Historian Cliff Kuhn and Carole Merritt, director of Herndon Home, examine the causes and consequences of the Race Riot of 1906.
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Book
Veiled Visions: The 1906 Atlanta Race Riot and the Reshaping of American Race Relations
In 1906 Atlanta, after a summer of inflammatory headlines and accusations of black-on-white sexual assaults, armed white mobs attacked African Americans, resulting in at least twenty-five black fatalities. Atlanta’s black residents fought back and repeatedly defended their neighborhoods from white raids. Placing this four-day riot in a broader narrative of twentieth-century race relations in Atlanta, in the South, and in the United States, David Fort Godshalk examines the riot’s origins and how memories of this cataclysmic event shaped black and white social and political life for decades to come.
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Atlanta Race Riots
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Book
Negrophobia: A Race Riot in Atlanta, 1906
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Atlanta was regarded as the gateway to the new, enlightened and racially progressive South. White business owners employed black workers and made their fortunes, while black leaders led congregations, edited periodicals, and taught classes. But in 1906, in a bitter gubernatorial contest, Georgia politicians played the race card and white supremacists trumpeted a “Negro crime” scare. Seizing on rumors of black predation against white women, they launched a campaign based on fears of miscegenation and white subservience. Atlanta slipped into a climate of racial phobia and sexual hysteria that culminated in a bloody riot, which stymied race relations for fifty years. Drawing on new archival materials, Mark Bauerlein traces the origins, development and brutal climax of Atlanta’s descent into hatred and violence in the fateful summer of 1906. “Negrophobia” is history at its best–a dramatic moment in time impeccably recreated in a suspenseful narrative, focusing on figures such as Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois; author Margaret Mitchell and future NAACP leader Walter White; and an assortment of black victims and white politicians who witnessed and participated in this American tragedy.
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The Atlanta Race Riot of 1906
The disenfranchisement of all black voters is nothing new in the state of Georgia, nor is the violence that follows. The Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 began on September 22 and lasted until September 24. Like the Second Civil War witnessed at the nation’s Capital on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, the Atlanta Race Riot was due to lingering tensions from reconstruction, job competition, black voting rights, and the increasing desire of African Americans to secure their rights.
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Book
Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America
The black experience in America – starting from its origins in western Africa up to 1961 – is examined in this seminal study from a prominent African American figure. The entire historical timeline of African Americans is addressed, from the Colonial period through the civil rights upheavals of the late 1950s to 1961, the time of publication.
Before the Mayflower grew out of a series of articles Bennett published in Ebony magazine, regarding “the trials and triumphs of a group of Americans whose roots in the American soil are deeper than the roots of the Puritans who arrived on the celebrated Mayflower a year after a Dutch man of war deposited twenty Negroes at Jamestown.”
Bennett’s history is infused with a desire to set the record straight about black contributions to the Americas and about the powerful Africans of antiquity. While not a fresh history, it provides a solid synthesis of current historical research and a lively writing style that makes it accessible and engaging listening.
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10,000 WS Destroyed Black Businesses & Homes During Atlanta 1906 Race Riot
Phillip Scott reports on the Atlanta 1906 ws race riots. We’re covering the history since republicans are trying to stop people from learning history.
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Book
The Black Tax: The Cost of Being Black in America
While Black Americans have long felt the devastating effects of anti-black discrimination, they have often had great difficulty articulating and substantiating both the existence and impact of that discrimination to an American public who is convinced that it no longer exists. Professionals in academia, the media, and the business community, along with people in the general public have struggled to explain the significant and persistent gaps (in wealth, employment, achievement and poverty) between Black and White communities in what they perceive to be a post racial America.
In his new book The Black Tax: The Cost of Being Black in America, Shawn Rochester shows how “The Black Tax” (which is the financial cost of conscious and unconscious anti-black discrimination), creates a massive financial burden on Black American households that dramatically reduces their ability to leave a substantial legacy for future generations. Mr. Rochester lays out an extraordinarily compelling case which documents the enormous financial cost of current and past anti-black discrimination on African American households.
The Black Tax, provides the fact pattern, data and evidence to substantiate what African Americans have long experienced and tried to convey to an unbelieving American public. Backed by an exceptional amount of research, Mr. Rochester not only highlights the extraordinary cost of the discrimination that African Americans currently face, but also explores the massive cost of past discrimination to explain why after 400 years Black Americans own only about 2% of American wealth. He then establishes a framework that Black Americans and other concerned parties can use to eliminate this tax and help create the 6 million jobs and 1.4 million businesses that are missing from the Black community.
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Mugs
Great Assortment
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1906 Atlanta Race Riot, Dark Town, Respectability Politics & The Myth Of Black American Cowardice
This episode gives a counter-racist review of the attempted anti-black ethnic cleansing turned bad. We focus on the affects of The Talented 10th respectability, politics and the Atlanta Black Populations unlikely saviors. The Under Economy/ Hoodlum men and women of Dark Town. We lean Heavily on the research of Professor Charles E. Cobb and Professor Akinyele Omawale Umoja for context.
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Schomburg – The man who built a library
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To many it is shocking to hear about the many race riots and massacres that took place in America. It is shocking to hear about the brutality and the deviation from the stated principals of this great country, but is it the adult thing to sweep it under the rug or is it time to bring it out into the open and remove it.
There are a great number of White citizens who carry the burden of slavery without being guilty of such. It is the very fact that most Whites did not own slaves and many did what they could to eradicate it from existence. I can’t go back and change history, nor can most of these people, but we can promote improvement by facing the facts and working sincerely to correct them and make not only our country better, but the entire world. Can you handle the truth?