In the four decades following the Civil War, Atlanta had emerged as the
economic engine of the region, and city boosters liked to tout it as
the Gate City of the New South, a place of racial tolerance and
business-first progressive attitudes. The city was home to the
country’s highest concentration of educated African Americans, and a
thriving community of black colleges, businesses, and churches
flourished—despite discrimination and Jim Crow laws that restricted
black Atlantans’ access to schools, parks, streetcars, and public
places.
But in the summer of 1906, racial tension simmered in Atlanta
as a vicious Democratic gubernatorial campaign waged. Hoke Smith,
former publisher of the
Atlanta Journal, took on four rivals, including
Clark Howell, editor of the
Atlanta Constitution. Pushing a platform of
African-American disenfranchisement, Smith, aided by segregationist Tom
Watson, crafted a campaign message that equated African-American
political power with black male sexual dominance, playing to white
Southerners’ basest racial prejudices. At the same time, both the
Journal and
Constitution, along with local dailies the
Atlanta Evening
News and
Atlanta Georgian, published sensationalized reports on what
they called a series of sexual assaults on white women by black men
(virtually all of which were overblown accounts or outright
fabrications). The tension came to a head on Saturday, September 22, 1906.
Read the rest
With a century of perspective, it can be hard to comprehend both the violence of the 1906 riot and the political, social, and economic climate that created the environment in which such an episode could occur. But how far have we come from then?
>> When did you first learn about the Atlanta riot?
>> How did you react when you heard about it?
>> Would you agree or disagree with my statement that, “the riot has been sanitized or omitted from many of the city’s histories”?
>> Some bookstores have cataloged this book in African-American History sections and others have put it in Georgia History or Southern History. Where do you think it belongs?
>> A commission exploring the 1898 race riot in Wilmington, North Carolina, released a report in 2006 that recommended reparations to descendants of African-American victims. Do you think a similar study should be conducted in Atlanta?
>> One of the elements that contributed to the mass hysteria and fueled mob violence was a political campaign that drew on white fears of blacks. Do you see similar themes in elections today?
>> Another element of racial tension in 1906 Atlanta was white resentment of African-American economic and cultural achievement. Is there any parallel between that tension and what we see today regarding immigrants to the United States?
>> An additional major contributing factor to the riot was the sensational newspaper coverage. While mainstream media today may not use the same, blatant racist tone as newspapers in 1906, what kind of media bias do you see?
>> It is shocking that such brutal violence—stabbing, vivisection, stoning—could have occurred in downtown Atlanta in 1906. The word “unthinkable” is often used. How unthinkable is it that something like this could happen again?
>> The book’s introduction cites W.E.B. Du Bois’ observations about the social and residential segregation of Atlantans and Southerners. How much—or how little—have things changed since then?
Prepared by Rebecca Burns, author of Rage in the Gate City: The Story of the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot (Second Edition, University of Georgia Press, 2009)