Gregory Mixon traces the roots of the Atlanta Riot of 1906,
exploring the intricate political, social, and urban
conditions that led to one of the defining events of race
relations in southern and African-American history. On
September 22, 1906, several thousand white Atlantans
rioted, ostensibly because they believed that black men had
committed "repeated assaults on the white women of Fulton
County," according to newspapers at the time. Four days
after the massacre began, 32 people had died and 70 were
wounded.
Mixon acknowledges the traditional interpretation of
factors that precipitated the riot--postbellum race
relations and the codification of Jim Crow, an inflammatory
press, and the race-baiting tactics of the gubernatorial
candidates Hoke Smith and Clark Howell. But he argues that
a complex coalition of Atlanta's white commercial and civic
leaders also contributed to political divisions within
Georgia's Democratic Party and to the riot as well. As
Atlanta's elite crafted new forms of segregation and modes
of disempowering blacks (and also working-class whites),
Mixon says, their machinations led directly to the tragedy.
At the turn of the 20th century, urbanization and
industrialization were changing Atlanta's racial
boundaries, and black Atlantans aspired to be city builders
both in their neighborhoods and in greater Atlanta. They
competed with whites for jobs and public space. The growing
autonomy and political influence of blacks threatened white
supremacy, Mixon says, and the violence of 1906 was an
attempt by Atlanta's elites to reaffirm their dominance.
Mixon also documents the activism of the city's black
elite, especially professors and administrators at Atlanta
University, including W.E.B. Du Bois and John Hope, and
ministers, most notably Rev. Henry Hugh Proctor. While they
defended all blacks against notions of racial inferiority
and worked to improve the lives of the poor and uneducated
of both races, they nonetheless criticized members of the
black working class for "irregular" work habits and
"destructive" use of their leisure hours.
Looking at both white and black issues in the growth of
Atlanta, this book establishes a context for racial
violence in the city, the state, and the region. It also
raises broader questions of conflicting agendas among
whites and blacks that defined labor, politics, and urban
space in the New South.