Atlanta, Georgia has been an important location for civil rights for over a century. From being reborn as the city of the New South to acting as the stage for some of Martin Luther King Jr.’s speeches, Atlanta has housed many progressive ideals throughout its history. While this may be true, Atlanta still has a history of wounded white Confederates and Confederate sympathizers with anti-Black sentiments. This creates a complex history of seemingly progressive politics while still attempting to maintain the sentiments and culture of the Old South. Therefore, how did Atlanta’s citizens and politicians deal with the treatment of Black Americans in a time of rapid modernization in the Postbellum South? After Sherman’s burning of Atlanta, the city was rebuilt and considered an example of the New South, starting its reputation as a progressive city. While Atlanta, Georgia progressed in terms of civil rights for Black Americans, this progress often created violent and racist countermovements that complicated the city’s ability to leave behind its racist past.
During the rebuilding of Atlanta, city planners created Grant Park, and its purpose was to not only prove that it was a modern city but to also glorify the Confederate war effort.1 While this park was open to all, including Black Americans, there was a strict status quo that was meant to be followed that still promoted white hegemony. Repercussions of Black people not following these unsaid rules of the park could be extremely violent, with one boy’s skull being fractured by a group of white boys after he confronted them for throwing dirt at him.2 This was only the beginning of racial tensions within this exemplary New South city. Despite the facade of peaceful progression within Atlanta, the growing racial tensions birthed several hate groups that were dedicated to maintaining segregation and racial hierarchy.
Hate groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Columbians, found their homes in Atlanta, Georgia. William Joseph Simmons founded the second Ku Klux Klan just outside Atlanta in 1915, and he ran this group in Atlanta.3 Despite the KKK’s history of violence towards Black people and those that deviate from the white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant mold, Simmons stated in his testimony to the House of Representatives that this was not the case and that their true targets were those that were unloyal Americans.4 This sentiment appeared to be common among similar hate groups, with Emory Burke, one of the leaders of the Columbians, once saying that he did not want to spread hate against Black people, but he wanted to maintain white supremacy.5 Emory Burke and Homer Loomis Jr. came together, along with other working-class Atlantans, to create the Columbians, and this group rallied together the support of around 500 Atlantans.6 This group and its supporters showcased the insecurities of white working-class Americans as they targeted Black people who were moving into predominately white spaces. The Columbians violently attacked and bombed Black people and their homes in order to remove them from white spaces.7 While these groups were primarily active in the early to mid-1900s, violence against Black people and racial tensions remained for much longer.
From 1979-1981, Atlanta experienced a string of kidnappings and murders of twenty-nine lower-class, Black children. These murders, known as the Atlanta Child Murders, created international news as people began to wonder if Atlanta was truly a safe place for Black people. Many areas of the community came together to make Atlanta a safer place, but many of these actions came out of a time of racial tension.8 Andrew Young notes within a news segment that these tragedies should not be a political issue, and he recognizes how the community has come together in this hard time.9 Despite politicians’ attempts to keep these tensions under control, these murders brought out fear in many Black Atlantans as they questioned if Atlanta was really as racially equal as it was promoted to the world.10 Atlanta, once the “City too Busy to Hate,” quickly became the “City too Busy to Care.”11 The city’s history of hate groups stayed with many of its Black citizens as they feared these hate groups were reappearing and taking their children.
Atlanta, Georgia has a complex history containing many efforts in the fight toward racial equality; however, these efforts to create a space of racial equality also created many hateful groups who have left a lasting impact on its citizens. From the beginning of reborn Atlanta, its citizens and planners worked to maintain a racial hierarchy in the face of modernity, and this paved the way to lasting anti-Black sentiments, leading to the creation of hate groups like the second KKK and the Columbians. Despite progress made during the 1950s and 1960s, Black citizens feared white supremacy as they lost their children. Progress often sees setbacks, and unfortunately, Atlanta, Georgia appears to have violent setbacks in the wake of progress.
Bibliography:
Gallo, Steve. “Grant Park, Atlanta: An Old South Landscape for a New South City.” Southern Cultures 27.2 (June 2021): 84-97.
Renfro, Paul. “‘The City Too Busy to Care’ The Atlanta Youth Murders and the Southern Past, 1979–81.” Southern Cultures 21.4 (Dec 2015): 43-66.
Simmons, William. “Statement of Mr. William Joseph Simmons.” In American Decades Primary Sources vol 3, edited by Cynthia Rose, Detroit: Gale, 2004.
Weisenburger, Steven. “The Columbians, Inc.: A Chapter of Racial Hatred from the Post-World War II South.” The Journal of Southern History 69.4 (Nov 2003): 821-860.
Young, Andrew. “Young Responds to Criticism of the Jackson Administrations Efforts to Deal with the Atlanta Child Murders.” Filmed 2 Feb, 1981. WSB-TV, 00:39. http://dbsmaint.galib.uga.edu/news/clips/wsbn14626.html.
- Steve Gallo, “Grant Park, Atlanta: An Old South Landscape for a New South City,” Southern Cultures 27.2 (June 2001): 87. [↩]
- Gallo, 92-93. [↩]
- William Joseph Simmons, “Statement of Mr. William Joseph Simmons, 1921, in American Decades Primary Sources vol. 3, ed. by Cynthia Rose (Detroit: Gale, Jan 2004). [↩]
- Simmons, “Statement of Mr. William Joseph Simmons.” [↩]
- Steven Weisenburger, “The Columbians, Inc.: A Chapter of Racial Hatred from the Post-World War II South,” The Journal of Southern History 69.4 (Nov 2003): 841. [↩]
- Weisenburger, 822. [↩]
- Weisenburger, 821. [↩]
- Paul Mokrzycki Renfro, “‘The City Too Busy to Care’ The Atlanta Youth Murders and the Southern Past, 1979–81,” Southern Cultures 21.4 (Dec 2015): 56. [↩]
- Andrew Young, “Young Responds to Criticism of the Jackson Administrations Efforts to Deal with the Atlanta Child Murders,” Filmed 2 Feb, 1981, WSB-TV, 00:39, http://dbsmaint.galib.uga.edu/news/clips/wsbn14626.html. [↩]
- Renfro, 45 [↩]
- Renfro, 58. [↩]
