Atlanta, Georgia, September 22-26, 1906, - It began with the Atlanta Journal and the Atlanta Constitution running front page stories for weeks about “Negro Criminals” The newspapers had always written racial biased crime stories of course but in August of 1906 it became a daily lead, not about actual crimes but about how violent Negroes were moving into Atlanta from the country and the city wasn’t prepared.
These country Negroes were all violent and lazy as well and just coming to town to commit crimes. “A great number of these places masquerade as Black restaurants when they are nothing but saloons and loaf abouts,” The Atlanta Journal quoted Police Chief Henry Jennings as saying. “The scores of vagrant Negroes who infest Atlanta are continual menace to the safety of the public,” Jennings had said.
Neither the police chief or the newspapers mentioned that the reason both White and Black people from the country were coming into Atlanta was that the city had become the cultural and business center of the South for both Blacks and Whites. W.E.B. DuBois was a visiting scholar at Atlanta University, a Black university for example. The city had gone from 10,000 people an a railroad stop before the Civil War to a expanding city of 115,000 people. The expanding city offered opportunity to people who had seen their farms destroyed in Sherman’s March to the Sea.
Part of the newspaper’s sudden concern over back crime came from their former publisher and chief editor. Hoke Smith the former publisher of the Journal and Clark Howell the former editor at the Constitution were involved in a tight and heated race for the Democratic nomination for governor. They played on White voters' fear of Blacks and Black progress. Using their former papers as conduits they continually brought up Black crime and how Black men were a threat to White women. However they also had the inconsistent message that economic success would cause Blacks to seek social equality which can never happen.
There were two others White newspapers in town, but they were more of the Hearst Tabloid style. They reported stories in a more lurid way and when talking about the election they framed it completely around the idea that Black success would lead to more interracial relationships and miscegenation, stoking the deep fears of Black men taking White women.
The was a fire building in Atlanta through September that year. White resentment was real, as was White fear. The two politicians were fighting an incredible vicious race using the most unafraid to use the most base racial prejudice.
Then all four newspapers ignited the anger by reporting that there were four rapes of White women by Black men that day. These stories stirred feelings and as the afternoon went on hundreds of men and boys gathered in downtown Atlanta.
The newspapers were enjoying great sales from their fake stories, so they printed special editions with lurid and sometimes disturbing details. By early evening the crowds had turned into a mob of at least 1,000 White men. Using clubs and bricks and often just their fists the rioters began attacking any Black resident and the Black owned businesses.
The mob moved through the central Black business district on Decatur and Prayor streets and Central Avenue. They destroyed store fronts and killed two barbers. The mob attacked street cars beating Black residents and chasing them out of the area.
A Black man named Milton Brown hadn’t heard of the trouble and when he crossed Peterson Avenue the mob saw him and chased him down. They shot him in the chest and preceded to beat him. He died when the police came to break up the attack.
Another unnamed Black youth was chased into the Marlon Hotel by a mob that ran over a group of soldiers to try and get him. While the teenager tried to escape the mob followed him into the hotel, one of the elite hotels in Atlanta, scattering the people in the lobby. They shot him on the staircase and left him to bleed out, after the mob turned he got up and lept out a window. The manager went and belted on a pistol saying the next person who came in would get shot.
Three others were killed and their bodies stacked by the statue of progressive journalist Henry W. Grady. Another Black man was lynched from a streetlamp,
The state militia was called in and 1,000 troops arrived in the city after Midnight but by 3 am they had taken up positions in the Black business district. Their arrival and a heavy overnight rain led to the mob moving out. However, they didn’t break up as much as most mobs confronted by force.
On the next night the mob came together again and moved south of the city in to Black neighborhoods of Brownsville where they destroyed homes and ran Black residents out. During this siege of the Black residents a White deputy sheriff was killed. This led to civilians and troops invading Brownsville and with rumors of Black retributionthe entire militia moved in and took all weapons and arrested 250 Black men.
In an unusual move the chamber of commerce was able to get White leaders to meet with Black business leaders and clergy and worked out a deal to end the violence. This agreement was wrapped in White Supremacy. It was agreed that Blacks would follow the segregation laws of Jim Crow tightly. It was agreed that the Blacks who broke the law, even if defending themselves would be charged. What was different was that the businesses and homes would be rebuilt where they were and not sold off to Whites.
Still there were families who lost generational wealth and the previous upward mobility of Blacks was cut off. It is estimated by historians 1000 Black residents also left the city. The agreements the upper classes worked out created class division within the Black community as the elite Blacks worked to protect their success and separate themselves from the lower class and prove themselves as different to the Whites of the city. While it was pragmatic it is a strong example of Booker T. Washington’s belief in accommodating racial injustice.
Like all racial violence in the United States the Atlanta Massacre reinforced the racial hierarchy of the country. Atlanta has long been regarded as a city more progressive with no time to hate but that reputation doesn’t hold up to at least 25 victims, but many historians say it might have been 40 or more. Records for Black citizens then was sporadic and not as complete as modern records.
Sources:
Rebecca Burns. “Rage In The Gate: The story of the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot” 2006, University of Georgia Press
Capeci, Dominic J., and Jack C. Knight. “Reckoning with Violence: W. E. B. Du Bois and the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot.” The Journal of Southern History 62, no. 4 (1996): 727–66.
Crowe, Charles. “Racial Violence and Social Reform-Origins of the Atlanta Riot of 1906.” The Journal of Negro History 53, no. 3 (1968): 234–56
Kuhn, Clifford and Gregory Mixon. "Atlanta Race Massacre of 1906." New Georgia Encyclopedia, last modified Nov 14, 2022.
