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SS8H7 The student will evaluate key political, social, and economic changes that occurred in Georgia between 1877 and 1918. a. Evaluate the impact the Bourbon Triumvirate, Henry Grady, International Cotton Exposition, Tom Watson and the Populists, Rebecca Latimer Felton, the 1906 Atlanta Riot, the Leo Frank Case, and the county unit system had on Georgia during this period. b. Analyze how rights were denied to African- Americans through Jim Crow laws, Plessy v. Ferguson, disenfranchisement, and racial violence. c. Explain the roles of Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. DuBois, John and Lugenia Burns Hope, and Alonzo Herndon.
Convict Lease System • Prisoners were hired out to people who provided them with housing and food in exchange for labor • Prisoners were used to complete public works projects such as rebuilding roads destroyed in the war • Most of the prisoners were leased to one of three large companies (two of which were owned by Brown and Gordon)
Convict Lease System • Each company agreed to pay the state $25,000 a year regardless how many convicts it used • Rules of providing medical care, rest on Sunday, adequate housing and clothing were ignored • Paid laborers lost on jobs the convicts did, which increased the number of poor and unemployed
Henry Grady • Managing editor of the Atlanta Journal • Best known for his promotion of the “New South” • Lobbied for northern investors to help financially aid the industrialization of the South and to help diversify southern agriculture • Instrumental for bringing in the International Cotton Expositions to Atlanta • Credited for beginning Georgia Tech • Aided Gordon and Brown’s elections
Henry Grady • Attacked by Tom Watson and Georgia’s farmers for industrial focus • Criticized for his bias in favor of Atlanta • Identified as the most important figure in the New South movement
The International Cotton Exposition • Similar to the world fairs • Established to promote Atlanta’s rebuilding from the Civil War and industrial capabilities • Designed to lure northern investors into the city and region • Helped to establish Atlanta as a leading city of the New South
Tom Watson • Popular, though controversial figure in Georgia’s history • His early career was focused on supporting the poor tenant farmers and share croppers of both races • He supported the end to the convict lease system • Proponent of public education • Elected to Georgia General Assembly but resigned due to discontent with policies of the New South advocates
Tom Watson • Was a democrat, but adopted some policies of the Farmer’s Alliance (which came before the Populist Party) • Elected to the US Congress on platform of lower taxes for the poor farmers • Gained national attention for leadership role in the passage of the Rural Free Delivery Act • Received support of many rural black voters due to his condemnation of lynching
Tom Watson • Because of his support for the Farmers’ Alliances ideals, the Populist or “People’s Party” selected him as their vice-presidential candidate in 1896 and presidential candidate in 1904 and 1908 • Around 1904, Watson began to change his progressive views toward race • By the end of his life he was a fervent white supremacist
Tom Watson • He used his newspaper and magazine, The Jeffersonian, to express his viewpoints to not only Georgians, but throughout the south and such northern cities as New York • Some believe his articles against Leo Frank led to his lynching • Ironically, it was Watson’s anti-capitalist articles and opposition to the US entry in WWI that led to the US postal service refusing to deliver his publications
Tom Watson • Continued to remain popular with rural Georgians • 1920 won his last election as US Senator, although he died soon after • His seat was held one day by America’s first female senator, Rebecca Latimer Felton
Populist Movement • Political movement that fought to help farmers • Eventually become known as the People’s Party • Wanted the government to regulate the economy so farmers could earn more money • Encouraged farmers to work together through cooperatives or alliances • Most were white, but some African American • Could not defend themselves against white racism
Populist Movement • The party “courted” black voters and preached that poor white and black farmers should come together to help themselves economically • Many white supremacists (even among poor farmers) refused to support the Populist candidates in the South • After failing to win the presidential election in 1895, began to decline in popularity
Rebecca Latimer Felton • Writer, political activist, reformer, and the first female senator in US history • Married to GA state legislator William Felton • Member of the Independent Democrats • Battled against the Bourbon Triumvirate over their self-serving policies • Supported many progressive causes including abolishing the convict lease system, prohibition, and women’s suffrage
Rebecca Latimer Felton • Wrote a column for the Atlanta Journal which endeared her to rural Georgians for over 20 years • Upon the death of Tom Watson, Ga governor Thomas Hardwick appointed her as a temporary US Senator in honor of her work and achievements • Also shared some of the white supremacist views • Instrumental in the firing of Emory Professor Andrew Sledd for an article he published condemning the South’s racial policies • In public speeches supported lynching to “protect” white women
Farmer Discontent and Populism • In the late 1880s, cotton prices dropped as prices increased for the goods that Georgia’s middle-class and poor farmers needed to buy. • Railroad shipping costs paid to send farmers’ products to market also contributed to their financial struggles. • Many owners of small farms sold their land to pay debts. Some eventually became tenant farmers or sharecroppers. • As farmers became more discontented, they organized and eventually founded a political party to work for major reforms.
The Farmers’ Alliance • Farmers organizations formed in the late 1870s and early 1880s, including the Grange and other regional alliances. • Farmers could gather for friendship and discuss common problems and issues. • Farmers joined in cooperative buying stores, or co-ops to lower the price of goods. • The Farmers’ Alliance in Georgia began to get involved in politics and sought reforms, including working for a graduated income tax so that wealthier Georgians would pay their “fair share” of income taxes. • Alliance membership fell by the early 1890s, as farmers began to see the Alliance as politically ineffective.
The People’s (Populist) Party • The Populist Party believed in “rights and powers of the common people in their struggle with the privileged elite.” • Tom Watson became a national Populist leader from Georgia, including being a Populist Party vice-presidential and presidential candidate. He supported public education and the end of the convict lease system. • Watson was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1890, but later lost reelection. • The Populists tried to pass reforms that benefitted both black and white farmers. • Democrats maintained most of the power during this time; in some places, voting fraud (dishonest voting) took place. • Democrats adopted some Populist reforms, including adopting silver coins (instead of only gold coins). • Georgia became a one-party state with the Democrats in control for decades.
One-Party Rule • Populism had stirred up racial tensions in Georgia. White Populists initially had appealed to African American farmers to join them, but that changed. • A movement began to finds ways to keep African Americans completely out of the political process in Georgia. • As Populism ended, Georgia was basically a one-party state with the Democrats in firm control for decades.
County Unit System • In the late 1890s, candidates in Democratic Party primaries were chosen by the votes of each county, not by the overall popular vote (called county unit system). • Rural counties always outvoted the urban counties because there were more rural counties. • This system gave less-populated rural counties more political power than more populated counties. • The county unit system didn’t change until 1962 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that each person’s vote should count equally.
Progressivism in Georgia • Progressivism originated in the cities. Urban, middle class, educated men and women called for reforms. They identified problems brought on by industrialization and urbanization. • The progressive movement in Georgia was more modest than in giant cities like New York. • Most of Georgia’s industry was small and owned by local companies. • Women’s voting was the progressive idea that affected the most Georgians.
Governor Hoke Smith and Progressivism Reform • Governor Hoke Smith was a reformer in the early 20th century. He established the State Board of Education, increased school funding, and founded the juvenile court system. • In 1908, Georgia ended the practice of leasing out prisoners to private businesses. Prisoners could still be used by governments to work on roads. • Other progressive reforms established the state’s Department of Commerce and Labor.
Women’s Suffrage • Rebecca Latimer Felton worked hard for women’s right to vote (suffrage). • She was concerned about poor girls being able to get an education. She also worked to make alcohol illegal. • In 1918, Congress passed the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. Georgia did not ratify it, but by 1920 it became national law. • In 1922, Rebecca Felton became the first female senator in U.S. history. Elected Senator Walter F. George replaced her after one day in office. Senator Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia was the first female to serve as a United States Senator. She was in office for 24-hours in 1922. Image: U.S. Senate Historical Office
Race Riots in Atlanta • 1906: various leaders and newspapers created a climate of anger and fear • Two-day riot began with over 5,000 people • Martial law: military forces used to control civilians • 21 people killed; hundreds wounded • Lots of property damage
The Trial of Leo Frank • 1913: man accused of killing a 14-year-old employee, Mary Phagan in Atlanta • Mr. Frank was a Jewish man from New York • Little evidence against Mr. Frank, but he was convicted and sentenced to death • Governor Slaton changed death sentence to life imprisonment • Armed men took Frank from the prison, and he was lynched • White supremacist Ku Klux Klan reborn as a result Click to return to Table of Contents.
The County Unit System • 1917: Neil Primary Act created “county unit system” • Plan designed to give small counties more power in state government • Smaller counties had more county unit “votes” even though they had fewer voters • People could be elected to office without getting a majority of votes • Declared unconstitutional in 1962 Click to return to Table of Contents.
Separate But Equal • Civil Rights: rights a person has as a citizen • “Jim Crow” laws passed to separate blacks and whites • Plessy v. Ferguson: Supreme Court decision which approved Jim Crow laws – decision in place until 1954 • Cummings V. Richmond County Board of Education: Supreme Court decision supporting segregated schools in Georgia
The Establishment of Segregation • Schools were segregated by the end of the Civil War. Most churches were separate. • The Civil Rights Act of 1875 made discrimination in public places illegal. Government could not discriminate. • The Supreme Court’s “civil rights cases” of the 1880s ruled that owners of private businesses could decide who they would serve. This opened the way for segregation in public spaces.
Jim Crow Laws • In the 1880s, the Supreme Court confirmed that government could not discriminate, but said owners of private businesses could decide who they would serve. • Jim Crow laws – named for a type of black character in mid-1800s minstrel shows – called for segregation. • State and local communities in Georgia passed Jim Crow laws in the 1890s and early 1900s, making segregation legal. • These laws also stated how much African heritage a person had to have to be considered black. • The laws were passed to create a second class, separate, and inferior position for African Americans.
Plessy v. Ferguson • The Supreme Court ruled in 1896 that public places could be separate by race but had to be “equal.” • The separate-but-equal doctrine allowed segregation to continue in the U.S. for decades. • Southern states created dozens of state and local laws to create separate public spaces, from schools and libraries, to cemeteries. • Racial segregation became established by law and custom. • Plessy v. Ferguson was overturned in 1954.
Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education • Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education (1899) was a Georgia case that first applied the separate-but-equal doctrine to education. • The Supreme Court ruled that closing a black high school to open black elementary schools, while leaving a white high school open, did not establish discrimination. • The decision also stated that it was not unconstitutional to disallow African Americans in white schools. • The separate aspect of the doctrine was enforced, but not the equal.
Preventing Equality • Public places became more and more separate. • Separate areas included restrooms, water fountains, waiting rooms, theaters, and parks. • African Americans were excluded from some public businesses, such as restaurants and hotels that served whites. • Unspoken rules of interaction between the races developed, such as whites having the right-of-way on sidewalks and roadways. • More than 450 lynchings (mobs of people murdering someone) took place in Georgia between 1882 and 1930. Rarely were the mobs held accountable. About 95 percent of the victims were African Americans.
African American Responses to Segregation • In the 1890s, many African Americans migrated from the South to the Great Plains, hoping to leave the Jim Crow laws and settle land out west. • Those African Americans who migrated west during this period were called Exodusters. • After World War I, African Americans increasingly left the South to move north, seeking factory jobs and to avoid threats of racial violence. • This movement from South to North became known as the Great Migration.
What information does this graph provide about changes in rural Georgia in the early 20th century?
Booker T. Washington • Booker T. Washington was a former slave who became the head of the Tuskegee Institute, a school for African Americans in Alabama. • He supported industrial and vocational education for African Americans and gained the support of some leading northern whites. • At the 1895 International Cotton Exposition in Atlanta, Washington delivered a speech that seemed to accept social racial separation, with blacks and whites both “essential to mutual progress.” • This idea of segregation and social inequality as necessary to get along with southern whites was later known as “accommodation.” • Washington’s speech supported a practical approach, in which segregation continued, but with hope that gradually the races might live more equally. His speech was well received by northern and southern white leaders.
W.E.B. DuBois • Born free, raised in Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard, W.E.B. DuBois worked to develop African Americans leaders, based on a strong liberal arts education. • Beginning in 1897, he taught at Atlanta University and studied conditions for African Americans. • His book, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), called for action against poverty and racial violence. • He helped create the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); in 1910 he moved to New York to work full-time with the NAACP. • DuBois wanted to attack racism, and the NAACP took discrimination cases to court throughout the rest of the 20th Century.
Section 3: Voting Rights • Essential Question • How did efforts to disfranchise African American men lead to racial riots in Georgia?
White Primaries • In 1900, the Democratic Party in Georgia ruled that its primaries for statewide offices would be open to whites only. • African Americans had little influence in state politics since they would have no part in choosing the candidates. African American voting declined as a result of these white primaries. • Efforts to disfranchise African American men continued in the early 20th Century. • An 1899 and 1901 bill to require voters to pass a literacy test, with a “grandfather clause” tying the ability to vote to whether one’s father or grandfather could vote right after the Civil War, did not pass. This would have eliminated all African American voting.
The Atlanta Riot of 1906 and the 1908 Election • During 1906, the Atlanta newspapers helped create racial tensions by publishing stories of alleged crimes against whites. • A white mob gathered in downtown Atlanta and, despite pleas from the Mayor to disperse, began attacking African Americans and African American businesses. • Some African Americans used weapons in defense. A shootout with militia near Clark College resulted in many arrests of African Americans. • After three days, more than 25 people had died and headlines around the country destroyed Atlanta’s image as a modernizing and progressive city. Some blacks left Atlanta after the riot. • Democrat Hoke Smith was elected governor in 1908. Smith campaigned in support of a constitutional amendment to limit who could vote in elections by mandating certain restrictions. This disfranchisement amendment meant African Americans lost their right to vote in Georgia.
The Disfranchisement Amendment • The Disfranchisement Amendment of 1908 was a state constitutional amendment that required a literacy test as a condition to register to vote. A grandfather clause allowed veterans and descendents of war veterans to vote. • Governor Hoke Smith supported this voting registration amendment. • Losing the right to vote kept African Americans from influencing politics, law, or government policy in Georgia. The black community would not be heard when demanding better education, neighborhood improvements, or fairer treatment. • The inequalities of the Jim Crow system became even greater in the decades to follow.
