Was Georgia Less Racist Than Alabama Or Mississippi? (influences, England, 80s)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I think this is a distinction without much of a difference. If you're on the receiving end of prejudice and discrimination, it's bad no matter what. Sure, metro Atlanta probably wasn't as virulently racist as the rural areas, but it still took effort and direct action to correct things.
Not so sure about back then but Atlanta now is certainly racist.......against whites .Ive never been anywhere i felt so unwelcome,and to a degree worried.According to the very nice (black) receptionist at my hotel it was because people had gone to Atlanta in the 50s and 60s from rural parts of the south believing equal rights would never come where they came from.Sadly she said they brought a lasting hatred which has trickled down through the generations.
The "city too busy to hate".............yeah right.
I wouldnt go there again for a day .....even for a million.
The Second Klan was founded in Stone Mountain, the Third Klan was founded in Atlanta, and Georgia had some of the most Klan activity of any state for decades, although klan activity in Georgia diminished greatly in the last half century.
In general (a very general sense) and for a variety of multi-faceted reasons, the "western" South (Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, western Tennessee) was more hard-core during the Civil Rights Era than the "eastern" South (Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Florida, central+eastern Tennessee).
I think it is also important to differentiate between coastal and mountain areas as well.
The coastal areas of Alabama (oldest mardis gras is in Mobile) and Mississippi have a creole culture that led to far more relaxed racial views than those in the hard core interior of these states. I would not be surprised if Coastal Georgia and South Carolina were also different than the interiors.
Likewise, slavery and later segregation were never popular concepts in the mountains (“Mountaineers are always free”). This did not mean that all Appalachians had enlightened views on race, just that segregation was not as stringently enforced in east TN, Kentucky, West Virginia, west NC etc. As a side note, North Carolina as a whole is mostly piedmont and even at the time of the civil war, considered itself to be “southern but not Dixie”. This led to more laxly supported segregation across the state and an easy victory for MLK with the Greensboro sit in.
One weird exception to the coastal = more relaxed racial views trend is Baltimore. Though located in Maryland and is a port city, Baltimore held Deep South Dixie attitudes about race for a very long time that had far more in common with say, Birmingham Alabama than with those of the relatively more North Carolina to the south.
The Second Klan was founded in Stone Mountain, the Third Klan was founded in Atlanta, and Georgia had some of the most Klan activity of any state for decades, although klan activity in Georgia diminished greatly in the last half century.
In the 20th century, Georgia saw a greater degree of Klan activity than either state and Nathan Bedford Forrest Klan Klavern #1 in Atlanta was considered the most dangerous Klavern in the South during the post WW2 era, and one of it's members, " Itchy Trigger Finger " Nash, killed over a dozen black Atlantans while on duty as an Atlanta Patrolman according to Stetson Kennedy. When considering that there were 19 more lynchings in Georgia (302) than in Mississippi (283) from 1900-1930, it's highly likely that Georgia led the nation in lynchings during the 20th century.
Its the tale of 3 cities. Jackson, Atlanta & Birmingham. The pressure mainly involved them. The smaller cities had a lot of trouble too, but Atlanta set it self a part from Birmingham & Jackson. Its all about good and bad decisions and knowing how the world around you views you and how the leadership of those cities at the time viewed the world. The entire states of Mississippi & Alabama suffered economically for bad choices.
Even though Atlanta has long been described as racially progressive, Martin Luther King never once described his hometown as racially progressive or in a similar term. What set Atlanta apart was that it's white civic leaders understood what was and wasn't good for business. That meant creating an image for Atlanta that would set it apart from those other cities .
Compared to their respective 1920 black populations, the 1930-1970 average black population was 226k larger in Louisiana, 56k larger in Alabama, 25k larger in Mississippi, and 101k smaller in Georgia. That the Great Migration was more about black people fleeing racism than anything else, and Georgia being the only one of the four states which had a smaller average black population from 1930-1970 than in 1920, it may have been just as racist.
Remember Atlanta had white flight which enable it to seem less racist. and then there is the Klan.
We had a saying in NC during the 1960s."nothing good comes from Georgia" and it referred to the white flight scattering and bringing things with them.
just saying
and I agree with the poster above who said something about racism against whites. I have stood in line and the black people behind me were waited on before I was. There is an attitude or was when I lived there
Hard to make a comparison as the only state I’m familiar with within the specified time period is Georgia. I was stationed in Albany Georgia for a period of time in the mid 60’s. Our base was completely desegregated but outside it was a different story.
Classic Deep South racism. Everything was totally segregated. White and black water fountains and restrooms. White only restaurants, hotels, bars and theatres. I can remember black servicemen some of whom were going to Vietnam or had already been there being thrown out of bars.
A lot of our black service members had grown up in the North and had never come into contact with the kind of virulent racism they experienced in their new environment. It must have been a shock to them being in the service and having to face life and death situations in Vietnam to experience second class citizenship.
Let's not delude ourselves into thinking Georgia's racism is in the past. According to studies, and a new book about voter suppression in the US threatening our democratic processes, Georgia's Republicans have maintained a stranglehold on on the balloting process since 2005, in order to maintain control of elected positions throughout the state and in Congress. The details of their m.o. in preventing new Dem voter registrants from voting, or from having their votes counted, are spelled out, in "One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy". Georgia is a model of voter suppression.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
