Georgia History

New South

  • When: late 1800s - early 1900s

  • Focused on industrialization

  • Result: a trend towards industry and crop diversification

Bourbon Triumvirate

Members:

  • Joseph E. Brown: Civil War Governor of GA, one of GA’s wealthiest men, U.S. Senator

  • Alfred H. Colquitt: opposed Reconstruction, became a railroad and textile investor, served as GA governor and U.S. Senator, suspected of corruption

  • John B. Gordon: civil war general, leader of GA’s Ku Klux Klan, U.S. senator twice and GA’s governor

Common Goals/Beliefs:

  • Change Georgia to encourage the “New South”

  • Increase industry and manufacturing in Georgia

  • Maintain one-party democratic rule in Georgia

  • Uphold white supremacy

Henry Grady

  • Voice of the “New South”

  • Editor of the Atlanta Constitution

International Cotton Exposition

  • Purpose: attract new industries and investors

Tom Watson

  • Leader of the Populist Party

  • Member of Congress

  • Supported Rural Free Delivery (RFD)

Populist Party

  • Failure: because it called on black and white farmers to work together

Jim Crow South

Jim Crow Laws

  • Laws created to deny African Americans citizenship rights

  • Enforced segregation in public places

Plessy v. Ferguson

  • Case about a man, Homer Plessy (1/8th African American), arrested for riding in a “whites only” section

  • Sued, arguing his 14th amendment rights were violated

  • Result: U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregation legal with “separate but equal” facilities

Disenfranchisement

  • Taking away the right to vote

Ways African Americans were disenfranchised:

  • Poll Tax: required citizens to pay to vote, eliminating the poor

  • Literacy Test: required proof of reading ability, eliminating the illiterate

  • Grandfather Clause: exempted some white citizens from literacy tests and taxes

  • Racial Violence: tactics used by the Ku Klux Klan to intimidate voters

  • White Primaries: Democratic primaries were “white only,” reducing black voting power

The 1906 Atlanta Riot

  • Causes: High tension from unemployed whites competing with blacks for jobs; allegations of black assaults on white women

  • Result: 25 African Americans and 2 whites killed; hurt Atlanta’s reputation

Alonzo Herndon

  • Born into slavery

  • Created the Crystal Palace Barber Shop; later founded a multi-million dollar life insurance company

The Great Debate
Booker T. Washington:

  • Supported gradual civil rights; believed in job skills and hard work

  • Founded the Tuskegee Institute; known for his Atlanta Compromise Speech

W.E.B. DuBois:

  • Believed rights should not need to be earned; advocated for immediate rights

  • Founded the Niagara Movement, leading to the NAACP

Results:

  • Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 discredited Washington's approach; DuBois' confrontational model gained prominence