Cynthia W. Wilbur
The University
of Georgia
Dr. Gagnon—HIST 3090
March 27, 2006
The 1906 Atlanta Race Riot and Rome, Georgia:
Reflections and Reactions in the Rome
Tribune
W.E.B. DuBois
wrote that “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the
color-line”. This is not just a problem
limited to the twentieth century—the “color-line” did not suddenly appear like
a wall overnight as 1899 rolled into 1900.
Instead, the problem of the color-line came into being slowly, through
years of division and discrimination, like an ever-tightening rope slowly
strangling its victim. The problem of
the color-line was the problem of the United
States, of the American people, but
overwhelmingly of the South. If racial
hatred was the rope used to fashion the noose, then the victims of the gallows
were certainly the people of the South, both black and white.
By
the early 1900’s, the South was still in an economic slump behind the rest of
the country. The Civil War had taken a
heavy toll, and the casualties were not just human. The entire economy of the South had also died. Forty years after the end of the war, things
were somewhat better. The Southern
states had survived both Presidential and Congressional Reconstruction, but
they did not come through unscathed. The
end of slavery meant the end of the social order of the antebellum South, and
the beginning of a new world where the color-line became hazy. Total white domination had been the rule of
the Old South; the New South saw the birth of the Civil Rights Movement, and
the first struggles for black equality.
African-Americans, enslaved no more:
“…welcomed
freedom with a cry. They shrank back
from the master who still strove for their chains; they fled to the friends
that had freed them, even though those friends stood ready to use them as a
club for driving the recalcitrant South back into loyalty. So, the cleft between the white and black
South grew.”[1]
During
the first years of the twentieth century, Atlanta,
Georgia, had emerged as
both “a commercial and a manufacturing center”.[2] Rebuilt after the Civil War, the city was now
a destination not just for new entrepreneurs and the elite business classes,
but also for many displaced and dispirited whites and blacks who were trying to
start over after years spent as tenant farmers and sharecroppers. The two races were brought together, and
tensions rose.
To
the northwest of Atlanta is Rome,
a smaller city but an urban area nonetheless.
At the turn of the century, Rome
boasted was a regional hub for the cotton industry, had a thriving downtown,
and a daily newspaper. The citizens of Rome
were well-informed and they kept abreast of the developments going on in Atlanta. They had heard the rumors and the reports of
racial tensions and upheaval in Atlanta,
and they were well-attuned to the fact that what happened in the capital city
affected the whole of the state. Thus,
it comes as no surprise that Romans would become involved in the drama that
erupted in Atlanta on September 22, 1906.
Throughout that summer of 1906,
newspapers in Atlanta and across Georgia
had been in a quasi-race to see who could publish the most sensational stories
and garner the largest audience.
Headlines frequently recounted the horrors of black on white crime,
usually in the form of black men assaulting white women. The stories had the desired effect, and the
white population, both elite and lower class, became riveted by what they
saw as not only the complete
regression of African-Americans, but also the failures of whites to control
blacks at the most basic social levels.
These concerns were further compounded by the upcoming gubernatorial
election. Candidates Hoke Smith and
Clark Howell were both avowed white supremacists, and the apparent rash of
black rapists played right into their platforms. Smith, who was running on the promise of
black disenfranchisements, used the assault stories as fodder for his
campaign. Smith wrote in an editorial
for the Atlanta Journal (a newspaper he had ties to through his campaign manager,
the chief editor) that it was no wonder blacks grew frustrated as they sought
to change society. Social equality with
whites was something they biologically could never hope to achieve. It was only natural that a black, once faced
with the futility of his goal, would revert “with the instinct of a barbarian
to destroy what he cannot attain to.”[3] Smith reasoned that the uncivilized black
man, lacking the structure and control of slavery, “lies in wait…and assaults
the fair young girlhood of the South.”[4] Such inflammatory opinions became common
amongst whites throughout Atlanta. As summer turned into fall, emotions rose to
the breaking point. Elsewhere, in Rome,
popular sympathies were united with the white men of Atlanta. Southern chivalry demanded that a man protect
his family at the stake of his own honor, and more importantly, his way of
life. White men’s inability to protect
their women “signaled their submission to blacks and their public and political
emasculation.”[5] Thus, each new rape account carried in the
papers was seen as another nail in the coffin of white male supremacy.
“White Woman is assaulted By Negro”
On
September 22, 1906, the Rome Tribune
carried as one of its front-page headlines the story of an Atlanta resident, a
Mrs. Kimmel who had reportedly been assaulted by a black man the proceeding
Thursday. The suspect was caught Friday,
and for his own safety while awaiting trial was put under the protection of
police and the state militia lest the angry white mobs surrounding Atlanta’s
jail try to mete out vigilante justice.
Included in the article were reports that another black male, Luther
Frazier, had been “bound over Friday morning [September 21] by Recorder Broyles
for assault with criminal intent on Miss Orrie Bryan, a daughter of Thomas L.
Bryan, of 232 Courtland Street.”[6] Unfortunately, the readers of the Tribune were used to the occasional
story of assault coming from Atlanta. However, two incidences occurring within a
day of each other was disturbing, even given the size of the city.
Unbeknown
to the people of Rome, the evening
of September 22 marked the beginning of the Atlanta Race Riot. The Atlanta
papers also carried the stories of Mrs. Kimmel and Miss Bryan, and had reached
new heights of sensationalism by publishing several extra editions throughout
the day on Saturday headlining new assaults on white women. These accounts (based on hearsay at best) coupled
with wild rumors and the already stressed emotions of the white residents
fanned the flames of riot. By 8:30 Saturday night, real trouble erupted at Atlanta’s
Five Points area when “a white man peered down of the crowd from a dry goods
box and challenged his audience to avenge these crimes: ‘Are we Southern white
men going to stand for this?’ he shouted.
‘No. Let’s kill all the Negroes
so our women will be safe,’ was the reply.”[7] White mobs began pursuing any black men or
women in sight, breaking into white and black businesses, raiding streetcars,
dragging blacks to the ground where they were often beaten, stabbed, or shot to
death. The rioting lasted until the
early hours of the morning, and only stopped then because of inclement weather.
“Atlanta Mob Does Deadly Work”
In
Rome, little was known about what
was going on in Atlanta, either
because the news was slow getting out or more probably because by the time the
rioting stopped, the next day’s paper was already being printed. At any rate, Sunday’s headline in the Tribune merely recounted more of the
unfolding Orrie Bryan assault story. The
girl’s father, Thomas Bryan, according to the column, had asked the police to
“settle this case with the negro here and now.”[8] As titillating as this story was, nothing in
the article hinted at what had been happening overnight. The citizens of Rome
would not begin to learn the full story of the riot until Tuesday’s paper,
whose headlines screamed: “Peace Prevails and Law and Order Now Reigns in the
City of Atlanta.” The article detailed the happenings of the
weekend riot, called Saturday Atlanta’s “wildest night” and described the white
mob as 10,000 “men turned into demons… who seemed more like wild beasts than
human beings.” Many of the basic “facts”
were the same as those found in Atlanta
papers, including the supposed cause of the mob violence—the black assaults. “Atlanta
has had its race riot,” wrote the editors, “And it was one of the most terrible
since the days of Reconstruction.”[9] The editors blamed the riots on the recent
criminal assaults made by “brutal negroes” against “defenseless white women”. The article went on to report that “[f]ifteen
negroes and one white man so far heard from have been killed,” blaming the lone
white’s death on “a negro at the Seaboard Air Line freight depot at a late hour
Saturday night.”[10] Events took a local turn when state troops
from Rome and nearby Lindale and
Cedartown were called out by Atlanta’s
Mayor Woodward on Sunday afternoon to act as reinforcements to the city police.
In its previous
stories, the Tribune had been careful
to be as “objective” as the racially-charged era would allow, not
sensationalizing its stories as the Atlanta
papers had done. All this changed with
Tuesday’s edition, when all pretenses at equality were gone, and Tribune editor’s even went so far as to
renounce their previous stance as “an enemy to lynch law.” “We have fought lynch law with all the power
at our command,” they wrote. “We have
denounced it in the severest tones we know.
We have begged that it not be invoked by our people.”[11]
However, in a threatening special editorial devoted to “The Atlanta Situation,”
the leading newsmen of Rome blamed
the riot squarely on the African-Americans:
“The Negroes themselves are
sounding their own doom, for the white people of this country are not going to
allow the negro to live in the South at all so long as he remains a menace to
the purity of southern womanhood. IT BEGINS TO LOOK AS THOUGH THIS SOUTHLAND IS
NOT BIG ENOUGH FOR BOTH NEGRO AND THE WHITE MAN. If that becomes the evident truth, the negro
must GO, either to some other land, or to his grave.”[12]
Another article in the same edition
notes a case of black assault taking place in Shreveport,
Louisiana, which resulted in a rumored
lynching. This helped support the
editors’ viewpoints that black barbarism was a problem endemic not just to Atlanta,
but to the entire “Southland”.
Reasonable white men had been pushed to their limits by black insult,
and as a result mayhem, violence, and terror ensued. “It was in Atlanta
just what it will be in Rome,” forewarned
the Tribune, adding “[no] Booker
Washington high sounding mottoes and cheap advice will avail now. The negro must behave, or he is doomed.”[13]
Particularly
telling about the editorialized opinion is the complete disregard for a smaller
news item also in Tuesday’s Tribune. The article was entitled “Four Thousand Meet
Death Unlawfully,” and ironically reported that according to the New York World there had been 4,000
known lynching deaths in the previous 25 years.
Ninety-five percent of the deaths “were negroes charged with assaults on
white women. The methods of execution
comprised hanging, shooting, flogging, and burning.”[14]
“A Sensible Card”[15]
Tuesday’s
Tribune also featured a unique
reprint of a card sent to the editors by Will
Barnett, the only African-American lawyer in Rome,
and a citizen in good standing with both black and white residents of the
town. In response to the purported
black-on-white crime that precipitated the riot, Barnett wrote that, in his
opinion “[a]bout nine-tenths of the assaults and rape cases can be traced
directly to the influence of the negro dives and so-called restaurants” found
in some of Atlanta’s roughest
neighborhoods.[16] Barnett had recently returned from a trip to Atlanta,
where he had “warned several negroes around those joints on Decatur
Street that if those places were not broken up,
there was going to be trouble.”[17] Barnett sided with many white elites of the
day, echoing their distaste of black bars that catered to “low-lifes” and
encouraged criminality where none previously existed. Barnett and others felt that such places
could only hurt the struggle for black equality, saying “there isn’t any reason
in the world why the negro cannot get along with the white people if he wants
to and tries and if they would let their fool idea of social equality alone.”[18] Barnett argued that law-abiding blacks need
never fear whites or their justice.
As
a response to Atlanta’s riot,
several of Barnett’s colleagues—“well-known negroes” of Rome,
had requested the town’s mayor, John Maddox, give a public speech to quiet
local fears and racial tensions. Perhaps
wishing to distance themselves from the “uncivilized” blacks blamed for the
assaults, or to side with Barnett and express agreement with popular white
sentiment, these high-standing African-Americans wished to avoid any civil
unrest or uprising in Rome. Mayor Maddox agreed to their request, and
scheduled a public speech at the county courthouse Tuesday evening, September
25, with the intent to “discuss the labor question and the negro problem.”[19]
Wednesday’s
paper brought news of the state troops raiding Brownsville,
a predominately black neighborhood, the previous day—“Tuesday Night Brought
Blood in the Suburbs” ran one front-page lead.
Rumors had been spreading Sunday and Monday amongst the African-American
sections of Atlanta that “blacks
were still being massacred in downtown…and that the mob was on its way to
attack.”[20] At the same time, white residents heard
“rumors that Brownsville’s
residents were planning a retaliatory strike against nearby white settlements.”[21] Again,
the Tribune editors attributed the
upheaval to recalcitrant blacks: “Monday the white people were perfectly quiet
and every bit of the trouble was caused by the attacks of negroes on whites.”[22] In spite of the best efforts of the
African-American population in Rome,
white residents were still considerably shaken. Many citizens were upset that
their relatives had been called to Atlanta
with the state troops, to get entangled in a problem that was not of their own
doing. Other residents began to echo the very same opinions that had been
circulating in Atlanta prior to the
riots. The Tribune even ran a
short article detailing Mississippi Governor Vardaman's response to the
rioting. His solution was to repeal the Fifteenth Amendment to save white
civilization from "low-browed, veneered, semi-savage negroes." (This
opinion no-doubt met with the utmost approval from Hoke Smith.)
Popular sentiment in Rome
and the surrounding areas continued toward anger throughout the days following
the riots and the stabilization of Atlanta. In Georgia
and all over the South, locals began to debate the causes and contributing
factors of the uprisings. Just how much blame can be laid at the feet of
the Atlanta papers is not known,
but there is no denying that the sensationalist tones of the stories played a
large part in building white tensions against black Atlantans. Extra
editions and stories based on hearsay and speculation incriminated all blacks,
not as individuals, but as an entire race. In nearby Cartersville, the Cartersville News, a weekly published
each Thursday, barely mentioned the riots at all. However, the editors did feel the need to
defend local emotions, saying “Papers away from the scene say, ‘Why don’t the
law[s] punish your black assaulters and thus end it?’ Some of the alert and ready might answer, the
law doesn’t seem to have time to do a job that sometimes requires speed.”[23]
As an interesting side note, perhaps in part because of the speculation against
the Atlanta papers and their distortions, the Cartersville editors questioned
the influence of smaller daily papers explaining that in towns like Rome,
Macon, Columbus,
and Augusta, the gubernatorial candidate backed by the local paper was almost
certainly the one who lost the most area votes.
Unfortunately,
there was no need to speculate over the effects of the riot. In the years following, segregation became
firmly entrenched in the legal and social atmosphere of the South. Many whites convinced that without the
controlling force of slavery black society lacked any semblance of order and
decency, believed that total separation of the races was the only answer to
racial problems. Segregation was
absolute, enforced by law, and extended into all facets of life. This
legacy of separation was perhaps the most appalling and long-lasting vestige of
the riots. In places like Rome,
segregation was not as fixed a wall as in larger cities like Atlanta,
but nonetheless, it was a barrier that could not be crossed. Life for all of Southern society was altered,
and any previous black and white race relations were all but destroyed. Ironically,
however, it was this push for domination that ultimately destroyed
segregation. African-Americans kept
their faith and drew courage in the face of such violent conflict, eventually
gaining the equality that had they had so long sought. For sixty years after the Atlanta Race Riot,
black and whites in Georgia lived apart, separated by white fears and black
hopes, all looking back to that far-away September night in 1906 when the last
knot was tied in the color-line, and the noose was placed around the neck of
total white supremacy in the South.
ENDNOTES
[1]
W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk
(Chicago: A.C. McClurg Publishing
Co.,
1907).
[2]
David F. Godshalk, Veiled Visions: The 1906 Race Riot and the Reshaping of American
Race Relations (Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press, 2005), 14.
[3]
Godshalk, Veiled Visions, 51.
[4]
Godshalk, Veiled Visions, 51.
[5] Godshalk,
Veiled Visions, 40.
[6] “White
Woman Is Assaulted by Negro,” Rome
Tribune, 22 September, 1906,
p.1.
[7]
Godshalk, Veiled Visions, 88.
[8] “Begged
to Settle Case with Negro,” Rome Tribune,
23 September, 1906, p.1.
[9] “Peace
Prevails and Law and Order Now Reigns in the City of Atlanta,”
Rome Tribune,
25 September, 1906, p.1.
[10]
“Peace Prevails and Law and Order Now Reigns in the City of Atlanta,”
Rome
Tribune, 25 September,
1906, p.1.
[11] “The
Atlanta Situation,” Rome Tribune, 25 September, 1906, p.4.
[12] “The
Atlanta Situation,” Rome Tribune, 25 September, 1906, p.4.
[13] “The
Atlanta Situation,” Rome Tribune, 25 September, 1906, p.4.
[14] “Four
Thousand Meet Death Unlawfully,” Rome
Tribune, 25 September, 1906,
p. 3.
[15]
“A Sensible Card,” Rome Tribune, 26 September, 1906, p.2.
[16] “Will
Barnett Writes Card,” Rome Tribune, 25 September, 1906, p. 3.
[17] “Will
Barnett Writes Card,” Rome Tribune, 25 September, 1906, p. 3.
[18] “Will
Barnett Writes Card,” Rome Tribune, 25 September, 1906, p. 3.
[19] “Mayor
Maddox to Make Speech,” 25 September,
1906, p.5.
[20]
Godshalk, Veiled Visions, P. 102.
[21]
Godshalk, Veiled Visions, P. 102-103.
[22]
“Tuesday Night Brought Blood in the Suburbs,” 26 September, 1906, p.1.
[23]
“The News,” Cartersville News, 27 September, 1906, p.2.
Bibliography
1. “Begged to Settle Case With Negro.” Rome Tribune, 23
September, 1906, p.1.
2. “Fifteenth Amendment Must Be Repealed.” Rome Tribune, 26 September,
1906, p. 3.
3. Godshalk, David. Veiled Visions: The 1906 Atlanta Race Riot and the Reshaping of
American
Race Relations. Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press, 2005.
4. Mixon, Gregory. The Atlanta Race Riot: Race, Class, and Violence in a
New South
City.
Gainesville, FL:
University of Florida
Press, 2005.
5. “The News.” Cartersville
News, 27 September, 1906,
p.2.
6. “Peace Prevails and Law and Order Now Reigns in the City
of Atlanta.” Rome
Tribune,
25 September, 1906, p.1.
7. “Peace and Quiet Welcomed in Atlanta.”
Rome Tribune, 27, September, 1906,
p.1.
8. “Riot Alarm was Sent In.” Rome Tribune, 25 September,
1906, p.3.
9. “The Atlanta
Situation.” Rome Tribune, 25 September, 1906, p.4.
10. “Tuesday Night Brought Blood in the Suburbs.” Rome Tribune, 26 September,
1906, p.1
11. “White Woman is Assaulted by Negro.” Rome Tribune, 22 September, 1906, p.1.