DOC The Political Languages of Emancipation in the British Caribbean and the U.S. South by Demetrius L. Eudell in History

Description

In 1906 Atlanta; after a summer of inflammatory headlines and accusations of black-on-white sexual assaults; armed white mobs attacked African Americans; resulting in at least twenty-five black fatalities. Atlanta's black residents fought back and repeatedly defended their neighborhoods from white raids. Placing this four-day riot in a broader narrative of twentieth-century race relations in Atlanta; in the South; and in the United States; David Fort Godshalk examines the riot's origins and how memories of this cataclysmic event shaped black and white social and political life for decades to come. Nationally; the riot radicalized many civil rights leaders; encouraging W. E. B. Du Bois's confrontationist stance and diminishing the accommodationist voice of Booker T. Washington. In Atlanta; fears of continued disorder prompted white civic leaders to seek dialogue with black elites; establishing a rare biracial tradition that convinced mainstream northern whites that racial reconciliation was possible in the South without national intervention. Paired with black fears of renewed violence; however; this interracial cooperation exacerbated black social divisions and repeatedly undermined black social justice movements; leaving the city among the most segregated and socially stratified in the nation. Analyzing the interwoven struggles of men and women; blacks and whites; social outcasts and national powerbrokers; Godshalk illuminates the possibilities and limits of racial understanding and social change in twentieth-century America.