In the 1890’s, the Populist movement divided Southern whites. Since both Populists and Democrats could at times use blacks against their opponents, the minimal political rights of blacks were maintained. When Populism declined, the reunited whites combined to eliminate the political power of blacks. Many states followed Mississippi, which in 1890 disfranchised Negroes. Leaders like Benjamin Tillman in South Carolina, Charles Aycock in North Carolina, and Hoke Smith in Georgia led movements against black voting rights. Racial feeling was intensified by such books as Charles Carroll’s The Negro a Beast, Robert W. Shufeldt’s The Negro, A Menace to American Civilization, and by the former Populist Tom Watson, who preached in Atlanta the superiority of the Aryan and the menace of Negro domination.
At the same time, the white press was treating black crime, especially assault and rape, in an inflammatory fashion and in 1906 this problem touched off a riot in Atlanta, Georgia. On Saturday, September 22, the papers printed extras about new assaults on white women. The Atlanta News ran five such editions with huge type proclaiming “Third Assault” and “Fourth Assault.” In fact, of the twelve assaults alleged during the week before the riot, Ray Stannard Baker’s investigation showed that two did occur and three were attempted, but the other seven were merely rumors. But the press was believed, and there was a wave of beatings and shootings of blacks. A peaceful Sunday was followed by a second outbreak on Monday when police in the suburb of Brownsville arrested Negroes who had armed themselves against further attack. At least twelve blacks were killed and over seventy wounded.
The following account is taken from the Atlanta Constitution, September 23, 1906. See Ray Stannard Baker: Following the Color Line (1908); W. E. B. DuBois: “The Atlanta Massacre,” The Independent, LXI (October 4, 1906), 799–800; “The Atlanta Riots,” Outlook, LXXXIV (November 3, 1906), 555–66; and Charles Crowe: “Racial Massacre in Atlanta, September 22, 1906,” Journal of Negro History, LIV (April 1969), 150–73.
At 10 o’clock there were at least ten thousand men on the streets, and they were becoming more and more turbulent and bent on mischief.
It was about this hour when Mayor Woodward again begged the crowd to disperse and go home. They cheered him and returned to their business of chasing and beating negroes.
Will Drown Them Out
“I will drown them out,” said the mayor.
He ran to the fire alarm box at the corner of Ivy and Decatur Streets and turned in the general alarm.
Soon the entire fire department, headed by Chief Joyner, was on the scene. The mayor explained to the chief what was up, and instructed him to lay hose all along Decatur Street from Ivy to Peachtree and to force the crowd back at the mouth of the nozzles.
In a few minutes the pipes were laid and the downpour of water caused the crowds to make a hasty retreat. They did this with a cheer and turned into the side streets.
In five minutes the mob had again formed at the corner of Edgewood avenue and Pryor Street, out of the reach of the water. Once more the chasing of negroes began.
Negroes were often advised by well intending white people not to force their way where the mob was holding sway, but many of them seemingly defiant kept on their way and they soon found that they would have fared better had they taken advice.
The mob, making a run from Edgewood Avenue into Peachtree, collected at the corner of Marietta, where they were again out of reach of water.
By this time there were no negroes in sight of the mob and it was passing the time away with yelling.
Then the trolley cars began to come in with Negroes on them. Had this but been foreseen and policemen sent out to meet the incoming cars to get the negroes off of them, the riot might have been checked in time. But this could not be foreseen, and when car No. 207, bound for Grant Park via Georgia Avenue, came down Edgewood Avenue and stopped at the corner of Marietta Street, the mob saw that it was half filled with negroes.
“Take them off. Kill them. Lynch them,” came in shouts from the mob.
… The motor man put on speed, and for a moment it looked as though the negroes on the car would escape, and it could be seen that they looked less frightened. However, there was a delay of a second, and the next moment someone wrung the trolley off the wire and in the next instant the car windows were being smashed and white men were striking through the windows with sticks.
Someone gave an order for the trolley to be put on to furnish light, and when this flashed on a fierce battle was on between the whites and the blacks, some half dozen whites having entered the car with sticks. The negroes, incited by a negro woman who smiled while the fight was in progress, fought until overpowered and dragged off. Some were pulled through the windows, and the negro women were almost disrobed. The women were given a few cuffs on the head and allowed to escape, but each of the negro men received fearful beatings from sticks handled by the whites, some of whom were boys from 12 to 15 years old.
Five Negroes Escaped
After being severely beaten, five of the negroes escaped up side streets, but one, an 18-year-old negro named Evans, made a show of resistance, and time and again he was knocked down. With blood streaming from his head, he rose to his feet and made an effort to draw a knife, having struggled on and reached a point midway between Broad and Forsyth Streets at this time. That sealed his fate.
“He’s trying to cut a white man,” was the cry that went up, and as he broke away the crowd pursued him hotly. Once more he went down just at the corner of Forsyth and Marietta Streets, but again struggled to his feet and ran south down Forsyth Street. Just between Bluthenthal & Bickerts’ side-door entrance and the barber shop he was overtaken, and this was his final stand. He was beaten again, and while he was struggling, surrounded by about twenty, he gave a groan and sank to the sidewalk. Before the crowd scattered the blood was running down the inclined sidewalk and he was dead within three minutes after he fell.…
A few seconds later a negro was dragged from a Marietta car, beaten, allowed to escape for a moment and then given chase as he entered on a wild run, leaving a bloody trail behind him, toward Forsyth Street. Just on the opposite side of the street from the main entrance to the post office, he was again surrounded on the pavement, and was thrown down.
“For God’s sake have mercy on me, white folks,” was the negro’s despairing cry.
“We’ll give you the same kind of mercy your kind gave white women,” was the answer, and but a few moments elapsed before no sound was heard from that negro.…
One of the worst battles of the night was that which took place around the post office. Here the mob, yelling for blood, rushed upon a negro barber shop just across from the federal building.
“Get ’em, Get ’em all.” With this for their slogan, the crowd, armed with heavy clubs, canes, revolvers, several rifles, stones and weapons of every description made a rush upon the negro barber shop. Those in the first line of the crowd made known their coming by throwing bricks and stones that went crashing through the windows and glass doors.
Hard upon these missiles rushed such a sea of angry men and boys as swept everything before them.
The two negro barbers working at their chairs made no effort to meet the mob. One man held up both his hands. A brick caught him in the face, and at the same time shots were fired. Both men fell to the floor. Still unsatisfied, the mob rushed into the barber shop, leaving the place a mass of ruins.
The bodies of both barbers were first kicked and then dragged from the place. Grabbing at their clothing, this was soon torn from them, many of the crowd taking these rags of shirts and clothing home as souvenirs or waving them above their heads to invite to further riot.
When dragged into the street, the faces of both barbers were terribly mutilated, while the floor of the shop was wet with puddles of blood. On and on these bodies were dragged across the street to where the new building of the electric and gas company stands. In the alleyway leading by the side of the building the bodies were thrown together and left there.
At about the same time another portion of the mob busied itself with one negro caught upon the streets. He was summarily treated. Felled with a single blow, shots were fired at the body until the crowd for its own safety called for a halt on this method and yelled, “Beat ’em up. Beat ’em up. You’ll kill good white men by shooting.”
By way of reply, the mob began beating the body of the negro, which was already beyond the possibility of struggle or pain. Satisfied that the negro was dead, his body was thrown by the side of the two negro barbers and left there, the pile of three of them making a ghastly monument to the work of the night, and almost within the shadow of the monument of Henry W. Grady.