Racial segregation in Atlanta

After the war ended, Atlanta received migrants from surrounding counties, as well as new settlers to the region. Many freedmen moved from plantations to towns or cities for work, including Atlanta; Fulton County went from 20.5 percent black in 1860 to 45.7 percent black in 1870.[2][3] Many refugees were destitute without even proper clothing or shoes; the American Missionary Association (AMA) helped fill the gap, and the Freedmen's Bureau also offered much help, though erratically.[4]

The destruction of the housing stock by the Union army in the Battle of Atlanta, together with the massive influx of refugees, resulted in a severe housing shortage. 1⁄8-acre (510 m²) to 1⁄4-acre (1,000 m²) lots with a small house rented for $5 per month, while those with a glass pane rented for $20. High rents rather than laws led to de facto segregation due to simple economics, with most blacks settling into areas at the edge of the city like Jenningstown (pop. 2,490), Shermantown (2,486) and Summerhill (pop. 1,512), where housing was substandard but rented at rates that were regarded as inflated. Shermantown and Summerhill sat in low-lying areas, prone to flooding and sewage overflows, which resulted in outbreaks of disease in the late 19th century. Housing was substandard; an AMA missionary remarked that many houses were "rickety shacks" rented at inflated rates.[4]

The Fifth Ward, now the Fairlie-Poplar district and areas north of it, was home to the greatest number of blacks before the war, but dropped to third place (pop. 2,436) among black neighborhoods by 1870. Mechanicsville would develop as an additional black neighborhood in the 1870s.[4]

Sign at entrance to Ponce de Leon amusement park in 1908 indicating "colored persons admitted as servants only"

Jim Crow laws were passed in swift succession in the years following the Atlanta Race Riot in 1906. The result was in some cases segregated facilities, with nearly always inferior conditions for black customers, but in many cases it resulted in no facilities at all available to blacks, e.g. all parks were designated whites-only (although a private park, Joyland, did open in 1921). In 1910, the city council passed an ordinance requiring that restaurants be designated for one race only, hobbling black restaurant owners who had been attracting both black and white customers. In the same year, Atlanta's streetcars were segregated, with black patrons required to sit in the rear. If not enough seats were available for all white riders, the blacks sitting furthest forward in the trolley were required to stand and give their seats to whites. In 1913, the city created official boundaries for white and black residential areas. And in 1920, the city prohibited black-owned salons from serving white women and children.[5]

Beyond this, blacks were subject to the South's racial protocol, whereby, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia:[6] The full extent of segregation in Atlanta included schools, neighborhoods, street repair, police and fire services, and politics is evident through the twentieth century. (Source: Ronald H. Bayor, Race and the Shaping of Twentieth Century Atlanta (University of North Carolina Press, 1996)

all blacks were required to pay obeisance to all whites, even those whites of low social standing. And although they were required to address whites by the title "sir," blacks rarely received the same courtesy themselves. Because even minor breaches of racial etiquette often resulted in violent reprisals, the region's codes of deference transformed daily life into a theater of ritual, where every encounter, exchange, and gesture reinforced black inferiority.

On December 15, 1939, Atlanta hosted the premiere of Gone with the Wind, the movie based on Atlanta resident Margaret Mitchell's best-selling novel. Stars Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, and Olivia de Havilland were in attendance. The premiere was held at Loew's Grand Theatre, at Peachtree and Forsyth Streets, current site of the Georgia-Pacific building. An enormous crowd, numbering 300,000 people according to the Atlanta Constitution, filled the streets on this ice-cold night in Atlanta.

Noticeably absent was Hattie McDaniel, who would win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Mammy, as well as Butterfly McQueen (Prissy). The black actors were barred from attending the premiere, from appearing in the souvenir program, and from all the film's advertising in the South. Director David Selznick had attempted to bring McDaniel to the premiere, but MGM advised him not to. Clark Gable angrily threatened to boycott the premiere, but McDaniel convinced him to attend anyway.[7] McDaniel did attend the Hollywood debut thirteen days later, and was featured prominently in the program.[8]

Martin Luther King Jr. sang at the gala as part of a children's choir of his father's church, Ebenezer Baptist.[9] The boys dressed as pickaninnies and the girls wore "Aunt Jemima"-style bandanas, dress seen by many blacks as humiliating.[10][11] John Wesley Dobbs tried to dissuade Rev. King Sr. from participating at the whites-only event, and Rev. King Sr. was harshly criticized in the black community.

In the late 1950s, after forced-housing patterns were outlawed, violence, intimidation and organized political pressure was used in some white neighborhoods to discourage blacks from buying homes there. However, by the late 1950s, such efforts proved futile as blockbusting drove whites to sell their homes in neighborhoods such as Adamsville, Center Hill, Grove Park in northwest Atlanta, and white sections of Edgewood and on the east side. In 1962, the city attempted to thwart blockbusting by erecting road barriers in Cascade Heights, countering the efforts of civic and business leaders to foster Atlanta as the "city too busy to hate."[12][13] This incident would come to be known as "Atlanta's Berlin Wall" or the "Peyton Road Affair."

But efforts to stop transition in Cascade failed too. Neighborhoods of new black homeowners took root, helping alleviate the enormous strain of the lack of housing available to African Americans. Atlanta's western and southern neighborhoods transitioned to majority black — between 1950 and 1970 the number of census tracts that were at least ninety percent black tripled. East Lake, Kirkwood, Watts West Road, Reynoldstown, Almond Park, Mozley Park, Center Hill and Cascade Heights underwent an almost total transition from white to black. From 1960 to 1970, the black proportion of the city's population rose from 38 to 51 percent. Meanwhile, during the same decade, the city lost sixty thousand white residents, a 20 percent decline.[14]

White flight and the building of malls in the suburbs triggered a slow decline of downtown as a central shopping district;[12] however, it would continue its role as a government center and add the role of lodging and entertainment center for convention traffic.

In January of 1956, Bobby Grier became the first black player to participate in the Sugar Bowl. He is also regarded as the first black player to compete at a bowl game in the Deep South, though others such as Wallace Triplett had played in games like the 1948 Cotton Bowl in Dallas. Grier's team, the Pittsburgh Panthers, was set to play against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. However, Georgia's Governor Marvin Griffin beseeched Georgia Tech to not participate in this racially integrated game. Griffin was widely criticized by news media leading up to the game, and protests were held at his mansion by Georgia Tech students. Despite the governor's objections, Georgia Tech upheld the contract and proceeded to compete in the bowl. In the game's first quarter, a pass interference call against Grier ultimately resulted in Yellow Jackets' 7-0 victory. Grier stated that he has mostly positive memories about the experience, including the support from teammates and letters from all over the world.[15]

Martin Luther King Jr.

In the wake of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, which helped usher in the Civil Rights Movement, racial tensions in Atlanta erupted in acts of violence. For example, on October 12, 1958, a Reform Jewish temple on Peachtree Street was bombed. The "Confederate Underground" claimed responsibility. Many believed that Jews, especially those from the northeast, were advocates of the Civil Rights Movement.

In the 1960s, Atlanta was a major organizing center of the Civil Rights Movement, with Martin Luther King Jr. and students from Atlanta's historically black colleges and universities playing major roles in the movement's leadership. On October 19, 1960, a sit-in at the lunch counters of several Atlanta department stores led to the arrest of Dr. King and several students. This drew attention from the national media and from presidential candidate John F. Kennedy.

Despite this incident, Atlanta's political and business leaders fostered Atlanta's image as "the city too busy to hate."[16] While the city mostly avoided confrontation, minor race riots did occur in 1965 and in 1968.

Desegregation of the public sphere came in stages, with buses and trolleybuses desegregated in 1959,[17] restaurants at Rich's department store in 1961[18] (though Lester Maddox's Pickrick restaurant famously remained segregated through 1964),[19] and movie theaters in 1962-3.[20][21] In 1961, Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. became one of the few Southern white mayors to support desegregation of his city's public schools, although initial compliance was token, and in reality desegregation occurred in stages from 1961 to 1973.[22]