America's Black Capital by Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar

Author:Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar [Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2023-11-14T00:00:00+00:00

Cover of Le Petit Journal, October 7, 1906: “The Lynchings in the United States: The Massacre of Negroes in Atlanta.” The massacre made international headlines and destroyed black businesses, homes, and lives. It revealed the lethality of neo-Confederate politics, but it also strengthened notions of Afro-self-determinism and underscored the need to demand civil rights. CREDIT: PUBLIC DOMAIN

Despite the rise in visibility of Proctor, Washington’s accommodationist philosophy appeared impotent to the most prominent black Atlantans. However, Washington used the massacre to galvanize support for greater social responsibility and accountability among black people, and he encouraged white benefactors to help eliminate the “ignorance and social destitution of the lower classes” of black folk. Du Bois, the Hopes, Barber, the Herndons, and many others all became more conspicuously involved in civil rights work. The Niagara Movement seemed more critically needed than ever. Its mission had a national and even international audience, and a sense of urgency that it did not have before the unrest.80 Twelve-year-old White, who could pass for white, had been irrevocably changed: “After that night I never wanted to be a white man.” He would not do what thousands had done before him and pass into the white fold: “I was sick with loathing for the hatred which had flared before me that night and come so close to making me a killer.… I was glad I was not one of those made sick and murderous by pride.”81 More importantly, he decided to devote himself to the cause of justice and civil rights. Within a generation, he would align himself with Du Bois and eventually become one of the most celebrated civil rights leaders in the country, known as “Mr. NAACP.”

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