Atlanta used to call itself “The City Too Busy to Hate,” implying that if things slowed down, watch out! The “Too Busy to Hate” nickname ignored the lynchings and racial violence the city’s African Americans endured in the first half of the 20th Century. One of the worst outbreaks of violence came in 1906. All told, more than two dozen blacks were killed in the massacre. Here is an interesting article recalling the 1906 pogrom.
According to the article:
The massacre was fueled by an ongoing resentment of economic, civil and political gains by blacks in the post-reconstruction era Atlanta. This resentment was aided by fake news and constant radicalized rhetoric coming from the two largest papers in Atlanta at the time, the Atlanta Journal and the Atlanta Constitution.
However, the biggest contributor to this constant barrage of false reports and racial rhetoric of negro-related issues was the 1906 Georgia governor’s race between Hoke Smith, owner of the Atlanta Journal, and Clark Howell editor of the Atlanta Constitution, who both inflamed racial tensions during their campaigns.
This was good for both increasing sales of newspapers and raising the profile of both men running for governor. The problem was there was no real way to prove any of these events ever happened as they were reported.
On Saturday, Sept. 22, 1906, the city reached a boiling point. The papers
were reporting four separate stories of black men raping white women. None of these reports were ever substantiated, but it didn’t matter – the damage was done.
The massacre started in downtown Atlanta on Decatur Street and stretched to Five Points, the West End and finally south into the Carver area of South Atlanta. When it was over, 25 blacks and 2 whites were confirmed dead with hundreds more wounded.
This damaging of black businesses and homes forced the city’s black business district to move north to Auburn Avenue.
You can watch a video on the riots here:
