1906 Atlanta Race Riot

Kathy Lohr presents this overview of four days of race riots (9/22/2006 - 7:44) in the city of Atlanta. The exact number of deaths is in dispute, although the official count was 12 blacks and two whites. The match that seemed to light the fuse was the incendiary claim of black men raping white women, a claim flamed by competing politicians and special editions of competing newspapers.

"There was a great deal of concern about the city itself, and the decaying morals associated with an urban environment," says Cliff Kuhn, history professor at Georgia State University, a concern centered on the question of the danger to white women posed by black men. Then there was a series of allegations of new rapes of white women, all unsubstantiated. Kuhn continues the story:

Newsboys are hawking these editions: 'Extra! Extra! Read all about it!' And at the corner of Pryor and Decatur Street, a man gets up on a soapbox and waves one of these newspaper headlines and says, 'Are we going to let them do this to our white women? Come on, boys!' And the mob surges down Decatur Street.

Musings

• Current heated debate over illegal Hispanic immigration in the U.S. seems to lack the hot-button issue of race. Is that because we have changed or because we feel differently about Hispanics?
  
• Check out this lengthy list of U.S. race riots at Wikipedia.

We welcome your comments on this topic,
including annotated links to related Web materials.