His name became a synonym for the New South. Henry Grady was born in 1850 in Athens. After graduating from the University of Georgia, Grady published an editorial in 1874 in the Atlanta Daily Herald entitled “The New South.” It caught the eye of the owners of the Atlanta Constitution and they offered him part […]
It was a major blow to the rights of black Georgians. At the same time, a new phrase was born – the Grandfather Clause. In 1907, Georgia Governor Hoke Smith, who had campaigned promising to disenfranchise black voters, signed an act that would amend Georgia's constitution and impose a literacy test as a requirement for […]
He began life as a slave but, at 47, Alonzo Herndon started the company that became one of America’s most successful black-owned businesses. Alonzo Franklin Herndon was born in Social Circle, the son of a black mother and a white owner. With just a year of formal education, he opened a barbershop in Jonesboro in […]
Long before “bloody Sunday” in Selma, Georgia had a much bloodier civil rights event – the Camilla Massacre. On this day in 1868, during Reconstruction, a political rally in Mitchell County resulted in about a dozen freedmen being killed and 30 other wounded. Georgia had just been readmitted to the Union, but blacks and whites […]
On this day in 1895, President Grover Cleveland threw an electric switch at his Massachusetts home and officially opened the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition. Civic leaders wanted to promote Georgia’s economic development and showcase Atlanta as the resurgent heart of the New South. 800,000 people visited the 6,000 exhibits. They saw the Liberty […]
One of the darkest episodes in Georgia history, the lynching of Leo Frank in Marietta, occurred on this day in 1915. Frank was convicted in 1913 of murdering Mary Phagan, a 15 year old employed by Frank at the National Pencil Factory in Atlanta. Police immediately suspected Frank, a New York Jew, despite strong evidence […]
