Changes

Not until the 1920s did Atlanta open its first black public high school. It came about because blacks worked through their churches to vote in city bond referendums and negotiated with the Commission on  Interracial Cooperation to gain a commitment from the board of education to build a black high school. It was located on the west side of  town, where pioneer black businessman, banker, realtor, and builder Heman Perry was  already developing new homes for Atlanta's upscale blacks.  

Not until the 1920s did Atlanta open its first black public high school. It came about because blacks worked through their churches to vote in city bond referendums and negotiated with the Commission on  Interracial Cooperation to gain a commitment from the board of education to build a black high school. It was located on the west side of  town, where pioneer black businessman, banker, realtor, and builder Heman Perry was  already developing new homes for Atlanta's upscale blacks.  

=====Jim Crow=====

=====Jim Crow=====

It was the era of [[Jim Crow]] and by 1880 all public spaces and transportation lines were racially segregated, with inferior facilities for blacks.  As the population surged 1880-1910 blue collar workers moved to the city and entrepreneurs built rental housing for them.  Real estate agents sold property for development of cheaply built rental homes. Unlike other cities, such houses were mixed in with more upscale middle-class homes, making neighbors of skilled and unskilled whites and African Americans. There was little neighborhood segregation by race or class, although the races did mingle socially. Industrial jobs within walking distance made the housing attractive. By 1910 neighborhoods were becoming class and race conscious, and the people who had rented houses on their property to working-class whites and blacks were moving to segregated, middle-class suburbs.<ref> Leeann Bishop Lands,  "Speculators Attention!" Workers and Rental Housing Development in Atlanta, 1880 To 1910. Journal of Urban History 2002 28(5): 546-572. 0096-1442 </Ref>  

It was the era of [[Jim Crow]] and by 1880 all public spaces and transportation lines were racially segregated, with inferior facilities for blacks.  As the population surged 1880-1910 blue collar workers moved to the city and entrepreneurs built rental housing for them.  Real estate agents sold property for development of cheaply built rental homes. Unlike other cities, such houses were mixed in with more upscale middle-class homes, making neighbors of skilled and unskilled whites and African Americans. There was little neighborhood segregation by race or class, although the races did not mingle socially. Industrial jobs within walking distance made the housing attractive. By 1910 neighborhoods were becoming class and race conscious, and the people who had rented houses on their property to working-class whites and blacks were moving to segregated, middle-class suburbs.<ref> Leeann Bishop Lands,  "Speculators Attention!" Workers and Rental Housing Development in Atlanta, 1880 To 1910" ''Journal of Urban History'' 2002 28(5): 546-572. 0096-1442 </Ref>

 

=====1906 Race Riot=====

=====1906 Race Riot=====

The segregation did not prevent racial violence, most notably the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906. Racial tensions were intensified by a long and bitter campaign for governor in which both white candidates, Hoke Smith and Clark Howell, called for the complete exclusion of blacks from the political process. Following a series of wild rumors of wanton black attacks on white women, a race riot erupted in the city in which whites attacked blacks on the street. Spurred on by lurid newspaper accounts of black rapists and rumors of black insurrection, roving gangs of white males attacked African Americans wherever they could find them in the downtown area and in nearby black neighborhoods.  There were at least 25 dead (mostly black men), hundreds injured, and thousands of dollars in property damage.<ref> See Mark Bauerlein, ''Negrophobia: A Race Riot in Atlanta, 1906.'' (2001) [http://www.questia.com/library/book/negrophobia-a-race-riot-in-atlanta-1906-by-mark-bauerlein.jsp online]; Gregory Mixon, ''The Atlanta Riot: Race, Class, and Violence in A New South City'' (2005); Charles Crowe, "Racial Massacre in Atlanta September 22, 1906," ''Journal of Negro History,'' Vol. 54, No. 2 (Apr., 1969), pp. 150-173 [http://www.jstor.org/stable/2716690 in JSTOR]</ref> After the riot geographical segregation intensified.  One major long-term result was that black and white elites forged an interracial alliance dedicated to the preservation of law and order. The new "Atlanta Plan" did maintain the peace and allowed the city to flourish commercially, while but required black elites to reduce their ties to working-class blacks, renounce militancy, and accept the leadership of moderate white businessmen who endeavored to protect blacks from white demagogues.  The violence ended as the city boasted Atlanta was  "a city too busy to hate." This allowed for the emergence of a powerful black middle class, represented in the 1930s by Rev. Martin Luther King, Senior. His famous son Rev. [[Martin Luther King, Jr.]] rejected the compromise in the 1950s and sought confrontations with segregationists in Alabama.<ref>David Fort Godshalk, ''Veiled Visions: The 1906 Atlanta Race Riot and the Reshaping of American Race Relations'' (2005)</ref>

The segregation did not prevent racial violence, most notably the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906. Racial tensions were intensified by a long and bitter campaign for governor in which both white candidates, Hoke Smith and Clark Howell, called for the complete exclusion of blacks from the political process. Following a series of wild rumors of wanton black attacks on white women, a race riot erupted in the city in which whites attacked blacks on the street. Spurred on by lurid newspaper accounts of black rapists and rumors of black insurrection, roving gangs of white males attacked African Americans wherever they could find them in the downtown area and in nearby black neighborhoods.  There were at least 25 dead (mostly black men), hundreds injured, and thousands of dollars in property damage.<ref> See Mark Bauerlein, ''Negrophobia: A Race Riot in Atlanta, 1906.'' (2001) [http://www.questia.com/library/book/negrophobia-a-race-riot-in-atlanta-1906-by-mark-bauerlein.jsp online]; Gregory Mixon, ''The Atlanta Riot: Race, Class, and Violence in A New South City'' (2005); Charles Crowe, "Racial Massacre in Atlanta September 22, 1906," ''Journal of Negro History,'' Vol. 54, No. 2 (Apr., 1969), pp. 150-173 [http://www.jstor.org/stable/2716690 in JSTOR]</ref> After the riot geographical segregation intensified.  One major long-term result was that black and white elites forged an interracial alliance dedicated to the preservation of law and order. The new "Atlanta Plan" did maintain the peace and allowed the city to flourish commercially, while but required black elites to reduce their ties to working-class blacks, renounce militancy, and accept the leadership of moderate white businessmen who endeavored to protect blacks from white demagogues.  The violence ended as the city boasted Atlanta was  "a city too busy to hate." This allowed for the emergence of a powerful black middle class, represented in the 1930s by Rev. Martin Luther King, Senior. His famous son Rev. [[Martin Luther King, Jr.]] rejected the compromise in the 1950s and sought confrontations with segregationists in Alabama.<ref>David Fort Godshalk, ''Veiled Visions: The 1906 Atlanta Race Riot and the Reshaping of American Race Relations'' (2005)</ref>