Changes

In the rapid growth of the 1870s race and class determined of residential location. Rich whites lived in mansions near the center of the city with the poor (both black and white) on the urban periphery. Emerging black settlements in Atlanta, as in many other southern cities, were further relegated to the most undesirable areas of the city: back alleys; low-lying, flood-prone ground; industrial sites; and tracts of land adjacent to railroads, cemeteries, city dumps, and slaughter houses. Most blacks lived in Jenningstown on the west side, Summer Hill to the south, Shermantown on the east side, and Mechanicsville in the southwestern. They worked as unskilled laborers and domestic servants. About 90% of the unskilled laborers in 1900 were black.  Most blacks were poor but some prospered, including undertakers, barbers, insurance company entrepreneurs, hotel owners and grocers; they catered to black clients. The black leadership class also included politicians, preachers and teachers.  With little aid from government before 1910, blacks created their own self-help welfare agencies that operated orphanages and insurance funds, health centers, youth clubs, and vocational education.  The First Congregational Church of Atlanta, with financial support from new England, sponsored a  home for black working women, business and cooking schools, a kindergarten, and an employment bureau. Similar community services and programs were provided by the city's other leading black churches such as Big Bethel A.M.E. Church and Wheat Street Baptist Church.

In the rapid growth of the 1870s race and class determined of residential location. Rich whites lived in mansions near the center of the city with the poor (both black and white) on the urban periphery. Emerging black settlements in Atlanta, as in many other southern cities, were further relegated to the most undesirable areas of the city: back alleys; low-lying, flood-prone ground; industrial sites; and tracts of land adjacent to railroads, cemeteries, city dumps, and slaughter houses. Most blacks lived in Jenningstown on the west side, Summer Hill to the south, Shermantown on the east side, and Mechanicsville in the southwestern. They worked as unskilled laborers and domestic servants. About 90% of the unskilled laborers in 1900 were black.  Most blacks were poor but some prospered, including undertakers, barbers, insurance company entrepreneurs, hotel owners and grocers; they catered to black clients. The black leadership class also included politicians, preachers and teachers.  With little aid from government before 1910, blacks created their own self-help welfare agencies that operated orphanages and insurance funds, health centers, youth clubs, and vocational education.  The First Congregational Church of Atlanta, with financial support from new England, sponsored a  home for black working women, business and cooking schools, a kindergarten, and an employment bureau. Similar community services and programs were provided by the city's other leading black churches such as Big Bethel A.M.E. Church and Wheat Street Baptist Church.

=====Higher education=====

=====Higher education=====

The blacks made Atlanta their national center for higher education. Atlanta University was founded by the American Missionary Association in 1865. Atlanta Baptist College for men (now Morehouse College) opened in 1867, and Clark University, supported by the Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was established in 1870. The final two schools of what would later become the Atlanta University Center -- Morris Brown College, affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E.), and Spelman Seminary (Spelman College) for women, a Baptist school -- opened in 1881. At first these were advanced secondary schools, this nucleus of black higher provided important educational and training opportunities for Atlanta's black students and contributed to the growth of what by 1910 was a large and well-educated black middle class second in size only to Washington. By contrast the public school system lagged far behind, so that working class black Atlanta had low levels of schooling.   

The blacks made Atlanta their national center for higher education. Atlanta University was founded by the American Missionary Association in 1865. Atlanta Baptist College for men (now Morehouse College) opened in 1867, and Clark University, supported by the Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was established in 1870. The final two schools of what would later become the Atlanta University Center -- Morris Brown College, affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E.), and Spelman Seminary (Spelman College) for women, a Baptist school -- opened in 1881. At first these were advanced secondary schools, this nucleus of black higher provided important educational and training opportunities for Atlanta's black students and contributed to the growth of what by 1910 was a large and well-educated black middle class second in size only to Washington. By contrast the public school system lagged far behind, so that working class black Atlanta had low levels of schooling.