General William T. Sherman’s Atlanta campaign during the Civil War left the city devastated. Upon the citizens’ return, the city lacked “a functioning government,” and the railroads were destroyed (Link 46).  Yet, as the war ended in 1865, Atlanta gradually began to thrive once more, and would eventually become the hub of the South. This impressive recovery led to the birth of the New South; Atlanta was reborn as a more industrialized and business oriented city. But while this recovery was a joint effort between all Atlantans, little is said about the African-American participation on this process. My research, therefore, will focus on African-American efforts to participate in the New South, and what role did African-Americans play in the post-Civil War Atlanta business scene.

The New South is, to many, a concept that provided new opportunities to African-Americans. In a personal interview with Donald Rooney, director of expositions at the Atlanta History Center, I came to understand a lot of the spirit of rebirth associated with Atlanta. This spirit began with the New South, greatly promoted during the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition of 1895 (Rooney). As mentioned by historian Nathan Cardon, this exposition provided an opportunity for blacks to voice their “narrative of the South’s past, present, and future” and challenge the racial structure (Cardon 288). African-American leaders also idealized the concept of a “New Negro,” more well-educated and “well-versed in agriculture and industry” (Cardon 289). This suggests that more opportunities were made for African-Americans in terms of both education and participation in the business world. Through further research, I intend to investigate into the specifics of these opportunities, and understand whether they allowed for African-Americans to truly partake in Atlanta’s economic growth and recovery.

However, other scholars believe that the New South in fact only furthered racial divide in Atlanta. Henry Grady, one of the main leaders behind the New South movement, believed that African-Americans had “little capacity for development,” and saw black politicians as a threat to his interests regarding Atlanta (Davis 134). Author William Link claims that while the New South “united whites across different social classes,” but it was a message of economic development that excluded African-Americans (Link 60). In fact, even the progress in education through the New South might have come at the cost of segregation, as African-American leader Booker T. Washington championed the “Atlanta Compromise,” which saw blacks as a “separate and vibrant race” (Cardon 289). In further research, I intend to uncover how, if even, the New South movement facilitated segregation, and analyze first-hand accounts of African-Americans during this period in Atlanta.

Therefore, while the New South movement can be seen as a positive period for post-Civil War African-Americans, evidence also suggests that many of the new opportunities it provided to African-Americans came at the cost of more racial divide, and not all blacks were able to partake in the economic growth. In my research paper, I intend to elaborate on these seemingly contrasting ideas, relying on books, scholarly essays, and first-hand accounts in order to fully understand African-American participation in the New South and the role of race in the promotion of post-Civil War Atlanta as a business city.

 

 

 

Works Cited

Cardon, Nathan. “The South’s “New Negroes” and African American Visions of Progress at the

Atlanta and Nashville International Expositions, 1895-1897.” Journal of Southern History, vol. 80, no. 2, May 2014, p. 287. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.gsu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aqh&AN=95795796&site=eds-live.

Davis, Harold E. Henry Grady’s New South. [Electronic Resource] : Atlanta, a Brave and

Beautiful City. Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press, c1990., 1990. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.gsu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat00477a&AN=gast.2837930&site=eds-live.

Link, William A. Atlanta, Cradle of the New South : Race and Remembering in the Civil War’s

Aftermath. The University of North Carolina Press, 2013. Civil War America. EBSCOhost,

ezproxy.gsu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=532689&site=eds-live.

Rooney, Donald. Personal interview. 27 February 2017.