The New South
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The Bourbon Triumvirate
Joseph E. Brown
Alfred H. Colquitt
John B. Gordon
Rebecca Latimer Felton
Tom Watson
Leo Frank
Henry Grady
The Bourbon Triumvirate
• Democrats controlled Georgia’s government after
Reconstruction.
• Powerful Democratic leaders, known as the “Bourbon
Triumvirate” were Joseph E. Brown, Alfred H. Colquitt,
and John B. Gordon.
• Their goals were:
– expand Georgia’s economy and ties with industries
in the North;
– maintain the tradition of white supremacy.
Decline of the Bourbon Triumvirate
• “Independent Democrats” criticized the Bourbons for
not attending to the needs of the poor or improve
education and working conditions in factories.
• Leaders William and Rebecca Felton worked to
improve conditions for poor Georgians using
newspapers to highlight problems in the state.
• The convict lease system “rented” prisoners to
companies to use as workers. It took many years for
the poor conditions the prisoners endured to be
brought to light and changed.
The New South Era
• Challengers to the Bourbon Triumvirate wanted
Georgia to be more industrialized.
• Henry Grady was a speaker and newspaper editor.
• Grady described Georgia as a place which could have
competitive industry and more efficient farming.
• Grady envisioned improved race relations in a “New
South” which left its antebellum past behind.
Joseph E Brown (1821-1894)
•He was a member of the Bourbon
Triumvirate
•Elected Governor of Georgia in 1857 and
stayed during the Civil War.
•Was a strong “State’s Rights” Governor
•Supported the Reconstruction efforts
•Briefly joined the Republican party during
Reconstruction
•U.S. Senator from 1880-1890 as a
Democrat
•Was head of a company that leased land to
the Western and Atlantic Railroad
Alfred H Colquitt (1824- 1894)
• Member of the Bourbon
Triumvirate
• Member of the Georgia Secession
Convention in 1861
• Georgia’s governor 1876-1882
• While governor reduced state’s
war debts
• Helped Georgia approved new
state constitution in 1877
• U. S. Senator 1883- 1894
John B Gordon (1832- 1904)
• Member of the Bourbon Triumvirate
• Outspoken opponent of
Reconstruction
• Leader of the Georgia KKK
• Head of the Western & Atlantic RR
• Elected governor in 1886 for 2 terms
• Reduced state’s war debt
• Brought in new industry to the state
Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835-1930)
• She was a write, political
activist, and social reformer.
• Battled with the Bourbon
Triumvirate over the convict
lease system.
• Supported progressive causes:
abolishing the convict lease
system, prohibition, and
Women’s Suffrage.
• With the death of Senator Tom
Watson, Ga. Governor, Thomas
Hardwick, appointed her as
temporary U.S. Senator. The
first woman U.S. Senator
Tom Watson and the Populist
• Early law and political career supporting poor
tenant farmer and sharecropper of both races.
• 1882 Georgia General Assembly – supported
the end of convict lease system and supported
public education for all Georgians.
• 1890 – Farmers Alliance and then the Populist
party – lower taxes for farmers
• Rural Free Delivery Act
• Presidential candidate in 1904 and 1908
Populist party
• 1904 progressive views change, become white
supremacist
• Wrote the newspaper The Jeffersonian
• 1920 elected US Senate – Rebecca Latimer
Fleton will replace him.
Leo Frank case: 1913/1915
•
Leo Frank – Accused of killing Mary
Phagan.
•
Very little evidence against him but Frank
was found guilty and sentenced to death.
•
Frank was convicted of the murder, but his
death sentence was commuted to life
imprisonment by Gov. Slaton
•
Two months later, Frank was taken from
the prison by an angry mob, brought back
to Marietta, and lynched by a group
calling themselves the Knights of Mary
Phagan.
•
Resulted in the rebirth of the KKK
–
Nov. 1915: Atlanta preacher William
Simmons and 34 others climbed to the top
of Stone Mountain, lit torches, circled a
burning cross, and rallied
Henry Grady (1850- 1889)
• Known as the voice of the “New
South”
• Managing editor of the Atlanta
Journal
• Spoke on his views of
industrialization of the South,
diversification of agriculture, and
northern investors to help the
south.
• International Cotton Expositions
and Georgia Tech.
• Helped to bring jobs, recognition,
and investment to Georgia.
• Portrayed race relations as
changing in Georgia.
Atlanta Race Riot--1906
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Sept. 22, 1906: over 5000 whites and
African Americans had gathered on
Decatur Street
Lasted 2 days: martial law declared
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18 African Americans killed
3 whites killed
Hundreds injured
Value of property destroyed very
high
How did propaganda contribute to
the riot?
– Tom Watson: spread racial fears
– Hoke Smith: used racial fears to gain
votes during the governor’s race that
year
– Atlanta Newspapers: printed story
after story of African American
violence against whites
Jim Crow laws
• “Separate but equal”
– Laws passed to establish facilities
for whites and blacks
• Resulted in separate bathrooms,
water fountains, railroad cars,
waiting rooms, schools
– 1889: Georgia General Assembly
segregated public facilities
• Always separate—rarely equal
• African Americans protested the
laws in public meetings
– Henry McNeal Turner: the civil
rights laws and segregation that
followed them was ‘barbarous’.
Plessy v. Ferguson
•
Staged as a way to test the
constitutionality of the Jim Crow laws
(Jim Crow Car Act of 1890)
– Homer Plessy: 7/8 white, 1/8 black
took a seat in the ‘whites only’ car of
a train
– When he refused to move, he was
arrested under the above act which
required separate but equal
accommodations on train cars
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Heard by the US Supreme Court in
1896
Upheld by a 7-1 vote (single
dissenting vote: John Marshall
Harlan, a Southerner)
Plessy v. Ferguson gave states the
right to control social discrimination
and promote segregation
Plessy v. Ferguson
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1899: Richmond County closed the only
public high school in Georgia for descendents
of enslaved Africans—purely for ‘economic
reasons’ to create an elementary school
Parents sued the school board based on the
original Plessy v. Ferguson case that ensured
separate-but-equal facilities
Lower court agreed; overturned by GA
Supreme Court
December 1899: U.S. Supreme Court ruled:
1. Africans had the right to be educated
only to the 8th grade
2. Closing the white high school did not
relate to the equal rights granted by the
14th amendment
3. The use of funds to open the
elementary school by closing the high
school was a state issue
Ruling finally overturned in 1954 with Brown
V. Board of Education which ended
segregated schools
Picture: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Disenfranchisement
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1900: African-Americans make up 47% of
Georgia’s population
– Despite 15th amendment, laws were
passed with the sole purpose of keeping
them from voting
1908: Grandfather clause—stated that only
men whose fathers or grandfathers had been
eligible to vote in 1867 were eligible to vote
(b/c so few African Americans had been able
to vote in 1867 it kept most of GA’s Af. Amer
from voting)
Poll tax: a tax to be able to vote
Other requirements: own property, pass
literacy tests
– Literacy tests were very subjective—
could be asked anything
(explain antidisestablishmentarianism)
Gerrymander: a way of drawing up an
election district to benefit a certain group
(racial, political, special interest)
White Primary- did not allow blacks to vote in
all-important primary elections
In 1812, the US portrait painter, Gilbert Stuart, known for
his portraits of the great US presidents, noticed a map in a
newspaper office. The map showed a voting district that
had been created by the Democratically dominated
Massachusetts Assembly when Elbridge Gerry (17441814) was governor. The district had a peculiar shape that
assured that any election in that district would favor the
Democrats. Stuart drew eyes, claws, and wings on the
outline of the district because it looked like a salamander.
Someone in the office watched him and blended Gerry with
salamander on the spot to create the word, gerrymander
which survived to this today.
Booker T. Washington
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Important civil rights leader
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Believed that economic independence
was the only road to social and political
equality
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President of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama
African Americans should focus on
learning skills and gaining economic
strength
Urged white Southerners to remember
that the African American workforce had
created the wealth of the South—feared
that African Americans would be cast aside
for immigrant labor
Speech: Atlanta’s Cotton States and
International Exposition in 1895-condoned social segregation of the races,
provided that educational and economic
opportunities were equal.
W.E.B. Dubois
• Disagreed with Washington
– Called for social and political
integration
• Talented 10th: higher education
for 10% of the African American
population—this group could
become leaders for the
community
– Thought Washington was making
decisions that affected all blacks
negatively
• Disagreed that blacks who
became economically successful
and waited long enough would
help improve race relations
Alonzo Herndon (1858- 1927)
• Born a slave to a white master and a
slave mother.
• After the Civil War became a
sharecropper
• Moved to the city to learn a trade –
became a barber
• Opened three barber shops in Atlanta
– on Peachtree Street – Crystal
Chandelier
• Invested in real estate
• Founded Atlanta Mutual Life
Insurance Co.
• Atlanta’s first black millionaire
John and Lugenia Burns Hope
• Educator, civil rights leader,
social reformer
• Was the first black
president of Atlanta Baptist
College (Morehouse)
• Helped found the NAACP
• Community organizer,
reformer and social activist
• Established the
Neighborhood Union:
vocational classes for
children, a health center,
clubs for boys and girls,
provided financial aid for
the needy, and helped
improve city infrastructure
in African American
neighborhoods.
• 1932 – became Vice
President of NAACP
International Cotton
Exposition 1895
• Used to promote Atlanta’s
rebuilding and it’s industrial
capabilities
• Lure northern investments into
the region
• Booker T. Washington – The
Atlanta Compromise speech –
urged African Americans to
focus on economic
improvement as opposed to
political and social rights.
• Displayed Atlanta as a
“Phoenix” – rising from the
ashes and established it as the
leading city in the New South.
The County Unit System
• 1917: Neil Primary Act created “county unit
system”
• Plan designed to give small counties more
power in state government
• Smaller counties had more county unit
“votes” even though they had fewer voters
• People could be elected to office without
getting a majority of votes
• Declared unconstitutional in 1962
Reasons for World War I
• Nationalism, Imperialism, militarism, alliances
• President Wilson worked to keep the US out
of the war
• 1915: German submarine sank passenger
ship Lusitania killing 128 Americans
• 1917: sub attacks resumed sinking American
ships
• Zimmerman telegram: Germany tried to get
Mexico to attack the US
• Wilson finally joined the Allied powers
Georgia and World War I
• ±100,000 Georgians volunteered to join
the US armed forces
• Training in Georgia at Camp Benning,
Fort McPherson, and Camp Gordon
helped Georgia economy
• Georgians contributed manufactured
goods and farm produce
• 3,000 young Georgians killed in the war
• Ended November 11, 1918