Booker T. Washington & Civil Rights

• The New South Era in Georgia included racial reforms and influential leaders.

Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)

• Born into slavery in Virginia in 1856.
• After emancipation, Washington moved to West Virginia and attended college.
• After graduating from Virginia Union University, he taught at Hampton University.
• Then Washington was offered a job in Alabama to lead Tuskegee Institution.
• Washington became an influential leader in the African-American community due to his network of support from Black ministers, teachers, and other civil and business leaders.
• Both Black and White people knew, and respected him, nationwide, due to his achievements.
• Instead of openly fighting segregation, Washington suggested that blacks could improve their lives through vocational education and hard work.
• Washington felt that by proving themselves in different fields, African Americans would eventually gain full civil rights, believing vocational/technical education would be key.
• Washington believed that Black people had to accept social segregation for the time being.
• Washington wrote fourteen books, including Up from Slavery, his autobiography.
• Washington presented his Atlanta Compromise Speech at the International Cotton Exposition in 1895.
• The Atlanta Compromise Speech promoted his ideas of hard work, education, and cooperation.
• Many people criticized him for the "slow moving" approach, especially after the increase in racial violence through events like the Atlanta Race Massacre.
• Washington was influential in the struggle for equal rights, and believed African Americans should focus on learning a trade.
• By proving themselves, African Americans would eventually be treated as equal citizens, as he accepted social separation in the meantime.
• Washington felt that African Americans could advance faster through hard work than by demanding equal rights.

W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963)

• Many African Americans disagreed with Washington's views on segregation, and W.E.B. DuBois was Washington's biggest intellectual challenger.
• William Edward Burghardt DuBois was born in Massachusetts in 1868.
• He attended Fisk University in Tennessee, where he was exposed to the harsh realities of racial inequality.
• After graduating from Fisk, DuBois received both his Master's and Ph.D. from Harvard, being the first African American to achieve this.
• DuBois taught at Atlanta University (today Clark Atlanta Univ.) and promoted higher education within the black community, and wrote many books, including "The Souls of Black Folk."
• DuBois believed that college-educated African Americans should lead the fight for equality.
• He felt that there was a "Talented Tenth" of black students who should get a classical education.
• DuBois spoke out for full and immediate social and political rights, and was determined to end discrimination and segregation.
• DuBois did not think African Americans should settle for training for low-paying jobs, but rather obtain a college education.
• W.E.B. DuBois became a founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which fights to protect equal rights for African Americans.
• Even today, the NAACP remains a key political voice for the African American community.
• Many Civil Rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr., were inspired by DuBois' work.
• African Americans should speak out against discrimination, and college-educated African Americans should lead the fight against discrimination, according to DuBois.
• DuBois felt talented 10th of black students should get a classical education and that he was the founder of the NAACP.

Alonzo Herndon (1858-1927)

• In 1858, Alonzo Herndon was born to a slave mother and a White father in Social Circle, Georgia.
• After emancipation, Herndon's father sent him and his family off the farm, and they were sharecroppers to survive, and he sold peanuts and molasses and saved his money.
• In 1878, Herndon left his home with $11 and moved to Jonesboro to set up a barbershop.
• By 1907, Herndon owned three barber shops in Atlanta.
• Herndon's barber shop on Peachtree Street was the first choice of Atlanta's White business and political leaders.
• The barbershop had crystal chandeliers and gold fixtures ("The Crystal Palace").
• Herndon soon invested his money in real estate and owned over 100 properties throughout the Southeast.
• Herndon used his wealth to start the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, one of the few companies that would insure African Americans.
• He vowed to sell honest policies to low-income black customers, and the company is still one of the leading African American insurance businesses today.
• Over time, his company spanned seven states and was a million-dollar business.
• Herndon gave large sums of money to many charities to improve black communities in Atlanta.
• He was the largest donor to Atlanta University (today Clark Atlanta Univ.), where he served on the Board of Trustees.
• When he died in 1927, Herndon was the wealthiest African American in Atlanta.
• Herndon was born a slave and died the wealthiest African American in Atlanta, he also owned three barber shops in Atlanta.
• Herndon used his wealth to start the Atlanta Life Insurance Company and gave large sums of money to many charities.

Leo Frank Case

• Another racially charged event of the New South Era was the murder of Mary Phagan and the subsequent Leo Frank Case.
• On April 26, 1913, thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan went to the pencil factory where she worked to pick up her paycheck.
• Phagan received her $1.20 paycheck from her manager, Leo Frank.
• She never returned home, and later that evening, her dead body was found in the basement of the factory.
• Newspaper reports suggested that Phagan had been sexually assaulted, and the public called for justice.
• Newt Lee, the night watchman who found the body, Jim Conley, the factory's janitor, and Leo Frank, the factory manager, were the three main suspects in the case.
• Jim Conley, the African American janitor, was a strong suspect because he was caught washing blood stains off of his white shirt.
• Conley gave police four different accounts of what happened that night, and some researchers say the police did not think Conley did it.
• Police offered Conley immunity for testifying against Leo Frank.
• There was not much evidence against Frank; however, resentment against Northern factory owners and anti-Semitism made it tough for a fair trial.
• Frank appeared extremely nervous when the police questioned him.
• Frank said he stayed at the office for at least 20 minutes after Phagan left, but another employee claimed he was not in the office during that time.
• The night watchman claimed that Frank called him that night asking if everything was okay and this was the only time Frank had ever done this.
• During the trial, Conley testified that Frank harassed young, white, female employees, which angered the already biased jury.
• Despite the trial's many unanswered questions, Frank was found guilty and sentenced to death.
• After the verdict, many Jewish groups began funding Frank's court appeal, which made it all the way to the Supreme Court.
• Frank's appeals did not receive a pardon.
• However, William Smith, an attorney who originally helped convict Frank, began to believe in Frank's innocence and conducted his own investigation.
• After finding sufficient evidence proving Frank's innocence, Smith convinced governor John Slaton to reduce Frank's sentence to life in prison.
• Slaton agreed that Frank was innocent and should eventually be be set free, going against strong public opinion.
• Georgia's citizens were outraged and protested the new outcome, forcing Governor Slaton to declare martial law and call out the National Guard.
• Slaton, who had once been a popular governor, left Georgia in secret at the end of his term and did not return for nearly a decade.
• Citizens of Marietta, Mary Phagan's hometown, drove to Milledgeville where Frank was being held in prison.
• The group kidnapped Frank from his prison cell, and drove him to Marietta. The group went without anyone stopping them.
• The self-proclaimed “Knights of Mary Phagan” hung Frank from a tree in the town square and lynched him.
• They left his body hanging in the tree and nearly 3,000 people came to view it the next day, with locals taking photographs with the body and sold souvenirs.
• A Jewish man from New York was accused, found, guilty and sentenced to death for murdering Mary Phagan, a young, white girl.
• Citizens from Phagan's hometown kidnapped Frank from his prison cell.
• The self-proclaimed "Knights of Mary Phagan" hung Frank from a tree in the town square.
• Decades later, new evidence revealed that the murder was most likely committed by Jim Conley.
• Alonzo Mann, an office boy, testified that he saw Conley carrying Phagan's body to the basement, and that Conley threatened to kill him if he said anything.
• In 1986, the Georgia State Board of Pardons finally pardoned Frank 71 years after his murder.
• The Leo Frank case symbolized Southerners' strong anti-Semitic feelings during the New South period.
• Frank's lynching destroyed the sense of security once held by Georgia's Jewish population.
• Soon after, several members of the Knights of Mary Phagan established the modern Ku Klux Klan (on Stone Mountain) and attacked Jewish people throughout the state.