CHAD J. DEWOLF
719-266-2837
MADISON COUNTY MIDDLE SCHOOL, GA
24 | 7 | 365
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GSESS8H7 | The New South
Evaluate key political, social, and economic changes that occurred in Georgia during the New South Era.
a. Identify the ways individuals, groups, and events attempted to shape the New South; include the Bourbon Triumvirate, Henry Grady, International Cotton Expositions, and Tom Watson and the Populists.
b. Analyze how rights were denied to African Americans or Blacks through Jim Crow laws, Plessy v. Ferguson, disenfranchisement, and racial violence, including the 1906 Atlanta Riot.
c. Explain the roles of Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. DuBois, and Alonzo Herndon in advancement of the rights of African Americans or Blacks in the New South Era.
d. Examine antisemitism and the resistance to racial equality exemplified in the Leo Frank case.
b. Analyze how rights were denied to African Americans or Blacks through Jim Crow laws, Plessy v. Ferguson, disenfranchisement, and racial violence, including the 1906 Atlanta Riot.
c. Explain the roles of Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. DuBois, and Alonzo Herndon in advancement of the rights of African Americans or Blacks in the New South Era.
d. Examine antisemitism and the resistance to racial equality exemplified in the Leo Frank case.
The Lesson & Essential Questions
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Vocabulary & Content Review
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VIDEOS IN THE LESSON
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H7.a - Bourbon Triumvirate, Henry Grady, ICE. Tom Watson, & Populists
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H7.b - Jim Crow Laws, Plessy v. Ferguson, Disenfranchisement, ATL Riot
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H7.c - Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, & Alonzo Herndon
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H7.d - The Leo Frank Case
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The Story | GeorgiaStandards.org
The years between 1877 and 1918 were a time of both great social and economic successes and failures in Georgia’s history. Examining this time period will give students and better understanding of the people and events that shaped the state today.
After the Civil War and Reconstruction period, Atlanta began its “rise from the ashes” and slowly became one of the more important cities in the South, proving it by hosting events such as the International Cotton Exposition. Henry Grady, began to champion the cause of the “New South,” one that was industrial and selfsufficient. Entrepreneurs, both black and white, developed new services and products.
Unfortunately, the “New South Era” was also a time of terrible racism and injustice. Segregation and “Jim Crow” were the law of the land. The resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) after the murder of Mary Phagan targeted not only blacks, but Jews, Catholics, and immigrants as well. Tom Watson, once a champion of the “common man,” both black and white, gained greater notoriety after he changed his position and became an ardent segregationist and anti-Semite. Additionally, Atlanta experienced the worst race riot in its history.
During this period of racial strife, several successful African-American men became well known throughout the country for their work with civil rights. This group of men included educators W.E.B. Dubois and Booker T. Washington.
GSESS8H7.a
The Bourbon Triumvirate was a group of three politicians (Joseph E. Brown, Alfred H. Colquitt, and John B. Gordon) who dominated Georgia politics for over 20 years. These men, who all had been key figures during the Civil War, rotated positions as governor and U.S. Senator from the 1870’s to 1890’s. They held a common interest in developing the railroad and mining industries in Georgia, serving the interests of those men who were part of the old antebellum planter class, and instituting low taxes which resulted in few government services. In addition, all three of the men were white supremacists who supported and took advantage of the convict lease system (the system of leasing convicts to business owners who in turn would provide housing, food and clothing for the convicts). The power of the Bourbon Triumvirate began to wane as the ideals of the Populist Party and the New Democrats began to dominate the Democratic Party in 1890, as well as, the deaths or retirement of the three members.
Joseph E. Brown (1821-1894) was born in South Carolina, but spent most of his early years in the mountains of North Georgia. He attended Yale Law School and moved back to Georgia where he became a successful lawyer. He was elected to the Georgia General Assembly in 1849 and became a state judge in 1855. In 1857, he was elected governor of Georgia and remained in this position throughout the Civil War. During the Civil War, he bickered with CSA President Jefferson Davis on several occasions. Though a zealous secessionist before the war, Brown briefly joined the Republican Party after. As a Republican, he served as the chief justice of Georgia’s Supreme Court. He later switched his allegiance back to the Democratic Party and served in the U.S. Senate from 1880-1890.
Alfred H. Colquitt (1824-1894) was born in Walton County, Georgia. He graduated from Princeton University in 1844 and returned to Georgia and became a lawyer. In 1846, he joined the Army during the Mexican-American War. In 1853, he was elected as a U.S. Representative where he served only one term before returning to Georgia where he became a member of the General Assembly in 1859. A fervent secessionist, he was elected to the Georgia Secession Convention in 1861 and joined the Confederate Army after Georgia seceded. Colquitt had a distinguished military career during the Civil War and fought in some of the major battles from 1861-1863. Due to his service, he was eventually commissioned as a major general. After the war, Colquitt served as Georgia’s governor from 1876-1882 and as a U.S. Senator from 1883-1894.
John B. Gordon (1832-1904) was born in Upson County, Georgia. As a child, he moved to Walker County with his family due to his father’s work in Georgia’s coal industry. After leaving the University of Georgia without graduating, he ended up managing his father’s coal mine before the start of the Civil War. Though receiving no military training, Gordon rose to prominence in the Confederate Army due to his fearless fighting style and made his mark as a military strategist. Gordon fought in several important battles and rose to the rank of major general at the end of the war. After the war, Gordon returned to Georgia where he was an outspoken opponent of Reconstruction and is thought to have been the leader of the Georgia chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. Gordon was elected as a U.S. Senator in 1872 and served in this position until 1880. He resigned his position amidst scandal to head the Western and Atlantic Railroad. However, Gordon remained popular among white Georgians and was elected governor in 1886 and back to the U.S. Senate in 1891, serving until 1897. Gordon spent the rest of his life writing and speaking about the Civil War, and, it has been said, embellishing his role in it.
Note: Historians have contended that the Bourbon Triumvirate was not a unified and cohesive unit as was projected by the contemporary press or what was written about and discussed in later years. The members had many different views about several issues and had a strong dislike for one another.
Henry Grady (1850-1889), born in Athens, GA, is best known for his continual promotion of the “New South.” As managing editor of the Atlanta Journal, Grady was able to use the newspaper as a stage to promote his views concerning the industrialization of the South, the diversification of southern agriculture, and to lobby northern investors to help aid financially in both causes. Grady is given credit for being instrumental in bringing the International Cotton Expositions to Atlanta and for the creation of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). He was also active in local politics assisting in the elections of liked-minded politicians such as John B. Gordon and Joseph E. Brown.
Grady also had his critics. He was often attacked by Populist Tom Watson and Georgia’s farmers for his industrial focus. Elected officials of Georgia’s other major cities such Athens, Augusta, and Macon, criticized Grady for his blatant bias in favor of Atlanta. Finally, many civil rights groups both in the North and South, were leery of his flagrantly inaccurate portrayal of racial relations in Georgia in order to bring in northern investment.
Nevertheless, Grady, who was a dynamic writer and speaker, has been identified as the most important figure in the New South movement. Though he only lived to the age of 39, he had several important accomplishments in his short life time. Due to his achievements, Grady has been honored in several ways throughout the state including having a county named for him. Grady Hospital and the University of Georgia’s Grady School of Journalism are also named in his honor.
In 1881, 1885, and 1895, Atlanta was the site of three International Cotton Expositions. These expositions were similar to the World’s Fairs held during the same time period. Primarily, the Cotton Expositions were established to promote Atlanta’s rebuilding from the Civil War, its industrial capabilities and accomplishments, and to lure northern investment into the city and region. The first two were heavily promoted by Henry Grady, but the most memorable was the exposition held in 1895.
During the exposition of 1895, also known as the “Cotton States and International Exposition,” civil rights activist and educator, Booker T. Washington, gave his famous Atlanta Compromise Speech. This speech urged African-Americans to focus on economic improvement as opposed to political and social rights, an idea that was supported by white New South advocates, but not accepted by African- American leaders such as W.E.B. Dubois. Though this event was heavily promoted, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, “only 800,000 people attended the three month” event and it suffered with financial struggles throughout. Still, all three of these events were effective in displaying Atlanta’s “rise from the ashes” and to establish it as the leading city of the New South.
Note: Due to the magnitude for the International Cotton Exposition of 1895, teachers should take the opportunity to allow their students to compare and contrast this event and its importance to the states’ other major international event: The 1996 Olympic Games.
Tom Watson (1856-1922) was one of the most popular and most controversial figures in Georgia history. Born in Columbia County, his early law and political career was based on supporting the poor tenant farmer and sharecropper of both races. When he was elected to the Georgia General Assembly in 1882, he supported the end to the convict lease system and was a proponent of public education for all Georgians. However, due to his discontent with the policies of the New South advocates in the General Assembly, Watson resigned before the end of his term.
Though a Democrat, in 1890, he adopted some of the policies of the Farmers Alliance, a precursor to the Populist Party. On a platform of lower taxes for the poor farmer, Watson was elected to the U.S. Congress. In Congress, Watson gained national notoriety for his leadership role in the passage of the Rural Free Delivery Act (the delivery of mail directly to rural farm families). However, most of the other ideas he supported never came to fruition. In 1892, though supported by farmers of both races, he lost his reelection bid to Congress. It should be noted that Watson received the support of many rural black voters due to his condemnation of lynching and his defense of a black supporter that was almost lynched by a white mob.
Because of his support for the Framers’ Alliances’ ideals, the Populist Party (also known as the People’s Party) selected him as their vice-presidential candidate in 1896, and presidential candidate in 1904 and 1908. The Populist Party supported changes in banking policies to benefit farmers, government control of the railroads, and the end of the convict lease system. The Populist Party began to wane in Georgia in the late 1890’s. Watson’s foray into national politics was never successfully realized but, in Georgia, he remained a political force in state and local politics.
Unfortunately, around 1904, Watson began to change his progressive views toward race and, by the end of his life he was a fervent white supremacist. He not only targeted African-Americans but Catholics and Jews as well. He used his newspaper and magazine, The Jeffersonian, to espouse his political, social, and economic viewpoints to Georgians, though it was popular throughout the South, and even in northern cities such as New York. According to some, his series of articles against Leo Frank led to his lynching. Ironically, it was Watson’s anti-capitalist articles and opposition to American’s entry into World War I that led to the U.S. postal service refusing to deliver his publications.
Watson remained popular amongst rural Georgians. In 1918, Watson again ran for Congress only to lose to Carl Vinson, who would remain in Congress for over 50 years. Watson eventually won his last election bid in 1920, when he was selected to be one of Georgia’s U.S. Senators. However, he died soon after in 1922. His seat was held for one day by America’s first female senator, Georgian Rebecca Latimer Felton.
GSESS8H7.b
The social and political gains made by African-Americans during the 1870s and 1880s began to be chipped away by white politicians in the 1890s. Laws called Jim Crow Laws, named after a fictional black ministerial character, took away most of the citizenship rights of African-Americans. Under these laws most blacks could not vote or serve on juries, and were denied many of the other rights of US citizens. After the Supreme Court decision in the Plessy v. Ferguson case, almost every aspect of life was segregated. This included separate schools, sections of public transportation, water fountains, bathrooms, and even separate cemeteries and Bibles used to swear oaths in courts. As civil rights activist Fred Gray said, “We were segregated from the cradle to the grave, the toilet to the train, the classroom to the courtroom.” During this period, intermarriage between the races was strictly forbidden in the southern states and lynching was used in largely rural areas as a means to enforce the social order of segregation. According to the New Georgia Encyclopedia from 1882-1930, 482 African-American were lynched in Georgia, second only to Mississippi. Though this system also inhibited the economic progress of most African-Americans, some such as Alonzo Herndon were able to use rise above the discrimination and become successful businessmen. Herndon, for example created the Atlanta Mutual Life Insurance Company, in response to white owned insurance companies refusing to sell policies to black customers. Many African-American educators also rose to prominence during this time period such as W.E.B. Dubois and Georgians John and Lugenia Burns Hope. All the same, the Jim Crow laws inhibited the educational, economic, and social growth and opportunities for most Southerners, both black and white.
The landmark court case, Plessy v. Ferguson, had a far-reaching impact on Georgia. On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy was arrested in Louisiana for sitting in the “Whites Only” section of a railcar. In this planned protest, Plessy, who was 1/8th black and “could pass for white” identified himself as a black man. This orchestrated event was planned by the “Committee of Citizens,” a group of well- educated African-Americans who wanted to test Louisiana’s segregation laws. The case went all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court, where the court ruled in favor of Louisiana, based on the “separate but equal” doctrine. The court determined that under the Constitution (14th and 15th Amendments) Blacks had political rights, but social rights were not required. According to the court, as long as facilities were equal for both races they could be separate.
Upon this ruling most southern states, including Georgia, separated all aspects of life. This included separate theaters and movie houses, rail and street cars, and separate bathrooms. Though separate, these facilities were most certainly not equal. For example, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, the average white school in the state spent about $43 dollars per student in 1930, in comparison to $10 per student in all black schools.
Note: Students often wonder what happened to Homer Plessy after the Court Case. Plessy, a shoemaker was born in 1862 and died in 1925. After the case, he remained in New Orleans where he stayed active in his community and church. He became a salesman for the People’s Life Insurance Company and was a devoted husband and father for the remainder of his life.
The 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which guaranteed citizenship rights to all AfricanAmericans and voting rights to African-American men, were ratified by the U.S. Congress and included the votes of the Southern states. However, during the Jim Crow era, most African American or Blacks in the South lost these voting rights. Due to the federal government’s lack of enforcement, southern states, including Georgia, established many laws that prevented Blacks, and poor whites for that matter, from voting. These laws which led to Black disenfranchisement in Georgia included:
The 1906 Atlanta Riot resulted in the death of at least 25 African-Americans or Blacks. The immediate spark for this 48-hour riot (September 22-24, 1906) was a series of local newspaper articles alleging African American or Black male attacks on white women. These articles proved to be untrue. However, as with most historical events, there were many other deep-seated causes of the riot. These included the large number of unemployed and frustrated whites who viewed African-American or Black as threats to jobs and the established social order. Whites were also jealous of successful African-American or Black business leaders such as Alonzo Herndon. His barbershop, sometimes called the “Crystal Palace,” was one the first businesses targeted by the White mob. Additionally, Georgia gubernatorial candidates Hoke Smith and Clarke Howell fueled the racial fires as they based their campaigns on the platform of white supremacy and used their newspaper publications to encourage racial tensions.
On the morning of the riot, there were four articles published about assaults on white women. A group of mostly unemployed white men and boys gathered in downtown seeking revenge for the false attacks. Though city officials tried to calm the mob, the group of men began attacking any African American or Black that they saw. Travelling into the African American or Black business district, the mob killed two barbers and beat several men to death on street cars. Due to the violence, the Georgia militia was called in to the city. In turn, African-Americans or Blacks began to arm themselves and, in some cases, fought off their attackers. Despite these efforts, sporadic fighting occurred throughout the next day.
The riot caused unwanted negative national and international attention for the “jewel of the New South.” Atlanta business leaders, African American or Black and white, quickly came together to end the riot and restore order. Though this bi-racial committee was historic in itself, as a group such as this had rarely met in the South, the end result led to deeper segregation in the city and more of an economic divide between the African American or Black social elite and lower class. It also proved that Booker T. Washington’s views concerning the use of hard work and economic accomplishment as a means for African-American or Black equality would not work in the South and there needed to be more direct approaches for gaining civil rights.
The 1906 Atlanta Riot was one of the largest demonstrations of this violence along with the over 400 lynchings that happened in the state from 1880-1930. These lynchings were often orchestrated by members of the Ku Klux Klan, who, during this time period, consisted of teachers, policemen, ministers, and other community leaders. Some of the most famous Georgians during the time period supported racial violence and lynching included Tom Watson.
GSESS8H7.c
The period of the New South saw the rise of differing opinions regarding the advancement of the rights of African Americans or Blacks in the United States. Of course, these ideas filtered into Georgia and activated great discussion amongst African Americans or Blacks and white society.
Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) was born a slave in Virginia. Washington was an educator, author, orator, and political activist. After emancipation, Washington moved to West Virginia where, after working in several manual labor jobs, was able to attend colleges that became Hampton University and Virginia Union University. Upon graduation from Virginia Union, he went back to Hampton as a teacher and was offered the opportunity to lead the Tuskegee Institution in Alabama.
Washington was an able fundraiser who received financial support from many northern business leaders and politicians to build several technical schools for African Americans or Blacks. He became a leader in the African American community due to the support of a wide network of African American or Black ministers, teachers, and other civil and business leaders. Publicly, Washington promoted the idea that the best approach for African-Americans or Blacks to gain a foothold in white society was through hard work, education, and economic accomplishments, before gaining full civil rights (the concept of accommodationism). Though he was criticized by individuals and groups such as W.E.B. Dubois and the NAACP for these ideals, Washington secretly provided financial support for many civil rights cases actively pursuing voting and other rights for African Americans or Blacks. Washington wrote 14 books, including Up from Slavery, his autobiography published in 1901. Along with his contributions to education and civil rights, Washington was the first African-American or Black to be invited to a formal dinner at the White House. In Georgia history, he is most well-known for his Atlanta Compromise Speech which he presented at the International Cotton Exposition of 1895. This speech brought his ideas of cooperation and the “going slow” approach to the forefront of the early civil rights movement. Though, this approach was tarnished by the numerous lynchings during the time period and events such as the 1906 Atlanta Riot, many African Americans or Blacks and whites continued to support Washington and his ideals until his death at age 59 in 1915.
Often viewed as Booker T. Washington’s intellectual opposition, W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963) supported many of Washington’s beliefs early in his career. However, after the actions of the southern states to prevent African-American or Black civil rights along with events such as the 1906 Atlanta Riot, DuBois was determined to fight for immediate social and political rights of African Americans or Blacks.
William Edward Burghardt DuBois was born in Massachusetts. DuBois had a relatively happy and uneventful childhood. With the support of his mother and several community members who recognized DuBois’ brilliance at an early age, DuBois was successful in school and attended Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. There, DuBois was exposed to the harsh realities of racial segregation and Jim Crow laws for the first time. Under this experience, he began to form his thoughts about combating these laws. At Fisk, Dubois developed the concept of “the talented tenth” or an elite group of college educated African Americans or Blacks who would use their talents and position to help eradicate segregation in American society. Graduating from Fisk in 1888, DuBois went on to receive a Master’s degree from Harvard University in 1891, and a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1896.
After working at Wilberforce University and the University of Pennsylvania for a time, DuBois accepted a position at Atlanta University (later Clark Atlanta). According to University of Georgia professor, Derrick P. Alridge, DuBois’s time in Atlanta was some of the most productive of his 70-year career. Serving at Clark from 1897-1910 and returning in 1934-1944, Du Bois wrote some of his most famous books, including The Souls of Black Folk (1903), began two literary magazines, and helped create the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1906.
DuBois’s time in Atlanta during the New South period and later in the 1930s and 40s shaped his views about civil rights. Seeing the impact of Jim Crow on the South through the eyes of a professor, while living through these laws as a black man, DuBois became an important figure in the early Civil Rights Movement. His organization, the NAACP, and his ideals for immediate social and political rights for all African-Americans or Blacks, led to the successes of the Modern Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
Alonzo Herndon’s (1858-1927) life is a true “rags to riches story.” Herndon was born to a slave mother and white father in Social Circle, Georgia. After the Civil War and emancipation, Herndon’s father sent him and his family off the farm, where they found work as share croppers to survive. An entrepreneur from an early age, Herndon helped support his family by selling peanuts and molasses, saving as much of his earnings as possible.
In 1878, Herndon left Social Circle with $11 dollars. He ended up in the city of Senoia, where he learned the barbering trade. Later, he moved to Jonesboro where he set up his own barber shop. Eventually, he made his way to Atlanta where he was hired as a barber, and soon became partner in the business. He eventually opened three barber shops, including one on Peachtree Street that was marketed as “the best barber shop in the South.” Herndon added to the ambiance of the shop by hanging crystal chandeliers with gold fixtures. Eventually, Herndon’s barber shop was the first choice of Atlanta’s white business and political leaders.
With the success of his barber shop, Herndon began to invest in real estate. According to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, at the time of his death Herndon owned “100 homes and a large commercial block of real estate on Auburn Avenue.” However, Herndon proved to be more successful with his founding of the Atlanta Mutual Life Insurance Company, which offered insurance coverage to African-Americans or Blacks. Herndon hired college educated African-Americans or Blacks to work at his company and developed a reputation of running his business in a fair and equitable manner. In the 1920s the company changed its name to the Atlanta Mutual Life Insurance. Today, Atlanta Life Financial Group is worth over 100 million dollars and is constantly ranked as one of the top Black owned financial companies.
Not only an Atlanta business leader, Herndon was active in social and political organizations. Nationally, he was one of the 29 business men to help organize the Niagara Movement (a movement to oppose Booker T. Washington’s accommodationist philosophy). Locally, he supported the YMCA, Atlanta University, and Diana Pace orphanages. His son, Norris, became CEO for Atlanta Mutual upon Herndon’s death.
GSESS8H7.d
A racially charged event during the New South period was the murder of Mary Phagan and the Leo Frank case. In this case, a Jewish man, who had moved to Atlanta from New York, and manager of the National Pencil Company, Leo M. Frank, was accused of murdering 13- year-old Mary Phagan, an employee of the pencil factory. Frank’s appeals made it all the way to the Supreme Court, and the subsequent court case and his tragic lynching made national headlines.
On April 26, 1913, Mary Phagan went to the pencil factory to collect her $1.20 pay check for a 12-hour work week. Phagan was the child of migrant farmers, who, like many poor farmers, moved to Atlanta to improve financial prospects. Phagan received her pay from her supervisor, Leo Frank, and then left the pencil factory. She never returned home and, later that evening, her beaten body was found in the basement of the factory. When newspaper reports were released that suggested that she had also been sexually assaulted, the public demanded justice.
From the beginning, there were three suspects in the case: the night watchman who found the body, Jim Conley, the factory’s janitor who was arrested after being seen washing red stains from his shirt, and Leo Frank, the factory’s manager. There was evidence both for and against Frank’s innocence. Frank appeared extremely nervous (considered by some a part of his personality) when the police came to his house for questioning. He claimed to have stayed at the office for at least 20 minutes after Phagan left but another employee, who came to the office for her pay, claimed he was not in the office during that period of time. Finally, the night watchman claimed that Frank called him that evening asking if everything was okay. According to the watchman, this was the only time Frank had ever done this.
However, Jim Conley was also a strong suspect. Along with the blood stained white shirt, he also gave police detectives four different affidavits about how he had helped Frank “get rid” of the body. Some have argued that due to the racial prejudices of the time, the police could not believe that the African-American or Black Conley had the capacity to develop the story on his own and promised him immunity for testifying against Frank.
During the trial, Conley proved to be invaluable to the prosecution. Frank’s lawyers could not break Conley’s testimony and his stories about Frank’s illicit affairs and harassment of the young, white, southern female employees agitated an already hostile public and jury who already believed that Frank was guilty of the murder. Frank was convicted of killing Phagan and was sentenced to death.
Upon his conviction, many Jewish groups from both the North and South began funding Frank’s court appeals. In turn, Tom Watson began an anti-Semitic campaign against Frank and Northern Jewish interests in his newspaper and magazine. After several appeals, Frank did not receive a pardon. However, one of the prosecuting attorneys, William Smith, who helped convict Frank and defend Conley, began to believe in Frank’s innocence and conducted his own investigation of the case. With his work, he was able to convince Governor John M. Slaton to look into reducing Frank’s sentence to life in prison in hopes that enough evidence could be found that would result in a full pardon. Slaton, after conducting an investigation on his own, agreed that Frank was innocent, and going against public opinion, reduced Frank’s sentence to life in prison. This action resulted in public protest and Slaton, who had been a popular governor, had to declare martial law. At the end of his term, he left Georgia in secret and did not return for almost a decade.
Due to growing fear that Frank would eventually be released, elite community members of Marietta, Mary Phagan’s hometown, drove to Milledgeville where Frank was being held. They managed to walk into a state prison, remove Frank, and drive him back up to Marietta. Calling themselves the “Knights of Mary Phagan”, they lynched him. Later, residents posed for photographs next to his body and these photos, in the form of postcards, were sold as souvenirs.
In 1986, primarily due to the testimony of Alonzo Mann, the Georgia State Board of Pardons finally pardoned Leo Frank. Mann claimed that as a boy, he saw John Conley carrying Phagan’s body and, when discovered, Conley threatened to kill him if he said anything. The pardon did not declare Frank’s innocence or guilt, but was issued on the basis that the state failed to protect him while in custody.
Note: Leo Frank was born in Texas, but his family moved to Brooklyn, New York when he was a few months old.
This case displays deeper issues held by white Georgians during the New South period. Frank’s lynching invaded the sense of security owned by Atlanta’s Jews. Excluded by Atlanta’s elite social organizations, Jews were attacked by the Klan and other right-wing groups. Many poor Georgians were resentful of big business, especially those that represented Northern interests and were operated by Northern transplants like Frank. There was also an underlying hatred of immigrants, Jews, and Catholics in the Deep South during the time period. This hatred erupted during the course of the Frank case and was fueled by Tom Watson’s propaganda. Soon after, members of the Knights of Mary Phagan formed the second incarnation of the Ku Klux Klan.
After the Civil War and Reconstruction period, Atlanta began its “rise from the ashes” and slowly became one of the more important cities in the South, proving it by hosting events such as the International Cotton Exposition. Henry Grady, began to champion the cause of the “New South,” one that was industrial and selfsufficient. Entrepreneurs, both black and white, developed new services and products.
Unfortunately, the “New South Era” was also a time of terrible racism and injustice. Segregation and “Jim Crow” were the law of the land. The resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) after the murder of Mary Phagan targeted not only blacks, but Jews, Catholics, and immigrants as well. Tom Watson, once a champion of the “common man,” both black and white, gained greater notoriety after he changed his position and became an ardent segregationist and anti-Semite. Additionally, Atlanta experienced the worst race riot in its history.
During this period of racial strife, several successful African-American men became well known throughout the country for their work with civil rights. This group of men included educators W.E.B. Dubois and Booker T. Washington.
GSESS8H7.a
The Bourbon Triumvirate was a group of three politicians (Joseph E. Brown, Alfred H. Colquitt, and John B. Gordon) who dominated Georgia politics for over 20 years. These men, who all had been key figures during the Civil War, rotated positions as governor and U.S. Senator from the 1870’s to 1890’s. They held a common interest in developing the railroad and mining industries in Georgia, serving the interests of those men who were part of the old antebellum planter class, and instituting low taxes which resulted in few government services. In addition, all three of the men were white supremacists who supported and took advantage of the convict lease system (the system of leasing convicts to business owners who in turn would provide housing, food and clothing for the convicts). The power of the Bourbon Triumvirate began to wane as the ideals of the Populist Party and the New Democrats began to dominate the Democratic Party in 1890, as well as, the deaths or retirement of the three members.
Joseph E. Brown (1821-1894) was born in South Carolina, but spent most of his early years in the mountains of North Georgia. He attended Yale Law School and moved back to Georgia where he became a successful lawyer. He was elected to the Georgia General Assembly in 1849 and became a state judge in 1855. In 1857, he was elected governor of Georgia and remained in this position throughout the Civil War. During the Civil War, he bickered with CSA President Jefferson Davis on several occasions. Though a zealous secessionist before the war, Brown briefly joined the Republican Party after. As a Republican, he served as the chief justice of Georgia’s Supreme Court. He later switched his allegiance back to the Democratic Party and served in the U.S. Senate from 1880-1890.
Alfred H. Colquitt (1824-1894) was born in Walton County, Georgia. He graduated from Princeton University in 1844 and returned to Georgia and became a lawyer. In 1846, he joined the Army during the Mexican-American War. In 1853, he was elected as a U.S. Representative where he served only one term before returning to Georgia where he became a member of the General Assembly in 1859. A fervent secessionist, he was elected to the Georgia Secession Convention in 1861 and joined the Confederate Army after Georgia seceded. Colquitt had a distinguished military career during the Civil War and fought in some of the major battles from 1861-1863. Due to his service, he was eventually commissioned as a major general. After the war, Colquitt served as Georgia’s governor from 1876-1882 and as a U.S. Senator from 1883-1894.
John B. Gordon (1832-1904) was born in Upson County, Georgia. As a child, he moved to Walker County with his family due to his father’s work in Georgia’s coal industry. After leaving the University of Georgia without graduating, he ended up managing his father’s coal mine before the start of the Civil War. Though receiving no military training, Gordon rose to prominence in the Confederate Army due to his fearless fighting style and made his mark as a military strategist. Gordon fought in several important battles and rose to the rank of major general at the end of the war. After the war, Gordon returned to Georgia where he was an outspoken opponent of Reconstruction and is thought to have been the leader of the Georgia chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. Gordon was elected as a U.S. Senator in 1872 and served in this position until 1880. He resigned his position amidst scandal to head the Western and Atlantic Railroad. However, Gordon remained popular among white Georgians and was elected governor in 1886 and back to the U.S. Senate in 1891, serving until 1897. Gordon spent the rest of his life writing and speaking about the Civil War, and, it has been said, embellishing his role in it.
Note: Historians have contended that the Bourbon Triumvirate was not a unified and cohesive unit as was projected by the contemporary press or what was written about and discussed in later years. The members had many different views about several issues and had a strong dislike for one another.
Henry Grady (1850-1889), born in Athens, GA, is best known for his continual promotion of the “New South.” As managing editor of the Atlanta Journal, Grady was able to use the newspaper as a stage to promote his views concerning the industrialization of the South, the diversification of southern agriculture, and to lobby northern investors to help aid financially in both causes. Grady is given credit for being instrumental in bringing the International Cotton Expositions to Atlanta and for the creation of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). He was also active in local politics assisting in the elections of liked-minded politicians such as John B. Gordon and Joseph E. Brown.
Grady also had his critics. He was often attacked by Populist Tom Watson and Georgia’s farmers for his industrial focus. Elected officials of Georgia’s other major cities such Athens, Augusta, and Macon, criticized Grady for his blatant bias in favor of Atlanta. Finally, many civil rights groups both in the North and South, were leery of his flagrantly inaccurate portrayal of racial relations in Georgia in order to bring in northern investment.
Nevertheless, Grady, who was a dynamic writer and speaker, has been identified as the most important figure in the New South movement. Though he only lived to the age of 39, he had several important accomplishments in his short life time. Due to his achievements, Grady has been honored in several ways throughout the state including having a county named for him. Grady Hospital and the University of Georgia’s Grady School of Journalism are also named in his honor.
In 1881, 1885, and 1895, Atlanta was the site of three International Cotton Expositions. These expositions were similar to the World’s Fairs held during the same time period. Primarily, the Cotton Expositions were established to promote Atlanta’s rebuilding from the Civil War, its industrial capabilities and accomplishments, and to lure northern investment into the city and region. The first two were heavily promoted by Henry Grady, but the most memorable was the exposition held in 1895.
During the exposition of 1895, also known as the “Cotton States and International Exposition,” civil rights activist and educator, Booker T. Washington, gave his famous Atlanta Compromise Speech. This speech urged African-Americans to focus on economic improvement as opposed to political and social rights, an idea that was supported by white New South advocates, but not accepted by African- American leaders such as W.E.B. Dubois. Though this event was heavily promoted, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, “only 800,000 people attended the three month” event and it suffered with financial struggles throughout. Still, all three of these events were effective in displaying Atlanta’s “rise from the ashes” and to establish it as the leading city of the New South.
Note: Due to the magnitude for the International Cotton Exposition of 1895, teachers should take the opportunity to allow their students to compare and contrast this event and its importance to the states’ other major international event: The 1996 Olympic Games.
Tom Watson (1856-1922) was one of the most popular and most controversial figures in Georgia history. Born in Columbia County, his early law and political career was based on supporting the poor tenant farmer and sharecropper of both races. When he was elected to the Georgia General Assembly in 1882, he supported the end to the convict lease system and was a proponent of public education for all Georgians. However, due to his discontent with the policies of the New South advocates in the General Assembly, Watson resigned before the end of his term.
Though a Democrat, in 1890, he adopted some of the policies of the Farmers Alliance, a precursor to the Populist Party. On a platform of lower taxes for the poor farmer, Watson was elected to the U.S. Congress. In Congress, Watson gained national notoriety for his leadership role in the passage of the Rural Free Delivery Act (the delivery of mail directly to rural farm families). However, most of the other ideas he supported never came to fruition. In 1892, though supported by farmers of both races, he lost his reelection bid to Congress. It should be noted that Watson received the support of many rural black voters due to his condemnation of lynching and his defense of a black supporter that was almost lynched by a white mob.
Because of his support for the Framers’ Alliances’ ideals, the Populist Party (also known as the People’s Party) selected him as their vice-presidential candidate in 1896, and presidential candidate in 1904 and 1908. The Populist Party supported changes in banking policies to benefit farmers, government control of the railroads, and the end of the convict lease system. The Populist Party began to wane in Georgia in the late 1890’s. Watson’s foray into national politics was never successfully realized but, in Georgia, he remained a political force in state and local politics.
Unfortunately, around 1904, Watson began to change his progressive views toward race and, by the end of his life he was a fervent white supremacist. He not only targeted African-Americans but Catholics and Jews as well. He used his newspaper and magazine, The Jeffersonian, to espouse his political, social, and economic viewpoints to Georgians, though it was popular throughout the South, and even in northern cities such as New York. According to some, his series of articles against Leo Frank led to his lynching. Ironically, it was Watson’s anti-capitalist articles and opposition to American’s entry into World War I that led to the U.S. postal service refusing to deliver his publications.
Watson remained popular amongst rural Georgians. In 1918, Watson again ran for Congress only to lose to Carl Vinson, who would remain in Congress for over 50 years. Watson eventually won his last election bid in 1920, when he was selected to be one of Georgia’s U.S. Senators. However, he died soon after in 1922. His seat was held for one day by America’s first female senator, Georgian Rebecca Latimer Felton.
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The social and political gains made by African-Americans during the 1870s and 1880s began to be chipped away by white politicians in the 1890s. Laws called Jim Crow Laws, named after a fictional black ministerial character, took away most of the citizenship rights of African-Americans. Under these laws most blacks could not vote or serve on juries, and were denied many of the other rights of US citizens. After the Supreme Court decision in the Plessy v. Ferguson case, almost every aspect of life was segregated. This included separate schools, sections of public transportation, water fountains, bathrooms, and even separate cemeteries and Bibles used to swear oaths in courts. As civil rights activist Fred Gray said, “We were segregated from the cradle to the grave, the toilet to the train, the classroom to the courtroom.” During this period, intermarriage between the races was strictly forbidden in the southern states and lynching was used in largely rural areas as a means to enforce the social order of segregation. According to the New Georgia Encyclopedia from 1882-1930, 482 African-American were lynched in Georgia, second only to Mississippi. Though this system also inhibited the economic progress of most African-Americans, some such as Alonzo Herndon were able to use rise above the discrimination and become successful businessmen. Herndon, for example created the Atlanta Mutual Life Insurance Company, in response to white owned insurance companies refusing to sell policies to black customers. Many African-American educators also rose to prominence during this time period such as W.E.B. Dubois and Georgians John and Lugenia Burns Hope. All the same, the Jim Crow laws inhibited the educational, economic, and social growth and opportunities for most Southerners, both black and white.
The landmark court case, Plessy v. Ferguson, had a far-reaching impact on Georgia. On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy was arrested in Louisiana for sitting in the “Whites Only” section of a railcar. In this planned protest, Plessy, who was 1/8th black and “could pass for white” identified himself as a black man. This orchestrated event was planned by the “Committee of Citizens,” a group of well- educated African-Americans who wanted to test Louisiana’s segregation laws. The case went all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court, where the court ruled in favor of Louisiana, based on the “separate but equal” doctrine. The court determined that under the Constitution (14th and 15th Amendments) Blacks had political rights, but social rights were not required. According to the court, as long as facilities were equal for both races they could be separate.
Upon this ruling most southern states, including Georgia, separated all aspects of life. This included separate theaters and movie houses, rail and street cars, and separate bathrooms. Though separate, these facilities were most certainly not equal. For example, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, the average white school in the state spent about $43 dollars per student in 1930, in comparison to $10 per student in all black schools.
Note: Students often wonder what happened to Homer Plessy after the Court Case. Plessy, a shoemaker was born in 1862 and died in 1925. After the case, he remained in New Orleans where he stayed active in his community and church. He became a salesman for the People’s Life Insurance Company and was a devoted husband and father for the remainder of his life.
The 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which guaranteed citizenship rights to all AfricanAmericans and voting rights to African-American men, were ratified by the U.S. Congress and included the votes of the Southern states. However, during the Jim Crow era, most African American or Blacks in the South lost these voting rights. Due to the federal government’s lack of enforcement, southern states, including Georgia, established many laws that prevented Blacks, and poor whites for that matter, from voting. These laws which led to Black disenfranchisement in Georgia included:
- Poll Taxes (1877): Taxes on voting. Most poor blacks and many poor whites could not pay this tax and were unable to vote. In some cases, the poll tax was waived for poor whites.
- The White Primary (1900): Due to the fact that the dominate party in the Georgia was the Democratic Party, most of major political decisions took place during the primary. The White Primary did not allow African-Americans or Blacks to vote in the all-important primary elections.
- Literacy Tests (1908): Used to prevent African-Americans or Blacks from voting. Due to the substandard education in the South for both poor Blacks and whites many Georgians could not read or write and could not pass these tests in order to vote. Some Whites were “passed” by polling officials to allow them to vote, though others were not. However, many educated Blacks were told that they still failed the test and were unable to vote.
- The Grandfather Clause (1890-1910): was used to allow some poor white citizens the opportunity to vote while continuing to deny the right to African Americans or Blacks. These laws usually said that if a person’s father was able to vote before the Civil War then they could too, without paying a poll tax or taking a literacy test. The law in some states said that if a person’s grandfather fought in the Civil War they could vote as well.
The 1906 Atlanta Riot resulted in the death of at least 25 African-Americans or Blacks. The immediate spark for this 48-hour riot (September 22-24, 1906) was a series of local newspaper articles alleging African American or Black male attacks on white women. These articles proved to be untrue. However, as with most historical events, there were many other deep-seated causes of the riot. These included the large number of unemployed and frustrated whites who viewed African-American or Black as threats to jobs and the established social order. Whites were also jealous of successful African-American or Black business leaders such as Alonzo Herndon. His barbershop, sometimes called the “Crystal Palace,” was one the first businesses targeted by the White mob. Additionally, Georgia gubernatorial candidates Hoke Smith and Clarke Howell fueled the racial fires as they based their campaigns on the platform of white supremacy and used their newspaper publications to encourage racial tensions.
On the morning of the riot, there were four articles published about assaults on white women. A group of mostly unemployed white men and boys gathered in downtown seeking revenge for the false attacks. Though city officials tried to calm the mob, the group of men began attacking any African American or Black that they saw. Travelling into the African American or Black business district, the mob killed two barbers and beat several men to death on street cars. Due to the violence, the Georgia militia was called in to the city. In turn, African-Americans or Blacks began to arm themselves and, in some cases, fought off their attackers. Despite these efforts, sporadic fighting occurred throughout the next day.
The riot caused unwanted negative national and international attention for the “jewel of the New South.” Atlanta business leaders, African American or Black and white, quickly came together to end the riot and restore order. Though this bi-racial committee was historic in itself, as a group such as this had rarely met in the South, the end result led to deeper segregation in the city and more of an economic divide between the African American or Black social elite and lower class. It also proved that Booker T. Washington’s views concerning the use of hard work and economic accomplishment as a means for African-American or Black equality would not work in the South and there needed to be more direct approaches for gaining civil rights.
The 1906 Atlanta Riot was one of the largest demonstrations of this violence along with the over 400 lynchings that happened in the state from 1880-1930. These lynchings were often orchestrated by members of the Ku Klux Klan, who, during this time period, consisted of teachers, policemen, ministers, and other community leaders. Some of the most famous Georgians during the time period supported racial violence and lynching included Tom Watson.
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The period of the New South saw the rise of differing opinions regarding the advancement of the rights of African Americans or Blacks in the United States. Of course, these ideas filtered into Georgia and activated great discussion amongst African Americans or Blacks and white society.
Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) was born a slave in Virginia. Washington was an educator, author, orator, and political activist. After emancipation, Washington moved to West Virginia where, after working in several manual labor jobs, was able to attend colleges that became Hampton University and Virginia Union University. Upon graduation from Virginia Union, he went back to Hampton as a teacher and was offered the opportunity to lead the Tuskegee Institution in Alabama.
Washington was an able fundraiser who received financial support from many northern business leaders and politicians to build several technical schools for African Americans or Blacks. He became a leader in the African American community due to the support of a wide network of African American or Black ministers, teachers, and other civil and business leaders. Publicly, Washington promoted the idea that the best approach for African-Americans or Blacks to gain a foothold in white society was through hard work, education, and economic accomplishments, before gaining full civil rights (the concept of accommodationism). Though he was criticized by individuals and groups such as W.E.B. Dubois and the NAACP for these ideals, Washington secretly provided financial support for many civil rights cases actively pursuing voting and other rights for African Americans or Blacks. Washington wrote 14 books, including Up from Slavery, his autobiography published in 1901. Along with his contributions to education and civil rights, Washington was the first African-American or Black to be invited to a formal dinner at the White House. In Georgia history, he is most well-known for his Atlanta Compromise Speech which he presented at the International Cotton Exposition of 1895. This speech brought his ideas of cooperation and the “going slow” approach to the forefront of the early civil rights movement. Though, this approach was tarnished by the numerous lynchings during the time period and events such as the 1906 Atlanta Riot, many African Americans or Blacks and whites continued to support Washington and his ideals until his death at age 59 in 1915.
Often viewed as Booker T. Washington’s intellectual opposition, W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963) supported many of Washington’s beliefs early in his career. However, after the actions of the southern states to prevent African-American or Black civil rights along with events such as the 1906 Atlanta Riot, DuBois was determined to fight for immediate social and political rights of African Americans or Blacks.
William Edward Burghardt DuBois was born in Massachusetts. DuBois had a relatively happy and uneventful childhood. With the support of his mother and several community members who recognized DuBois’ brilliance at an early age, DuBois was successful in school and attended Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. There, DuBois was exposed to the harsh realities of racial segregation and Jim Crow laws for the first time. Under this experience, he began to form his thoughts about combating these laws. At Fisk, Dubois developed the concept of “the talented tenth” or an elite group of college educated African Americans or Blacks who would use their talents and position to help eradicate segregation in American society. Graduating from Fisk in 1888, DuBois went on to receive a Master’s degree from Harvard University in 1891, and a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1896.
After working at Wilberforce University and the University of Pennsylvania for a time, DuBois accepted a position at Atlanta University (later Clark Atlanta). According to University of Georgia professor, Derrick P. Alridge, DuBois’s time in Atlanta was some of the most productive of his 70-year career. Serving at Clark from 1897-1910 and returning in 1934-1944, Du Bois wrote some of his most famous books, including The Souls of Black Folk (1903), began two literary magazines, and helped create the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1906.
DuBois’s time in Atlanta during the New South period and later in the 1930s and 40s shaped his views about civil rights. Seeing the impact of Jim Crow on the South through the eyes of a professor, while living through these laws as a black man, DuBois became an important figure in the early Civil Rights Movement. His organization, the NAACP, and his ideals for immediate social and political rights for all African-Americans or Blacks, led to the successes of the Modern Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
Alonzo Herndon’s (1858-1927) life is a true “rags to riches story.” Herndon was born to a slave mother and white father in Social Circle, Georgia. After the Civil War and emancipation, Herndon’s father sent him and his family off the farm, where they found work as share croppers to survive. An entrepreneur from an early age, Herndon helped support his family by selling peanuts and molasses, saving as much of his earnings as possible.
In 1878, Herndon left Social Circle with $11 dollars. He ended up in the city of Senoia, where he learned the barbering trade. Later, he moved to Jonesboro where he set up his own barber shop. Eventually, he made his way to Atlanta where he was hired as a barber, and soon became partner in the business. He eventually opened three barber shops, including one on Peachtree Street that was marketed as “the best barber shop in the South.” Herndon added to the ambiance of the shop by hanging crystal chandeliers with gold fixtures. Eventually, Herndon’s barber shop was the first choice of Atlanta’s white business and political leaders.
With the success of his barber shop, Herndon began to invest in real estate. According to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, at the time of his death Herndon owned “100 homes and a large commercial block of real estate on Auburn Avenue.” However, Herndon proved to be more successful with his founding of the Atlanta Mutual Life Insurance Company, which offered insurance coverage to African-Americans or Blacks. Herndon hired college educated African-Americans or Blacks to work at his company and developed a reputation of running his business in a fair and equitable manner. In the 1920s the company changed its name to the Atlanta Mutual Life Insurance. Today, Atlanta Life Financial Group is worth over 100 million dollars and is constantly ranked as one of the top Black owned financial companies.
Not only an Atlanta business leader, Herndon was active in social and political organizations. Nationally, he was one of the 29 business men to help organize the Niagara Movement (a movement to oppose Booker T. Washington’s accommodationist philosophy). Locally, he supported the YMCA, Atlanta University, and Diana Pace orphanages. His son, Norris, became CEO for Atlanta Mutual upon Herndon’s death.
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A racially charged event during the New South period was the murder of Mary Phagan and the Leo Frank case. In this case, a Jewish man, who had moved to Atlanta from New York, and manager of the National Pencil Company, Leo M. Frank, was accused of murdering 13- year-old Mary Phagan, an employee of the pencil factory. Frank’s appeals made it all the way to the Supreme Court, and the subsequent court case and his tragic lynching made national headlines.
On April 26, 1913, Mary Phagan went to the pencil factory to collect her $1.20 pay check for a 12-hour work week. Phagan was the child of migrant farmers, who, like many poor farmers, moved to Atlanta to improve financial prospects. Phagan received her pay from her supervisor, Leo Frank, and then left the pencil factory. She never returned home and, later that evening, her beaten body was found in the basement of the factory. When newspaper reports were released that suggested that she had also been sexually assaulted, the public demanded justice.
From the beginning, there were three suspects in the case: the night watchman who found the body, Jim Conley, the factory’s janitor who was arrested after being seen washing red stains from his shirt, and Leo Frank, the factory’s manager. There was evidence both for and against Frank’s innocence. Frank appeared extremely nervous (considered by some a part of his personality) when the police came to his house for questioning. He claimed to have stayed at the office for at least 20 minutes after Phagan left but another employee, who came to the office for her pay, claimed he was not in the office during that period of time. Finally, the night watchman claimed that Frank called him that evening asking if everything was okay. According to the watchman, this was the only time Frank had ever done this.
However, Jim Conley was also a strong suspect. Along with the blood stained white shirt, he also gave police detectives four different affidavits about how he had helped Frank “get rid” of the body. Some have argued that due to the racial prejudices of the time, the police could not believe that the African-American or Black Conley had the capacity to develop the story on his own and promised him immunity for testifying against Frank.
During the trial, Conley proved to be invaluable to the prosecution. Frank’s lawyers could not break Conley’s testimony and his stories about Frank’s illicit affairs and harassment of the young, white, southern female employees agitated an already hostile public and jury who already believed that Frank was guilty of the murder. Frank was convicted of killing Phagan and was sentenced to death.
Upon his conviction, many Jewish groups from both the North and South began funding Frank’s court appeals. In turn, Tom Watson began an anti-Semitic campaign against Frank and Northern Jewish interests in his newspaper and magazine. After several appeals, Frank did not receive a pardon. However, one of the prosecuting attorneys, William Smith, who helped convict Frank and defend Conley, began to believe in Frank’s innocence and conducted his own investigation of the case. With his work, he was able to convince Governor John M. Slaton to look into reducing Frank’s sentence to life in prison in hopes that enough evidence could be found that would result in a full pardon. Slaton, after conducting an investigation on his own, agreed that Frank was innocent, and going against public opinion, reduced Frank’s sentence to life in prison. This action resulted in public protest and Slaton, who had been a popular governor, had to declare martial law. At the end of his term, he left Georgia in secret and did not return for almost a decade.
Due to growing fear that Frank would eventually be released, elite community members of Marietta, Mary Phagan’s hometown, drove to Milledgeville where Frank was being held. They managed to walk into a state prison, remove Frank, and drive him back up to Marietta. Calling themselves the “Knights of Mary Phagan”, they lynched him. Later, residents posed for photographs next to his body and these photos, in the form of postcards, were sold as souvenirs.
In 1986, primarily due to the testimony of Alonzo Mann, the Georgia State Board of Pardons finally pardoned Leo Frank. Mann claimed that as a boy, he saw John Conley carrying Phagan’s body and, when discovered, Conley threatened to kill him if he said anything. The pardon did not declare Frank’s innocence or guilt, but was issued on the basis that the state failed to protect him while in custody.
Note: Leo Frank was born in Texas, but his family moved to Brooklyn, New York when he was a few months old.
This case displays deeper issues held by white Georgians during the New South period. Frank’s lynching invaded the sense of security owned by Atlanta’s Jews. Excluded by Atlanta’s elite social organizations, Jews were attacked by the Klan and other right-wing groups. Many poor Georgians were resentful of big business, especially those that represented Northern interests and were operated by Northern transplants like Frank. There was also an underlying hatred of immigrants, Jews, and Catholics in the Deep South during the time period. This hatred erupted during the course of the Frank case and was fueled by Tom Watson’s propaganda. Soon after, members of the Knights of Mary Phagan formed the second incarnation of the Ku Klux Klan.
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