atlanta election riots – will history repeat itself?

November 4, 2008 by ksolo
Filed under recipes for life

photo credit: NPR.org; Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center

So I was walking back from lunch today with a group of co-workers, and one of them mentioned that she’d heard that various area municipalities were beefing up their security patrols because there might be riots after the election results came in tonight.

At this, I had to quickly choose whether I’d voice my honest opinion of her statement (“why in the hell would you even give voice to such foolishness?”) or just ignore or deflect it with a wry, harmless comment.

Thankfully, our boss piped up with, “Oh, yeah? But the question is: why this election?”

Why, indeed?

Of course, the querent had no answer. Well, at least not one that was ‘PC’ to say out loud. But we all knew what it was - it all boils down to a matter of race.

Back at the office, I flipped through today’s AJC for any mention of these riot forecasts my co-worker had mentioned. None found.

“Hmm,” I thought. “Well, maybe the AJC is doing the responsible thing and not putting such drivel onto the printed page. Surely, I can find something online.” My Google search for ‘atlanta riot’ yielded nothing on speculations of Atlanta-area election night riots. But I did find several entries on the Atlanta race riots of 1906.

A quick rifle through my mental Georgia history folder led me to conclude that my teacher must have skipped this chapter.

Here’s what Wikipedia had to say about it:

The Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 was a mass civil disturbance in Atlanta, Georgia USA which began the evening of September 22nd and lasted until September 26th. An estimated 25 to 40 African-Americans were killed along with 2 confirmed European Americans. The main cause was the rising tension between whites and blacks as a result of competition for jobs, black desire for civil rights, Reconstruction, and the gubernatorial election of 1906.

Atlanta was considered to be a prime example of how whites and blacks could live together in harmony; however… African-Americans began to enter in the realm of politics, began establishing businesses, and gaining notoriety as a social class. These newly acquired African-American rights brought increased competition between blacks and whites for jobs and heightened class distinctions.

These tensions came to a boil with the gubernatorial election of 1906 in which Hoke Smith and Clark Howell competed for the Democratic nomination…. Both candidates used their influence to incite white voters and help spread the fear that whites may not be able to maintain the current social order.

The 1906 riots were, of course, an extreme example of what can happen when sensationalism and separatism started by political candidates and fanned by irresponsible media outlets eventually stoke one group’s fear and bigotry into a full-on inferno. But that was 100 years ago, we’re well past that kind of ‘us versus them’ political wording, right?

Maybe. Maybe not. Phrases like ‘that one’ and ‘real American’, threats of impending socialism, and supporters who go unadmonished for shouts of ’kill him’, ‘traitor’, ‘terrorist’, and ‘off with his head’ certainly seem to underscore that at least some of the intentionally divisive politics of a century ago are still lingering today.

Mark Bauerlein, an Emory English professor and author of the book, Negrophobia:A Race Riot in Atlanta, 1906, said in a 2006 interview, “We live in a nation of historical forgetfulness. A society is only as thoughtful and deliberative as is its historical memory….”

In other words, only those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

So, the vague sense of fear and worry that some of my co-workers, and some of your friends and neighbors are feeling about what’s gonna happen tonight may be valid. For them.

But my sincere hope belief is that, tonight – in Atlanta, and all around the country – history will be made, not repeated.

The revolution will be televised. Stay tuned.

cheers,