Cliff Kuhn: Telling people about the anniversary of the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot
Cliff Kuhn first encountered the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot when he wrote a column for an alternative newspaper called "The History You Weren't Supposed to Know."
Thirty years later, the Georgia State University historian is still trying to shed light on the city's worst outbreak of racial violence. "Most Atlantans have never heard of it," he says.
This year marks the centennial of the riot, in which thousands of whites rampaged through downtown Atlanta attacking black people at random. At least two dozen were killed, according to historical accounts.
On Sunday, Kuhn will lead an hourlong walking tour of sites associated with the riot. It's part of a year of events sponsored by the Coalition to Remember the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot (www.1906atlantaraceriot.org), a group representing the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site and numerous other institutions in the city. The tour begins at 1 p.m. under the gazebo in Woodruff Park, near where the bloodletting began.
Five Points, shown in a postcard from a decade after the riot, was the center of the violence. The caption calls Peachtree 'The White Way', a reference to street lighting, not race.
The mob laid bodies of its victims at the base of the Henry Grady monument on Marietta Street.
Read entire article at Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thirty years later, the Georgia State University historian is still trying to shed light on the city's worst outbreak of racial violence. "Most Atlantans have never heard of it," he says.
This year marks the centennial of the riot, in which thousands of whites rampaged through downtown Atlanta attacking black people at random. At least two dozen were killed, according to historical accounts.
On Sunday, Kuhn will lead an hourlong walking tour of sites associated with the riot. It's part of a year of events sponsored by the Coalition to Remember the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot (www.1906atlantaraceriot.org), a group representing the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site and numerous other institutions in the city. The tour begins at 1 p.m. under the gazebo in Woodruff Park, near where the bloodletting began.
Five Points, shown in a postcard from a decade after the riot, was the center of the violence. The caption calls Peachtree 'The White Way', a reference to street lighting, not race.
The mob laid bodies of its victims at the base of the Henry Grady monument on Marietta Street.