A History of Georgia’s 1%: Why You Must Face Race to Occupy Atlanta

by Kung Li
Thursday, October 13 2011, 10:12 AM EST

... With the Amendment ratified, the all-white Georgia Legislature turned around and passed the Black Codes, effectively reinstating slavery in Georgia. The Codes required former slaves to enter into labor contracts, with wages to be paid by the master totaling—after deductions for food, shelter and penalties for days not worked—two cents an hour. That’s how Georgia’s antebellum 1 percent had rolled before the war, and that’s how they wanted to roll after it. The only industry had been cotton, so the Black Codes were written to keep freedmen working the same fields they had worked as slaves ...

... The police arrested dozens of black men through the summer, but were not satisfied. The chief of police stepped up the campaign in August. “Vagrant Negroes fill streets and saloons at all hours of day,” read the Aug. 25 headline in the Atlanta Constitution. “Difficult to convict loafers of vagrancy after they are arrested.” The editorial page the next day urged support for police efforts to “drive out the vagrants.” And to clarify why, the next day: “For protection of white women.” ...

... The fears of Georgia’s lawmakers were well-founded. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) held its first conference at the Atlanta University Center Oct. 14-16 of that year, and resolved to take direct action to desegregate Atlanta’s lunch counters. Three days after the close of the conference, Atlanta students staged mass demonstrations and sit-ins at the Rich’s Department Store in downtown Five Points and other counters across the city. Two blocks south of Woodruff Park, where Occupiers will sleep tonight, black students trained in nonviolent direct action took an elevator up to Rich’s 6th floor Magnolia Room, or down to the Cockrel Grill in the basement, then sat down and waited to be served ...

... Officials with the Atlanta Olympic Committee insisted the police were not used to clear poor black people out of downtown Atlanta for the Games. Yet, the visibly poor—nearly all black—disappeared from Woodruff Park for the duration of the Games. The county jail’s population shot up from 2,200 to 4,500 before and during the Olympics. Officials insisted: just a coincidence ...

http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/10/a_brief_history_of_georgias_1--or_why_you_cant_occupy_atlanta_without_facing_race.html