Jonathan Mosby - Final Senior Seminar paper

Jonathan Mosby

5/4/2015

Senior Seminar

Dr. Albert Way

The Atlanta Cotton States Exposition of 1895: Examining the “New South”

It was the opening day of the 1895 Atlanta and International Cotton States Exposition.

Even the President of the United States, Grover Cleveland, was involved from the beaches of

Massachusetts, pushing a button that transmitted a signal to start the engines and different

types of advanced machinery in the hall of a Technological Exhibit.1 Everyone that was

prominent or elite within the city of Atlanta was in attendance, along with the nation’s and

world’s journalists who were eager to report everything that transpired. After a military parade

through the streets, which included a colored regiment located at the very back, a prayer was

given and a poem was read by Mr. Howell, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, in honor of the

retiring poet.2 The following are two stanzas from the opening “dedicatory ode”, written by

Frank L. Stanton, which was read on a beautiful sunny day in Atlanta, Georgia, on September

18th 1895.

III.

Here, though a city opens wide her gates,This is no day of cities, but of states

1 Cooper, Walter G. The Cotton states and international exposition and South, illustrated. Including the official history of the exposition, by Walter G. Cooper ... Also including portraits and biographical sketches of distinguished visitors. Histories of each of the cotton states and various illustrations of scenery, etc. The Illustrator Company, 1896. (Page 9)

2 Ibid (93)

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Supreme and crowned with progress! Here all timeGathers its glories in the Georgian clime,

And sea to sea replies,And from the fathers skies

The answering bells in one glad chorus chime:“No North no South – but a vast world sublime!”

IV.

Here where the cannon thundered, lo! The whiteAnd royal rose of peace, in living light!

See! How above the black breath of the guns!Flashes the splendor serener suns!

Behold the fields, once desolate, renewedWith loftier life! The lordly land imbued

With statelier spirit! Cities (where the clodsWere trampled red by the avenging gods)With skyward pointing steeples! Every leafIs tinctured now with glory—not with grief!

And the New South, brave-risen from the past,Wears on her brow the diadem at last!3

The phrase “And the New South, brave-risen from the past, Wears on her brow the

diadem at last!” reflects the beliefs held by most people during this time period and has aspects

of Lost Cause ideology incorporated within it that illustrates “New South” rhetoric, which was

used to sell segregation to an unsuspecting public. Lost Cause ideology in the form of “New

South” rhetoric was pervasive at the time of the Atlanta and International Cotton States

Exposition and was intentionally used with impetus to convince the nation that segregation was

the progressive pathway for economic and social advancement for all Americans. The

Exposition was a display to the North and the rest of the world that the “New South” was

somehow different – changed and modernized but simultaneously holding onto the old South’s

beliefs and social structure. The name itself, “cotton states,” shows reverence to a past

3 Ibid (94)

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identity. It wasn’t the South admitting defeat or that the North had won but that the South

now accepted and identified with the Union because of the materialistic desires shared with

the North and their common experience in the Civil War. This materialistic reunification

between North and South is a significant aspect of lost cause ideology that led to the

disfranchisement and political dominance of African Americans which would ultimately be

solidified by the Supreme Court’s decisions. This created the status quo that accepted

institutionalized segregation as being considered a necessity for economic development. This

paper focuses on the relationship between Lost Cause ideology at the time of the 1895

Exposition with concentration on the “New South” advocacy claims about the South being

separate-but-equal around the time of the Cotton States Exposition, exploring their

connections, contradictions, and the outcome that transpired.

The 1895 Atlanta Cotton States Exposition is a great example showing the connections

between the Lost Cause ideology and the “New South” rhetoric because it highlights the

dichotomy that existed between what African American and White leaders--Booker T.

Washington and Henry Grady, for example--were saying to convince the public to accept racial

segregation and what their social ideals really accomplished, regardless what outcome they

truly desired. It was where ideology went from pompous discourse to widespread public

acceptance. And this ideology was not only tolerated by most of the North but actually sought

after.

Segregation has haunted U.S. history for a long time and has a significant place in

historic interpretation. Thus it is important to continue research on the topic, or try in establish

different viewpoints on the role segregation played within the United States. Most historians

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agree that Booker T. Washington’s 1895 “Atlanta Compromise” speech, which was addressed

on the first day of the Exposition, had a negative impact towards the progress for racial equality

because he did not condemn the social structure of the South. Therefore, historians assert his

speech at the Cotton States Exposition fashioned him as an ally of white supremacy. Historians

also agree that the Lost Cause ideology and literature grew out of grief from the Civil War and

was meant for southerners to provide future generations with a vindictive narrative of the war.

As one man put it after the war, “If we cannot justify the South in the act of Secession, we will

go down in History solely as a brave, impulsive but rash people who attempted in an illegal

manner to overthrow the Union of our Country.”4 However, the established interpretation of

the history of civil rights in the South maintained that segregation was established exclusively

for perpetuating white supremacy or racial purity. Likewise, historians have typically viewed

Lost Cause ideology as invoking sectionalism and resistance towards a reunification with the

North, which historian Foster Gaines points out, is the complete opposite.5 Theda Perdue, a

Georgian historian that recently published a book on race relations at the 1895 Exposition,

argued that the Exposition promoted segregation as a means for racial harmony but she failed

to make any connection to Lost Cause ideology or the fundamental role played by economics in

sectional reconciliation.6 There was more to it than the color of one’s skin, the extreme

conservatism and materialism that plagued the elites of big business and the Supreme Court

trickled down passing from them, eventually, to the poor whites in the South which would

4 Gallagher, Gary W., and Alan T. Nolan. The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. EBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed February 23, 2015).5 Foster, Gaines M. Ghosts of the confederacy: defeat, the lost cause, and the emergence of the new South, 1865 to 1913 / Gaines M. Foster. n.p.: New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Kennesaw State University Catalog, EBSCOhost (accessed February 23, 2015).6 Perdue, Theda. Race and the Atlanta Cotton States Exposition of 1895. Athens, Ga: University of Georgia Press, 2010. Discovery eBooks, EBSCOhost (accessed February 23, 2015).

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reignite the flames of racial prejudice. This essay’s interpretation of Lost Cause ideology and

segregation will differ from past historical literature by demonstrating their sophistication and

intricacy while incorporating economics and sectional reconciliation into the discussion.

Lost Cause ideology started in the South immediately after the Civil War as a way of

coping with grief and maintaining hopes for the future.7 The Civil War devastated the southern

countryside, especially railroads and major cities, and most individuals and families were in

extremely poor economic shape. Immediately following the Civil War and all through

Reconstruction, literature was published by leaders of prominent Confederate veterans that

attacked federal reconstruction in the South and promoted radical sectionalism. At the same

time however, this literature glorified the old ways of the South and its leaders in the

Confederacy. Historian Alan T. Nolan claims “Among other points, these ex-Confederates

denied the importance of slavery in triggering secession, blamed sectional tensions on

abolitionists, celebrated antebellum Southern slaveholding society, portrayed Confederates as

united in waging their war for independence, extolled the gallantry of Confederate soldiers, and

attributed Northern victory to sheer weight of numbers and resources.”8 This literature helped

people in the South to feel like they fought with honor and only in defense from a money

hungry industrialized north that attacked first by invading the South. In addition, the literature

reinforced Lost Cause ideology that would become what most recent historians refer to as the

“Southern Tradition” or “Southern Civil Religion.” People in the South had or felt they had no

identity for several decades after the war ended except that of the cotton fields and a longing

7 Cox, Karen L. Dixie's Daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Preservation of Confederate Culture. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003.8 Gallagher, Gary W., and Alan T. Nolan. The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. EBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed February 23, 2015).

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or reverence for their past traditions and lifestyles. The only role models in the South were

Confederate veterans who simply passed down their narrative or version of events which

reinforced the literature and in turn the ideology. After 1877, when Reconstruction ended, Lost

Cause literature started circulating wildly across the North and the South, becoming more

acceptable.

Eventually, early Lost Cause literature died out because, in short, it was and became too

radical for the mainstream public.9 Although the damage had already been done, the principles

and propaganda of Lost Cause ideology were well established in the North and South and

would ultimately become conventional history by the 1880s.

This continuation in practice and education of the Southern Tradition was accomplished

through non-profit organizations and institutions. The United Confederate Veterans, the Sons

of the Confederate Veterans, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and the Confederate

Memorial Literary Society were all instrumental in passing down this ideology, tradition, or

myth to the younger generations. For example, contemporary historian Karen Cox concluded

“Each area of the Daughters' activism--whether memorial, benevolent, historical, educational,

or social--was rooted in their determination to vindicate the actions of Confederate soldiers and

patriots by guaranteeing the perpetuation of the ‘Confederate culture,’ particularly white

supremacy and states' rights.”10 Cox goes even further and states that these women’s groups

did more to preserve the Confederate tradition than their male counterparts and were the

9 Foster, Gaines M. Ghosts of the confederacy: defeat, the lost cause, and the emergence of the new South, 1865 to 1913 / Gaines M. Foster. n.p.: New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Kennesaw State University Catalog, EBSCOhost (accessed February 23, 2015).10 Cox, Karen L. Dixie's Daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Preservation of Confederate Culture. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003.

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leaders of the movement. She may be correct because these women’s groups, especially the

United Daughters of the Confederacy, would go and convince public schools to integrate the

aspects of the Lost Cause ideology into their curriculum or otherwise change it to reflect those

aspects. Also, these organizations would raise and collect donations for the construction of

memorials or monuments, which perpetuated the nostalgia and reference for the past based

on a system organized and structured by whites.

Finally, another aspect of Lost Cause ideology is the power or influence that religious

institutions and their preachers possessed. During the war, clergymen preached the gospel of

secession and had a pro-slavery message to their congregations. The ministers validated

slavery by using the Old Testament. They argued that slavery coexisted with Christianity during

the Old Testament, and God never mentioned any wrong of it unless one treated his slaves

poorly, then it was acceptable, especially since they were introducing these non-believers to

Christ and converting them. Negro inferiority was another aspect of Lost Cause ideology these

ministers would mention and manipulate biblical stories to support their claims.11 It is worth

mentioning that the counter to this argument was that the forefathers of the United States also

included the phrase “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in the constitution which

guarantees rights to all humans. Also, religious orthodoxy contributed to the Lost Cause

ideology and “New South” rhetoric by the authentication and vindication of the old South’s

culture and customs, arguing for a continuation of the status quo. Historian Charles Wilson

sums it up well this way: “They (southern ministers) used the Lost Cause to warn Southerners of

their decline from the past virtue, to promote moral reforms, to encourage conversion to

11 Fleming, William H. Slavery and the Race Problem in the South. Boston, D. Estes & company, 1906.

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Christianity, and to educate the young in Southern traditions; in the fullness of time, they

related it to American values.”12

For most white people, after reconstruction, the appeal to this southern tradition or

Lost Cause ideology was because it gave them a sense of identity after suffering defeat in the

Civil War. Another appeal to southern tradition was racial pride and unity, which became

important during the 1880s to both white people and black people, but for different reasons.

For African Americans, their racial pride and unity grew out of a desire to prove that they were

capable of becoming an educated, law-abiding, fully participating citizen. White people’s sense

of racial pride and unity grew out of fear based off statistics and census data. It started within

politics and the elite upper class of the South. They were afraid, according to statistical data

and the misrepresentation of the 15th Amendment, that African Americans voters would

outnumber white voters and hold more political weight and therefore dominance in that

arena.13 These political democrats and elite businessmen began planning a way to maintain

their control and influence over the region using what historians call the Racial Imperative. The

Racial Imperative is placing value and importance based upon one’s race, something everyone

does unconsciously. It super cedes religion, politics, and other institutions for the advancement

or survival of one’s race.

There had been a slight decline or plateau that was reached with Lost Cause rhetoric

during the early 1880s. The fear of losing political control would reignite it in the later part of

the decade; historian Gaines affirmed that “Although this Confederate celebration had its roots

12 Wilson, Charles Reagan. Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865-1920. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1983.13 Fleming, William H. Slavery and the Race Problem in the South. Boston, D. Estes & company, 1906.

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in persisting anxieties resulting from defeat, increasing fears generated by the social changes of

the late nineteenth century provided the immediate impetus for the revived interest in the Lost

Cause.”14 The revival was triggered by the fears of black political dominance and that the blacks

might take white jobs and other positions of power away. The South did not, yet, have an

answer to the “Negro question.” Northerners were just as afraid of the Negro question as

southerners were and did not want them taking their jobs either. So, Lost Cause literature had

a revival and whites became united once again over the issue of segregation and race relations

within the South.

The Lost Cause revival began soon after Reconstruction ended and this time the

narrators articulated and expressed it differently focusing on a more mainstream approach.

Henry Grady, coined the term “New South” while working for the Atlanta Constitution in the

early 1880s to recognize the South’s new growing economy based on the North’s model of

industrialization. Grady became an important figure in the South during this time period as the

plantar class elites were losing influence because of this economic growth in large cities.

Prominent politicians and Grady alike proceeded to use the phrase in relation to a new,

changed, modernized South that was ripe for investment. The importance and brilliance, on

behalf of these public figures, was the significance they placed on rephrasing the term Lost

Cause with “New South” and the relation to economics with industrial expansion as well as

sectional reconciliation instead of focusing on the war, slavery, and race relations. Architects of

the New South still romanticized and desired a continuation of “southern way of life” that

14 Foster, Gaines M. Ghosts of the confederacy: defeat, the lost cause, and the emergence of the new South, 1865 to 1913 / Gaines M. Foster. n.p.: New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Kennesaw State University Catalog, EBSCOhost (accessed February 23, 2015)

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included a white male hierarchal system but now believed the redemption of the South was

through segregation as God’s plan for asserting social, economic, and political stability. The

“New South” rhetoric of industrial development and sectional reconciliation would achieve that

for them by having outsiders, those from regions other than the Southern United States, view

them as benevolent and progressive towards African Americans. Therefore, the race problem

appeared to be solved and the South gained their trust and money for investment to rebuild

the South while keeping political control. One of the ways in which they sold this idea of a

“New South” with segregation and white supremacy at its heart was at the 1895 Atlanta Cotton

States Exposition. Segregation was sold at the Cotton States Exposition as an integral

component of economic development in the “New South”, which directly correlates to the Lost

Cause ideology discussed previously.

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The 1895 Atlanta Cotton States Exposition was one of many expositions in the South.

The expositions began in 1881 in the city of Atlanta and continued for almost 20 years.

Although many of the same people and businesses contributed to these expositions throughout

the entire 20 years, they were not all led or organized by the same people. Historian Gary

Cooper, was paid to record everything that transpired before, during, and after the Exposition

by the Atlanta Constitution. Cooper stated that Mr. Hemphill, who was business manager of

the Atlanta Constitution, suggested the idea of an exposition or fair in Atlanta after seeing the

success of the Cotton Palace in 1893 in Waco, Texas.15

1 Picture of the 1895 Cotton States Exposition at Piedmont Park16

According to contemporary historian Stephen K. Prince “The fair started with a simple

premise: a national meeting of those involved in the growth, production, and manufacture of

cotton products; it was designed to improve the overall quality of American production by

exposing southern farmers to northern methods of textile processing.”17 These northern

methods came from wealthy northern businessmen who owned cotton processing factories 15 Cooper, Walter G. Ibid.16 PtCityChick. Piedmont Park. 1895. Atlanta History Museum.17 K. Stephen Prince, "A Rebel Yell for Yankee Doodle: Selling the New South at the 1881 Atlanta International Cotton Exposition," Georgia Historical Quarterly 92 (fall 2008): 340-71.

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and agricultural development companies.18 They purchased their cotton from southern farmers

or sold them machinery to help in various agricultural tasks. The reason these northern

businessmen wanted to help was because Reconstruction had just ended a decade prior and

investment opportunities were at wholesale prices with the southern landscape and economy

in shambles. Eager to rebuild the economy and capital of the South after losses in the Civil war,

southern journalists, business leaders, and politicians began working with northern capitalists

to have these expositions or fairs that would attract outsider investments for industrial

development where they would subtly sell segregation as progressive to the nation.

However, there were significant problems and obstacles that these northern and

southern architects faced. For example, many northerners viewed the South as backwards or

as an antiquated culture based on an agrarian system instead of industrialization. Also,

investment opportunities from the North or other countries would be jeopardized if their

investments were associated with the notion of slavery or any Lost Cause ideology, as it was

known to actively and physically persist in the South. So, these architects decided to associate

the Exposition with “New South” terminology and ideology that promoted equal opportunity, a

free labor system, capitalism, and a progression towards a racially unified, positive economic

future. The vision of an unified economic future is reported by Gary Cooper’s official history of

the 1895 Exposition, which includes a statement made from Dr. Daniel Gilman, commissioner of

the board of awards, stating “We are deeply impressed by the evidence here afforded of the

importance of promoting the study of exact science, and encouraging the best methods of

manual and industrial training among girls and boys, women and men, blacks and whites.”19

18 Ibid19 Cooper, Walter G. Ibid.

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The architects focused on industrial expansion and technological education, within a segregated

society, as the economically viable solution and vision for the future of freed slaves and poor

whites in the South.

But certain aspects of Lost Cause ideology were actively and physically present at the

1895 Atlanta Cotton States Exposition, which correlates to the “New South” rhetoric the

architects were trying to establish. This rhetoric reflects Lost Cause ideology in that it makes no

mention of defeat or slavery causing the Civil War, places significant importance on state’s

rights and held specific state days at the Exposition, was organized and led by predominately

white upper-class men, perpetuated the southern identity and culture, the selling of

segregation as progressive, and sectional reconciliation in the form of materialism. Historian

Foster Gaines sums it up well stating, “Although in no way admitting error, their accounts of the

war emphasized not the issues behind the conflict but the experience of the battle that both

North and South had shared. The Lost Cause did not signal the South’s retreat from the future,

but, whether intentionally or not, it eased the region’s passage through a particularly difficult

period of social change.”20

Social change was not a particularly easy passage for the South after the Civil War.

Segregation already existed, illegally, on railcars in Atlanta and in most public places in the

South by 1895 and with it came discrimination. Alice M. Bacon, who was an African American

women, attended the 1895 Cotton States Exposition in order to write an essay for the Hampton

Normal and Industrial Institute of Virginia on the progress of race relations and education in the

South. During the 1895 Exposition, Bacon noted that the retail stores in Atlanta all accepted

20 Foster Gaines “Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat, the Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New South.” 1988.

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African Americans and their money and treated them with respect. However, she does

mention the street signs against African American assimilation were taken down before the

Exposition started.21 If nothing was wrong with assimilation and discrimination why did the

Exposition organizers tell city store fronts to take down their signs and accept blacks in their

stores? She stated the Negro Exhibit at the Exposition needed to be integrated with whites

because all Americans are the same, regardless of color. Also, African American leaders did not

think they could overcome organization and fund raising for their own separate exhibit.

According to Bacon, “the exhibit failed to show the industrial contributions African Americans

22made to the country. Their organization hurt the exhibits from states because some were

afraid of the South’s offer and conspicuous, and others just did not want to be part of

21 Alice. M. Bacon. “The Negro and the Atlanta Exposition” 1896.22 Bing Images “Traces of the Past: The Atlanta Negro Building”. 1895 http://burnaway.org/origins-harlem-renaissance-atlanta-negro-building/

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2The Negro Exhibit Building 1895, Atlanta, Piedmont Park

something separate, while others could not afford to show an exhibit that had no financial

gain.”23 The exhibit was, by and large, a success and demonstrated many African American

inventions and patents from engineered railroad devices to car parts. Detailing Washington’s

speech, Bacon claimed that it did convince people that the Negro problem had been answered

and was almost not an issue anymore. Although Bacon thought Washington’s speech was great

and notable, she was more excited and impressed by the mere fact that African Americans

were allowed to speak their minds at all to an audience other than their own race. However,

she does include that she remains skeptical of the future of race relations in the area of

education but economically that whites could not afford to discriminate against blacks.24

The Atlanta and International Cotton States Exposition of 1895 started and ended with

speeches detailing sectional reconciliation. In fact, reunification between the North and South

was mentioned more than any other issue in the speeches given by hundreds of politicians and

industrial leaders. The northern politicians spoke of how much the landscape had changed

since the Civil War when Atlanta and the South was left in ashes, and focused on the positive

facts within the South like their abundant resources and talented orators while stressing the

brotherhood that now exists. The southern speeches were mostly about how great their

specific state was, the resources or investment opportunities that state had, the heritage and

importance of the state in relation to the Union, and the ways in which their state had changed

since the Civil War and the common experiences shared with the North during it. The South’s

orators claimed that she was “new” and gave equal work opportunity, educated the freedmen,

and allowed voting participating but in reality they were in the process of passing legislation in

23 Ibid24 Ibid

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almost every state to disenfranchise the African American vote. The contradictions of “New

South” rhetoric are pervasive. In fact, Georgia Governor John B. Gordon was a known white

supremacist and former leader of the Ku Klux Klan who had, in 1888, passed a bill that said only

taxes from African Americans would go to fund African American schools and education, but

was vetoed by the Attorney General on basis that it was unconstitutional in Georgia and the

United States.25 Eventually, however, southern states were able to find other ways in which to

get around equal funding for education. Intellectual or management job opportunities were

rarely given to African Americans. Sharecroppers and tenant farmers, low end industrial factory

work, or construction was about the only industries for African Americans in the South after

emancipation. Even if African Americans were able to find good, steady employment, they

would have to answer and obey white bosses, tolerate less pay or wages for the same type of

work as white immigrant workers, and hardly would ever be offered a raise or promotion. The

fact that African Americans hardly, if ever, went on strike between the 1880s and 1900 was a

good a reason to hire them during the time of big business. Restating Cooper’s words, “master

and slave went to capital and labor.”26

The materialistic reconciliation and reunification of the North and South overlooked

African Americans and was left to the Racial Imperative. This also reflects the Darwinian

science of the time and the gravity of the economy in the North and South after the 1893

depression. Historian Robert Haws wrote Darwinian science “championed a system that

supported natural rights and racial purity and that equated wealth and power with virtue.”27

25 Fleming, William H. Slavery and the Race Problem in the South. Boston, D. Estes & company, 1906.26 Cooper, Ibid.27 Robert Haws. “The Age of Segregation: Race relations in the South, 1890-1945. Essays by: Derrick Bell, Mary Berry, Dan Carter, Tony Gilmore, Robert Higgs, and George Tindall. (1978)

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Darwinian beliefs concerning survival of the fittest and wealth and power as virtue go hand in

hand with “New South” rhetoric and racism. White supremacists and non-supremacists, North

and South, East and West, all believed that white European ancestry was the dominant racial

class in the world and that blacks were inferior in every way. This was a fundamental,

supportive, ideology in the hierarchal, class system of the South that endorsed the justification

of segregation and political control. Darwinian science should have been the antithesis of the

civil religion of the Lost Cause but, instead, it was used in the same fashion to maintain the

status quo of the racial imperative.

This was a crucial time in race relations when the ruling elites and leaders of white

supremacy needed to convince the public that segregation was the progressive economic

solution and social advancement for society in the South. As C. Vann Woodward argues the

Civil War destroyed the old ruling elite and replaced them with middle class “entrepreneur’s

intent on modernization and industrial growth.” These new industrialists’ leaders, like Henry

Grady, were usually involved in journalism, politics, or were prominent business owners that

valued the old South’s social, economic, and political structure but had grown tired of

agriculture and the old ruling elites. They were city folks, not rural farmers, and these

entrepreneur’s in the “New South” spoke passionately about her economic future under

segregation and constituted or included in this group are the managers and organizers of the

Atlanta Cotton States Exposition of 1895.

Booker T. Washington was chosen to speak on the opening day, giving his most famous

“Atlanta Compromise” speech, because the white organizers knew he embodied their beliefs

with segregation in addition to echoing Lost Cause sentiments. And by speaking, he conceded

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whites were the dominant race and the Negros needed to catch up by way of technical

education only, hard laborious work, accumulation of wealth, and reconciliation with the South.

According to his critic W.E.B Du Bois, Booker T. Washington also asked that the blacks in the

South give up on political power, civil rights, and higher education for the time being until they

had accomplished the goals previously listed.28 He believed firmly that once those goals were

achieved that African Americans would be economically assimilated and then integrated into

the social fabric of the South. Unknowingly at the time, Booker T. Washington played right into

these organizers hands by delaying race reconciliation and focusing on economic development.

Also, whether these organizers knew or not, only one year later separate-but-equal would be

established by the Supreme Court and all but solidify political dominance for white

supremacists and stopped African Americans from integrating into the social fabric, increasing

systematic discrimination and strengthening southern poverty.

The South’s material sectional reconciliation with the Union led to the disfranchisement

of African Americans and political dominance that was solidified with the Supreme Court.

Steven Tuck argues that during Reconstruction the Gerrymandering of districts and systematic

disfranchisement of African Americans began in the South.29 As early as 1877, resulting from

the immediate removal of federal troops from the former Confederate states, poll taxes with

the use of violence and intimidation were used to scare off republican candidates and black

voters. Educational requirements like the literacy test and the Grandfather clause would be

installed not long after. When certain test started backfiring on poor whites, who were

28 Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co.; [Cambridge]: University Press John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A., 1903; Bartleby.com, 1999.29 Tuck, Steven. “Democratization and the Disfranchisement of African Americans in the US South during the Late 19th Century.” Routledge, 2007.

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illiterate, the Grandfather clause would still allow you to be eligible to vote even if you could

not read as long as you or a parent had voted before a certain date. Usually, the date would be

January 1867 which was significant because blacks did not have the right to vote at that time.30

Also, lynching was used as intimidation for not following the South’s hierarchal structure.

Georgia’s first wave of segregation legislation went through during the Exposition itself.

In 1892, Plessy challenged the white social structure of the South and was arrested for sitting in

the White’s only section of a railcar and the case went to the Supreme Court in 1896, only

months after the Exposition. The Supreme Court used the racial imperative of material

sectional reconciliation and extreme conservatism to justify the constitutionality of each

individual States rights in separate-but-equal, absolving the federal government responsibility

for the race relations that existed in the South. After the upholding of the constitutionality of

separate-but-equal, it became illegal for blacks to associate with whites in public places. With it

came each states own unique interpretation of the 15th Amendment. The 15th Amendment

paved the way for separate-but-equal, which only protected white civil rights and not African

Americans or immigrants. The hypocrisy of the 15th Amendment is how Lost Cause ideology

was implemented legally and put into practice socially, economically, and politically by way of

Jim Crow laws and paved the way for discrimination for another 60 years.

The irony is that it did not matter what viewpoint an individual or community held

regarding race prejudice. Whether you had a white supremacist point of view or one that was

of helping culturally and philanthropically towards African Americans, they both looked at

segregation as a necessity for economic growth. African American leaders, white supremacists,

30 Fleming, William H. Slavery and the Race Problem in the South. Boston, D. Estes & company, 1906.

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and others from both races that wanted to help philanthropically all pushed segregation as a

necessity for economic growth because they believed that through racial pride and segregation

African Americans would achieve economic stability and therefore integrate into the social and

cultural fabric of America that Booker T. Washington convinced them of during his famous

“Atlanta Compromise” speech. However, there were African Americans that disagreed with

him.

Bishop Henry Turner of the African Methodist Episcopal Church was an outspoken critic

of segregation and initially a firm believer in assimilation. Eventually, after democrat’s regained

power in the South and segregation was installed he became a leading figure in the back to

African movement. He believed that the Negro exhibit building should have not be segregated

but integrated together for all Americans. He also used the Exposition as a platform from which

to voice his opposition to the racial and social conditions of the South. Turner challenged white

authority and interpretation as well at the Exposition.31 Historian Robert Heath contends that

Booker T. Washington should have never have spoken at the Exposition unless he was to

condemn the racial conditions that endured in the South. But, instead, he should have

remained silent and let the silence speak for itself in quiet protest.32

The white organizers also allied with Booker T. Washington and other African American

leaders because they needed the Congressional Appropriations Committee to approve a federal

grant, which would concede them the required money needed for the promotion of the

31 CARDON, NATHAN. 2014. "The South's "New Negroes" and African American Visions of Progress at the Atlanta and Nashville International Expositions, 1895-1897." Journal of Southern History 80, no. 2: 287-326. America: History and Life with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 17, 2015).32 Heath, Robert L. "A TIME FOR SILENCE: BOOKER T. WASHINGTON IN ATLANTA." Quarterly Journal of Speech 64, no. 4 (December 1978): 385. America: History and Life with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 17, 2015).

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Exposition, in the North and West plus abroad, in addition to funding the United States

government building exhibit.33 African American leaders in turn, needed the white organizers

to allow them to participate openly and freely in the Exposition so that they could properly

showcase their achievements since emancipation without interference or prejudice. And lastly,

the United States government needed the Exposition itself to help promote friendly relations

with Latin America for the installation of the Panama Canal (known then as Nicaragua), through

telegraphs that were given to the promotional agents from the Exposition.34 All three of these

groups had their own separate and unique interests. The whites, both North and South, used

the Lost Cause narrative to push their agenda while the United States Congress used the

Exposition to push theirs. African Americans tried to use the Exposition to showcase their

accomplishments and aspirations in order to be accepted into the economic fabric of society,

but they were ultimately left out in the materialistic sectional reconciliation of the time.

The “New South” rhetoric at the Atlanta Exposition and other places was a way of

keeping the “Old South’s” beliefs, values, and hierarchical structure after being defeated. Lost

Cause ideology was based on some historical truth and it did help to lay the foundation for

industrial development and expansion through intense rhetoric and display at expositions that

gained capital and investments from all over the world. But the social ideals also hurt the

industrialization of the South with the glorification of the agrarian way of life and the

disfranchisement of the black vote as well as segregation, which kept African Americans from

fully integrating into American society with politics and economics. Although Lost Cause

ideology did bring identity to the “New South” and help diversify the economy, it did not “ease

33 IBID34 Cooper, Walter G. IBID.

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the region’s passage through a particularly difficult period of social change” as historian Foster

Gaines argues.35 It may have eased passage for whites but not African Americans and the

region as a whole. Without Lost Cause ideology the region would have done much better

considering the boost it would have had from two races working together, instead of against

each other, and not for their own races personal gain but for the South’s gain, like Booker T.

Washington wanted. Also, white supremacy was never in jeopardy, as suggested by the

statistical data, but in fact was steadily inclining because of immigration, whereas blacks had no

immigration after the slave trade was abolished. High death rates in blacks in the South

because of high birth rates was another reason for their population decline in comparison to

whites during the time period. In regards to the 15th Amendment, I believe firmly that laws do

not change people’s hearts, and just because the United States government included no

discrimination based upon race, color, or previous servitude, this did not mean that it would be

obeyed or enforced. The capitalistic conservative Supreme Court should have not sided with

state legislation on the Plessy case and dozens others, leaving it up to states individual to

protect African Americans and minorities. But instead, should have mandated federal

involvement and enforcement in this Amendment for equal protection and not left it up to the

individual states to decide.

On that beautiful day in 1895 in Atlanta, the road leading to segregation began its

course following the paths laid by the Lost Cause and “New South” rhetoric. The aftermath of

the Lost Cause ideology lingers on today, albeit not as pervasive, but “the New South, brave-

risen from the past” is now a reality.

35 Gaines, Foster. Ibid.

22

23

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