156-555: The nadir of American race relations was the period in African-American history and the history of the United States from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 through the early 20th century, when racism in the country , and particularly anti-black racism , was more open and pronounced than it had ever been during any other period in the nation's history . During this period, African Americans lost access to many of
312-583: A Victorian house painted bright red with yellow trim. Mrs. Stephens had been a widow for several years prior to Margaret's birth; Captain John Stephens died in 1896. After his death, she inherited property on Jackson Street where Margaret's family lived. Grandmother Annie Stephens was quite a character, both vulgar and a tyrant. After gaining control of her father Philip Fitzgerald's money after he died, she splurged on her younger daughters, including Margaret's mother, and sent them to finishing school in
468-478: A cowboy story set in Mexico. In 1913 she wrote two stories with Civil War settings; one includes her notation that "237 pages are in this book". Fancy Dress Masquerade Seventy girls and boys were the guests of Miss Margaret Mitchell at a fancy dress masquerade yesterday afternoon at the home of her parents Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Mitchell on Peachtree street and the occasion was beautiful and enjoyable. There
624-543: A suffragist and Catholic activist. She had two brothers, Russell Stephens Mitchell, who died in infancy in 1894, and Alexander Stephens Mitchell, born in 1896. Mitchell's family on her father's side were descendants of Thomas Mitchell, originally of Aberdeenshire , Scotland, who settled in Wilkes County, Georgia in 1777, and served in the American Revolutionary War . Thomas Mitchell was
780-685: A "fashionable" private girls' school with an enrollment of over 300 students. She was very active in the Drama Club. Mitchell played the male characters: Nick Bottom in Shakespeare 's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Launcelot Gobbo in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice , among others. She wrote a play about snobbish college girls that she acted in as well. She also joined the Literary Club and had two stories published in
936-861: A Massachusetts congressmen and antislavery leader, was assaulted and nearly killed on the House floor by Preston Brooks of South Carolina. Sumner had been delivering an abolitionist speech to Congress when Brooks attacked him. Brooks received praise in the South for his actions while Sumner became a political icon in the North. Sumner later returned to the Senate, where he was a leader of the Radical Republicans in ending slavery and legislating equal rights for freed slaves. Margaret Mitchell Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949)
1092-617: A Nation resulted in the rebirth of the Klan, which in the 1920s had more power and influence than the original Klan ever did. In 1924, the Klan had four million members. It also controlled the governorship and a majority of the state legislature in Indiana , and exerted a powerful political influence in Arkansas , Oklahoma , California, Georgia, Oregon , and Texas . In the years during and after World War I there were great social tensions in
1248-482: A buggy tour through ruined plantations and "Sherman's sentinels", the brick and stone chimneys that remained after William Tecumseh Sherman 's " March and torch" through Georgia. Mitchell would later recall what her mother had said to her: She talked about the world those people had lived in, such a secure world, and how it had exploded beneath them. And she told me that my world was going to explode under me, someday, and God help me if I didn't have some weapon to meet
1404-776: A captain in the Confederate States Army. John Stephens was a prosperous real estate developer after the Civil War and one of the founders of the Gate City Street Railroad (1881), a mule-drawn Atlanta trolley system . John and Annie Stephens had twelve children together; the seventh child was May Belle Stephens, who married Eugene Mitchell. May Belle Stephens had studied at the Bellevue Convent in Quebec and completed her education at
1560-477: A consenting white woman—for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Blacks who were economically successful faced reprisals or sanctions. When Richard Wright tried to train to become an optometrist and lens-grinder, the other men in the shop threatened him until he was forced to leave. In 1911, Blacks were barred from participating in the Kentucky Derby because African Americans won more than half of
1716-720: A galloping pony in The Little Pioneers , and plays " Cowboys and Indians " in When We Were Shipwrecked . Romantic love and honor emerged as themes of abiding interest for Mitchell in The Knight and the Lady (ca. 1909), in which a "good knight " and a "bad knight" duel for the hand of the lady. In The Arrow Brave and the Deer Maiden (ca. 1913), a half-white Indian brave, Jack, must withstand
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#17327984110531872-584: A heavy demand for cotton for cheap clothing, which caused an enormous demand for slave labor to develop new cotton plantations . There was a 70% increase in the number of slaves in the United States in only 20 years. They were overwhelmingly concentrated on plantations in the Deep South , and moved west as old cotton fields lost their productivity and new lands were purchased. Unlike the Northern States who put more focus into manufacturing and commerce,
2028-484: A lynching is that the murder takes place in public, so everyone knows who did it, yet the crime goes unpunished." African American civil rights activist Ida Bell Wells-Barnett conducted one of the first systematic studies of the subject. She documented that the most prevalent accusation against lynching victims was murder or attempted murder. She found Blacks were "lynched for anything or nothing" – for wife-beating, stealing hogs, being "saucy to white people", sleeping with
2184-544: A member of the Pioneer Society, the Atlanta Woman's Club , and several Catholic and literary societies. Mitchell's father was not in favor of corporal punishment in school. During his tenure as president of the educational board (1911–1912), corporal punishment in the public schools was abolished. Reportedly, Eugene Mitchell received a whipping on the first day he attended school and the mental impression of
2340-509: A number of years. This practice was gradually replaced by the system of chattel slavery used in the Caribbean . When servants were freed, they became competition for resources. Additionally, released servants had to be replaced. This—combined with the ambiguous nature of the social status of Black people and the difficulty in using any other group of people as forced servants—led to the subjugation of Black people into slavery. Massachusetts
2496-515: A reaction to discrimination. The churches also served as neighborhood centers where free Black people could celebrate their African heritage without intrusion from white detractors. The church also served as the center of education. Since the church was part of the community and wanted to provide education; it educated the freed and enslaved Black people. Seeking autonomy, some Black people like Richard Allen founded separate Black denominations. The Second Great Awakening (1800–1830s) has been called
2652-478: A small number of slaves had joined Christian churches. Free Black people in the North set up their own networks of churches and in the South the slaves sat in the upper galleries of white churches. Central to the growth of community among Blacks was the Black church , usually the first communal institution to be established. The Black church was both an expression of community and unique African-American spirituality, and
2808-545: A small percentage came from Madagascar and East Africa. Only 5% (about 500,000) went to the American colonies. The vast majority went to the West Indies and Brazil, where they died quickly. Demographic conditions were highly favorable in the American colonies, with less disease, more food, some medical care, and lighter work loads than prevailed in the sugar fields. Origins and percentages of African Americans imported to
2964-524: A special status for freedmen , so there were still a dozen "permanent apprentices" into the 19th century. In 1787 Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance and barred slavery from the large Northwest Territory. In 1790, there were more than 59,000 free Black people in the United States. By 1810, that number had risen to 186,446. Most of these were in the North, but Revolutionary sentiments also motivated Southern slaveholders. For 20 years after
3120-576: A steady influx of enslaved people to keep up with the ever-growing demand for agricultural labor among the burgeoning plantation economies. These colonies continued to import enslaved Africans until the trade was outlawed in 1808, save for a temporary lull during the Revolutionary War . South Carolina's Black population remained very high for most of the eighteenth century due to the continued import of enslaved Africans, with Blacks outnumbering whites three-to-one. In contrast, Virginia maintained
3276-750: A surveyor by profession. He was on a surveying trip in Henry County, Georgia , at the home of John Lowe, about 6 miles from McDonough, Georgia , when he died in 1835 and is buried in that location. Thomas Mitchell's son, William Mitchell, born December 8, 1777, in Lisborn , Edgefield County , South Carolina , moved between 1834 and 1835, to a farm along the South River in the Flat Rock community in Georgia. William Mitchell died February 24, 1859, at
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#17327984110533432-472: A system of legal racial segregation in public and private facilities. Blacks were separated in schools and the few hospitals, were restricted in seating on trains, and had to use separate sections in some restaurants and public transportation systems. They were often barred from some stores, or forbidden to use lunchrooms, restrooms and fitting rooms. Because they could not vote, they could not serve on juries, which meant they had little if any legal recourse in
3588-400: A teenager, titled Lost Laysen , were published. A collection of newspaper articles written by Mitchell for The Atlanta Journal was republished in book form. Margaret Mitchell was a lifelong resident of Georgia . She was born in 1900 into a wealthy and politically prominent family. Her father, Eugene Muse Mitchell , was an attorney, and her mother, Mary Isabel "Maybelle" Stephens , was
3744-617: A time which was marked by some practical achievements. The Radical Republicans who passed the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were, for the most part, motivated by a desire to help freedmen . African American historian W. E. B. Du Bois put this view forward in 1910, and later historians Kenneth Stampp and Eric Foner expanded it. The Republican Reconstruction governments had their share of corruption, but they benefited many whites, and were no more corrupt than Democratic governments or Northern Republican governments. Furthermore,
3900-517: A white majority despite its significant Black enslaved population. It was said that in the eighteenth century, the colony South Carolina resembled an "extension of West Africa ". Legal importation of enslaved Africans halted in 1808 when the newly formed United States outlawed the slave trade on the earliest date allowed by the Constitution. Despite the ban, small to moderate cargoes of enslaved Africans continued to be illegally brought into
4056-451: Is now rejected as inaccurate, but at the time, the memory of the past was such that it was widely believed by white Americans. In a letter to Dixon dated August 10, 1936, Mitchell wrote: "I was practically raised on your books, and love them very much." An imaginative and precocious writer, Margaret Mitchell began with stories about animals, then progressed to fairy tales and adventure stories. She fashioned book covers for her stories, bound
4212-635: The 1912 election , based on his promise to work for them. Instead, he segregated government workplaces and employment in some agencies. The film The Birth of a Nation (1915), which celebrated the original Ku Klux Klan , was shown at the White House to President Wilson and his cabinet members. Writing in 1921 to Joseph Tumulty , Wilson said of the film "I have always felt that this was a very unfortunate production and I wish most sincerely that its production might be avoided, particularly in communities where there are so many colored people." The Birth of
4368-662: The Barbary slave trade , either to European slavery or to servitude in the Americas, approximately 388,000 landed in North America. After arriving in various European colonies in North America, the enslaved Africans were sold to white colonists, primarily to work on cash crop plantations. A group of enslaved Africans arrived in the English Virginia Colony in 1619, marking the beginning of slavery in
4524-606: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 , which outlawed racial discrimination. The 2020 United States census reported that 46,936,733 respondents identified as African Americans, forming roughly 14.2% of the American population . Of those, over 2.1 million immigrated to the United States as citizens of modern African states. African Americans have made major contributions to the culture of the United States , including literature , cinema and music . African Americans are
4680-633: The Confederate States Army on June 24, 1861, and served in Hood's Texas Brigade . He was severely wounded at the Battle of Sharpsburg , demoted for "inefficiency", and detailed as a nurse in Atlanta. After the Civil War, he made a large fortune supplying lumber for the rapid rebuilding of Atlanta. Russell Mitchell had thirteen children from two wives; the eldest was Eugene, who graduated from
4836-627: The Gilded Age and the Progressive Era , and was characterized by the nationwide sundown town phenomenon. Logan's focus was exclusively on African Americans in the Southern United States, but the time period which he covered also represents the worst period of anti-Chinese discrimination and wider anti-Asian discrimination which was due to fear of the so-called Yellow Peril , which included harassment and violence on
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4992-740: The Midwest ." More significantly, beginning in about 1915, many Blacks moved to Northern cities in what became known as the Great Migration . Through the 1930s, more than 1.5 million Blacks would leave the South for better lives in the North, seeking work and the chance to escape from lynchings and legal segregation. While they faced difficulties, overall, they had better chances in the North. They had to make great cultural changes, as most went from rural areas to major industrial cities, and they also had to adjust from being rural workers to being urban workers. As an example, in its years of expansion,
5148-736: The Pennsylvania Railroad recruited tens of thousands of workers from the South. In the South, alarmed whites, worried that their labor force was leaving, often tried to block Black migration. Black Americans who fled racial oppression either returned to retrieve the rest of their family or sent train tickets back home. In response, as white southerners observed train platforms packed with African Americans, several cities passed ordinances that made it illegal for trains to accept pre-paid tickets. There were ordinances put in place to also prevent group travel of Black families or clusters of African Americans tried to purchase group rates. During
5304-567: The Solid South , where Blacks were a majority of voters. The elite Democrats also acted to disenfranchise poor whites. African Americans were an absolute majority of the population in Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina, and represented more than 40% of the population in four other former Confederate states. Accordingly, many whites perceived African Americans as a major political threat, because in free and fair elections, they would hold
5460-471: The Thirteen Colonies , New France , and New Spain (1700–1820): In the account of Olaudah Equiano , he described the process of being transported to the colonies and being on the slave ships as a horrific experience. On the ships, the enslaved Africans were separated from their family long before they boarded the ships. Once aboard the ships the captives were then segregated by gender. Under
5616-456: The Union to victory in the Civil War, initially refused to send troops to Mississippi in 1875 when the governor of the state asked him to. Violence surrounded the presidential election of 1876 in many areas, beginning a trend. After Grant, it would be many years before any President would do anything to extend the protection of the law to Black people. "Believing that
5772-553: The University of Georgia Law School . Mitchell's maternal great-grandfather, Philip Fitzgerald, emigrated from Ireland and eventually settled on a slaveholding plantation, Rural Home , near Jonesboro, Georgia , where he had one son and seven daughters with his wife, Elenor McGahan, who was from an Irish Catholic family with ties to Colonial Maryland . Mitchell's grandparents, married in 1863, were Annie Fitzgerald and John Stephens; he had also emigrated from Ireland and became
5928-732: The West Coast of the United States , such as the destruction of Chinatown, Denver as well as anti-Asian discrimination in Canada, particularly after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. In the early part of the 20th century, some white historians put forth the claim that Reconstruction was a tragic period, when Republicans who were motivated by revenge and profit used troops to force Southerners to accept corrupt governments that were run by unscrupulous Northerners and unqualified Blacks. Such scholars generally dismissed
6084-500: The civil rights which they had gained during Reconstruction. Anti-Black violence, lynchings , segregation , legalized racial discrimination , and expressions of white supremacy all increased. Asian Americans and Hispanic Americans were also not spared from such sentiments. Historian Rayford Logan coined the phrase in his 1954 book The Negro in American Life and Thought: The Nadir, 1877–1901 . Logan tried to determine
6240-611: The "black beast rapist". A few years after the riot, the Mitchell family decided to move away from Jackson Hill. In 1912, they moved to the east side of Peachtree Street just north of Seventeenth Street in Atlanta. Past the nearest neighbor's house was forest and beyond it the Chattahoochee River . Mitchell's former Jackson Hill home was destroyed in the Great Atlanta Fire of 1917 . Mitchell's father
6396-484: The "central and defining event in the development of Afro-Christianity." As the United States grew, the institution of slavery became more entrenched in the southern states , while northern states began to abolish it. Pennsylvania was the first, in 1780 passing an act for gradual abolition. A number of events continued to shape views on slavery. One of these events was the Haitian Revolution , which
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6552-628: The 15th century many of the tribes had embraced Islam. Those villages in West Africa which were lucky enough to be in good conditions for growth and success, prospered. They also contributed their success to the slave trade. In all, about 10–12 million Africans were transported to the Western Hemisphere. The vast majority of these people came from that stretch of the West African coast extending from present-day Senegal to Angola;
6708-529: The 1820 Missouri Compromise that required states to be admitted to the union in pairs, one slave and one free. In 1850, after winning the Mexican–American War , a problem gripped the nation: what to do about the territories won from Mexico. Henry Clay, the man behind the compromise of 1820 , once more rose to the challenge, to craft the compromise of 1850 . In this compromise the territories of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada would be organized but
6864-491: The 1880s. From 1890 to 1908, they proceeded to pass legislation and constitutional amendments to disenfranchise most Blacks and many poor whites, with Mississippi and Louisiana creating new state constitutions in 1890 and 1895 respectively, to disenfranchise African Americans. Democrats used a combination of restrictions on voter registration and voting methods, such as poll taxes , literacy and residency requirements, and ballot box changes. The main push came from elite Democrats in
7020-481: The 18th century, enslaved Africans had come to fully supplant indentured servants in providing the labor source for the rapidly expanding plantation system of the Southern Colonies . The population of enslaved African Americans in North America grew rapidly during the 18th and early 19th centuries due to a variety of factors, including a lower prevalence of tropic diseases. Colonial society was divided over
7176-450: The 20th century made many Americans more aware of Black culture and more accepting of Black celebrities. Overall, however, the nadir was a disaster, certainly for Black people. Foner points out: ...by the early twentieth century [racism] had become more deeply embedded in the nation's culture and politics than at any time since the beginning of the antislavery crusade and perhaps in our nation's entire history. Similarly, Loewen argues that
7332-543: The African-born enslaved. By the time of the American Revolution, several Northern states were considering the abolition of slavery. Some Southern colonies, such as Virginia, had produced such large and self-sustaining native-born enslaved Black populations that they stopped taking indirect imports of enslaved Africans altogether. However, other colonies such as Georgia and South Carolina still relied on
7488-477: The Americas and enslaved, these different peoples had European standards and beliefs forced upon them, causing them to do away with tribal differences and forge a new history and culture that was a creolization of their common past, present, and European culture . Slaves who belonged to specific African ethnic groups were more sought after and became more dominant in numbers than slaves who belonged to other African ethnic groups in certain regions of what later became
7644-526: The Americas was Estéban , who traveled through the Southwest in the 1530s. In 1619, the first captive Africans were brought via Dutch slave ship to Point Comfort (today Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia ), thirty miles downstream from Jamestown, Virginia . They had been kidnapped by Portuguese slave traders. Virginia settlers treated these captives as indentured servants and released them after
7800-540: The Atlanta Female Institute. The Atlanta Constitution reported that May Belle Stephens and Eugene Mitchell were married at the Jackson Street mansion of the bride's parents on November 8, 1892: the maid of honor, Miss Annie Stephens, was as pretty as a French pastel, in a directoire costume of yellow satin with a long coat of green velvet sleeves, and a vest of gold brocade...The bride
7956-567: The British and Loyalists offered emancipation to any enslaved person owned by a Patriot who was willing to join the Loyalist forces. Lord Dunmore , the Governor of Virginia , recruited 300 African-American men into his Ethiopian regiment within a month of making this proclamation. In South Carolina 25,000 enslaved people, more than one-quarter of the total, escaped to join and fight with
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#17327984110538112-401: The British helped up to 3,000 documented African Americans to leave the country for Nova Scotia , Jamaica and Britain rather than be returned to slavery. The Constitutional Convention of 1787 sought to define the foundation for the government of the newly formed United States of America. The constitution set forth the ideals of freedom and equality while providing for the continuation of
8268-401: The British, or fled for freedom in the uproar of war. Thousands of slaves also escaped in Georgia and Virginia, as well as New England and New York. Well-known African-Americans who fought for the British include Colonel Tye and Boston King . Thomas Peters was one of the large numbers of African Americans who fought for the British . Peters was born in present-day Nigeria and belonged to
8424-617: The Carpet (1904). She kept both on her bookshelf even as an adult and gave them as gifts. Another author whom Mitchell read as a teenager and who had a major impact in her understanding of the Civil War and Reconstruction was Thomas Dixon . Dixon's popular trilogy of novels The Leopard's Spots: A Romance of the White Man's Burden (1902), The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan (1905) and The Traitor: A Story of
8580-524: The Constitution of the United States contemplated a government to be carried on by an enlightened people; believing that its framers did not anticipate the enfranchisement of an ignorant population of African origin, and believing that those men of the State of North Carolina, who joined in forming the Union, did not contemplate for their descendants a subjection to an inferior race, "We,
8736-583: The Continental Army in 1775, the additional recruitment of Black people was forbidden. Approximately 5000 free African-American men helped the American Colonists in their struggle for freedom. One of these men, Agrippa Hull , fought in the American Revolution for over six years. He and the other African-American soldiers fought in order to improve their white neighbor's views of them and advance their own fight of freedom. By contrast,
8892-530: The Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that "separate but equal" facilities for Blacks were constitutional; the Court was made up almost entirely of Northerners. However, equal facilities were rarely provided , as there was no state or federal legislation requiring them. It would not be until 58 years later, with Brown v. Board of Education (1954), that the Court overruled the decision. While there were critics in
9048-605: The Democratic Party." In 1874, in a continuation of the disputed gubernatorial election of 1872, thousands of White League militiamen fought against New Orleans police and Louisiana state militia and won. They turned out the Republican governor and installed the Democrat Samuel D. McEnery , took over the capitol, state house and armory for a few days, and then retreated in the face of Federal troops. This
9204-488: The North American mainland colonies, forming roughly 10% of the population. Some enslaved Black people had been directly shipped from Africa (most of them were from 1518 to the 1850s), but initially, in the very early stages of the European colonization of North America , occasionally they had been shipped via the West Indies in small cargoes after spending time working on the islands. At the same time, many were born to Africans and their descendants, and thus were native-born on
9360-404: The North American mainland. Their legal status was codified into law with the Virginia Statutes: ACT XII (1662) : setting forth that all children upon birth would inherit the same status of their mother . As European colonists engaged in aggressive expansionism , claiming and clearing more land for large-scale farming and the construction of plantations, the flow of enslaved Africans brought to
9516-401: The Northern and Southern states led to the American Civil War , in which 178,000 African Americans served on the Union side. During the war, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Thirteenth Amendment , which abolished slavery in the U.S., except as punishment for a crime. After the war ended with a Confederate defeat, the Reconstruction era began, in which African Americans living in
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#17327984110539672-400: The Northern states, the revolutionary spirit did help African Americans. Beginning in the 1750s, there was widespread sentiment during the American Revolution that slavery was a social evil (for the country as a whole and for the whites) that should eventually be abolished. All the Northern states passed emancipation acts between 1780 and 1804; most of these arranged for gradual emancipation and
9828-408: The Reconstruction governments established public education and social welfare institutions for the first time, improving education for both Blacks and whites, and they also tried to improve social conditions for the many people who were left in poverty after the long war. No Reconstruction state government was dominated by Blacks; in fact, Blacks did not attain a level of representation that was equal to
9984-663: The Revolution, more Southerners also freed enslaved people, sometimes by manumission or in wills to be accomplished after the slaveholder's death. In the Upper South, the percentage of free Black people rose from about 1% before the Revolution to more than 10% by 1810. Quakers and Moravians worked to persuade slaveholders to free families. In Virginia, the number of free Black people increased from 10,000 in 1790 to nearly 30,000 in 1810, but 95% of Black people were still enslaved. In Delaware, three-quarters of all Black people were free by 1810. By 1860, just over 91% of Delaware's Black people were free, and 49.1% of those in Maryland. Among
10140-405: The Revolution. Crispus Attucks , a free Black tradesman, was the first casualty of the Boston Massacre and of the ensuing American Revolutionary War . 5,000 Black people, including Prince Hall, fought in the Continental Army . Many fought side by side with White soldiers at the battles of Lexington and Concord and at Bunker Hill . However, upon George Washington 's ascension to commander of
10296-497: The Rise and Fall of the Invisible Empire (1907) all depicted in vivid terms a white South victimized during the Reconstruction by Northern carpetbaggers and freed slaves, with an especial emphasis upon Reconstruction as a nightmarish time when black men ran amok, raping white women with impunity. As a teenager, Mitchell liked Dixon's books so much that she organized the local children to put on dramatizations of his books. The picture that white supremacist Dixon drew of Reconstruction
10452-444: The Sisters of Mercy at St. Vincent's Convent in Savannah in 1883, becoming Sister Mary Melanie . The characters Melanie Hamilton and Careen O'Hara were probably based on this relation. While "the South" exists as a geographical region of the United States, it is also said to exist as "a place of the imagination" of writers. An image of "the South" was fixed in Mitchell's imagination when at six years old her mother took her on
10608-421: The South to other regions of the United States in search of opportunity. The nadir of American race relations led to civil rights efforts to overturn discrimination and racism against African Americans. In 1954, these efforts coalesced into a broad unified movement led by civil rights activists such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. This succeeded in persuading the federal government to pass
10764-405: The South was heavily dependent on agriculture. Southern political economists at this time supported the institution by concluding that nothing was inherently contradictory about owning slaves and that a future of slavery existed even if the South were to industrialize. Racial, economic, and political turmoil reached an all-time high regarding slavery up to the events of the Civil War. In 1807, at
10920-452: The South were granted equal rights with their white neighbors. White opposition to these advancements led to most African Americans living in the South to be disfranchised , and a system of racial segregation known as the Jim Crow laws was passed in the Southern states. Beginning in the early 20th century, in response to poor economic conditions, segregation and lynchings , over 6 million primarily rural African Americans migrated out of
11076-472: The South. Washington's position was advanced in his influential Atlanta Exposition Speech in 1895, which was the genesis of the Atlanta Compromise . W. E. B. Du Bois advocated a more uncompromising position than Washington, stating: ..."it is utterly impossible, under modern competitive methods, for working men and property-owners to defend their rights and exist without the right of suffrage ". Washington had always (though often clandestinely) supported
11232-564: The U.S., only ending for good in 1859. Gradually, a free Black population emerged, concentrated in port cities along the Atlantic coast from Charleston to Boston. Enslaved people who lived in the cities and towns had more privileges than enslaved people who did not, but the great majority of enslaved people lived on southern tobacco or rice plantations, usually in groups of 20 or more. Wealthy plantation owners eventually became so reliant on slavery that they devastated their own lower class. In
11388-593: The United States. Studies of contemporary documents reveal seven regions from which Africans were sold or taken during the Atlantic slave trade. These regions were: The largest source of slaves transported across the Atlantic Ocean for the New World was West Africa. Some West Africans were skilled iron workers and were therefore able to make tools that aided in their agricultural labor. While there were many unique tribes with their own customs and religions, by
11544-558: The Verdun trenches, shortly before being wounded, he composed a poem on a leaf torn from his field notebook, found later among his effects. The last stanza of Lieutenant Clifford W. Henry's poem follows: If "out of luck" at duty's call In glorious action I should fall At God's behest, May those I hold most dear and best Know I have stood the acid test Should I "go West." General Edwards Presents Medal Mrs. Ira Henry of Sound Beach
11700-618: The Yoruba tribe, and ended up being captured and sold into slavery in French Louisiana . Sold again, he was enslaved in North Carolina and escaped his master's farm in order to receive Lord Dunmore's promise of freedom. Peters had fought for the British throughout the war. When the war finally ended, he and other African Americans who fought on the losing side were taken to Nova Scotia. Here, they encountered difficulty farming
11856-782: The age of 81 and is buried in the family graveyard near Panola Mountain State Park. Margaret Mitchell's great-grandfather Issac Green Mitchell moved to a farm along the Flat Shoals Road located in the Flat Rock community in 1839. Four years later he sold this farm to Ira O. McDaniel and purchased a farm 3 miles farther down the road on the north side of the South River in DeKalb County, Georgia . Her grandfather, Russell Crawford Mitchell, of Atlanta, enlisted in
12012-553: The arrival of Africans to North America in the 16th and 17th centuries. Formerly enslaved Spaniards who had been freed by Francis Drake arrived aboard the Golden Hind at New Albion in California in 1579. The European colonization of the Americas , and the resulting Atlantic slave trade , led to a large-scale transportation of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic; of the roughly 10–12 million Africans who were sold by
12168-719: The arrival to the plantations of the European masters, took an average of six months. Africans were completely cut off from their families, home, and community life. They were forced to adjust to a new way of life. Africans assisted the Spanish and the Portuguese during their early exploration of the Americas. In the 16th century some Black explorers settled in the Mississippi valley and in the areas that became South Carolina and New Mexico. The most celebrated Black explorer of
12324-417: The balance of power in a majority of the South. South Carolina US Senator Ben Tillman proudly proclaimed in 1900, "We have done our level best [to prevent blacks from voting]... we have scratched our heads to find out how we could eliminate the last one of them. We stuffed ballot boxes. We shot them. We are not ashamed of it." Conservative white Democratic governments passed Jim Crow legislation, creating
12480-589: The battle between enslaved people and slave owners was met in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania . The Christiana Riot demonstrated the growing conflict between states' rights and Congress on the issue of slavery. Abolitionists in Britain and the United States in the 1840–1860 period developed large, complex campaigns against slavery. According to Patrick C. Kennicott, the largest and most effective abolitionist speakers were Black people who spoke before
12636-585: The books of Thomas Dixon, Jr. , and in 1916, when the silent film, The Birth of a Nation , was showing in Atlanta, she dramatized Dixon's The Traitor: A Story of the Fall of the Invisible Empire (1907). As both playwright and actress, she took the role of Steve Hoyle. For the production, she made a Ku Klux Klan costume from a white crepe dress and wore a boy's wig. (Note: Dixon rewrote The Traitor as The Black Hood (1924) and Steve Hoyle
12792-463: The brutality of the islands' sugar plantations . From the 1680s onward, the majority of enslaved Africans imported into North America were shipped directly from Africa, and most of them disembarked in ports located in what is now the Southern U.S., particularly in the present-day states of Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana. Black women were often raped by white men. By the turn of
12948-614: The colonial history of the United States ; by 1776, roughly 20% of the British North American population was of African descent, both free and enslaved. The American Revolutionary War , which saw the Thirteen Colonies become independent and transform into the United States , led to great social upheavals for African Americans; Black soldiers fought on both the British and the American sides, and after
13104-652: The conflict ended the Northern United States gradually abolished slavery. However, the American South , which had an economy dependent on plantations operation by slave labor, entrenched the slave system and expanded it during the westward expansion of the United States . During this period, numerous enslaved African Americans escaped into free states and Canada via the Underground Railroad . Disputes over slavery between
13260-509: The continent rapidly increased, beginning in the 1660s. The slave trade from the West Indies proved insufficient to meet demand in the now fast-growing North American slave market. Additionally, most North American buyers of enslaved people no longer wanted to purchase enslaved people who were coming in from the West Indies—by now they were either harder to obtain, too expensive, undesirable, or more often, they had been exhausted in many ways by
13416-562: The countless local meetings of the National Negro Conventions . They used the traditional arguments against slavery, protesting it on moral, economic, and political grounds. Their role in the antislavery movement not only aided the abolitionist cause but also was a source of pride to the Black community. In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe published a novel that changed how many would view slavery. Uncle Tom's Cabin tells
13572-413: The deck, the enslaved Africans were cramped and did not have enough space to walk around freely. Enslaved males were generally kept in the ship's hold, where they experienced the worst of crowding. The captives stationed on the floor beneath low-lying bunks could barely move and spent much of the voyage pinned to the floorboards, which could, over time, wear the skin on their elbows down to the bone. Due to
13728-708: The descendants of Africans who were forced into slavery after they were captured during African wars or raids. They were captured and brought to America as part of the Atlantic slave trade . African Americans are descended from various ethnic groups, mostly from ethnic groups that lived in West and Central Africa , including the Sahel . A smaller number of African Americans are descended from ethnic groups that lived in Eastern and Southeastern Africa . The major ethnic groups that
13884-564: The developing Deep South. In addition, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 allowed any Black person to be claimed as a runaway unless a White person testified on their behalf. A number of free Black people, especially indentured children, were kidnapped and sold into slavery with little or no hope of rescue. By 1819 there were exactly 11 free and 11 slave states, which increased sectionalism . Fears of an imbalance in Congress led to
14040-405: The early part of the nadir into question. He had argued that Black people could better themselves by doing hard work and being thrifty. He believed that they had to master basic work before they went on to pursue college careers and professional aspirations. Washington believed that his programs trained Blacks for the lives which they were likely to lead as well as for the jobs which they could get in
14196-538: The enslaved Africans belonged to included the Bakongo , Igbo , Mandinka , Wolof , Akan , Fon , Yoruba , and Makua , among many others. Although these different groups varied in customs, religious theology and language, what they had in common was a way of life which was different from that of the Europeans. Originally, a majority of the people came from these villages and societies, however, once they were sent to
14352-455: The family instability and crime which many sociologists have found in Black communities can be traced, not to slavery, but to the nadir and its aftermath. Foner noted that "none of Reconstruction's black officials created a family political dynasty" and concluded that the nadir "aborted the development of the South's black political leadership." Additional resources African-American history African-American history started with
14508-400: The first twenty-eight races. Through violence and legal restrictions, whites often prevented Blacks from working as common laborers, much less as skilled artisans or in the professions. Under such conditions, even the most ambitious and talented Black person found it extremely difficult to advance. This situation called the views of Booker T. Washington , the most prominent Black leader during
14664-668: The gentlemen, while her mother gave an impassioned speech. She was nineteen years old when the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, which gave women the right to vote. May Belle Mitchell was president of the Atlanta Woman's Suffrage League (1915), co-founder of Georgia's division of the League of Women Voters , chairwoman of press publicity for the Georgia Mothers' Congress and Parent Teacher Association ,
14820-436: The grim and grisly aftermath of war", Cease Firing is a romance novel involving the courtship of a Confederate soldier and a Louisiana plantation belle with Civil War illustrations by N. C. Wyeth . She also read the plays of William Shakespeare , and novels by Charles Dickens and Sir Walter Scott . Mitchell's two favorite children's books were by author Edith Nesbit : Five Children and It (1902) and The Phoenix and
14976-485: The group largely was suppressed by federal efforts under the Enforcement Acts of 1870–1871, but did not disappear, and it had a resurgence in the early 20th century. Despite these failures, Blacks continued to vote and attend school. Literacy soared, and many African Americans were elected to local and statewide offices, with several serving in Congress. Because of the Black community's commitment to education,
15132-399: The group won a few important anti-discrimination lawsuits. African Americans, such as Du Bois and Wells-Barnett, continued the tradition of advocacy, organizing, and journalism which helped spur abolitionism , and also developed new tactics that helped to spur the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The Harlem Renaissance and the popularity of jazz music during the early part of
15288-566: The idea that Black people could ever be capable of governing societies. Notable proponents of this view were referred to as the Dunning School , named after William Archibald Dunning , an influential historian at Columbia University . Another Columbia professor, John Burgess , was notorious for writing that "black skin means membership in a race of men which has never of itself... created any civilization of any kind." The Dunning School's view of Reconstruction held sway for years. It
15444-697: The institution of slavery through the fugitive slave clause and the three-fifths compromise . Additionally, free Black people's rights were also restricted in many places. Most were denied the right to vote and were excluded from public schools. Some Black people sought to fight these contradictions in court. In 1780, Elizabeth Freeman and Quock Walker used language from the new Massachusetts constitution that declared all men were born free and equal in freedom suits to gain release from slavery. A free Black businessman in Boston named Paul Cuffe sought to be excused from paying taxes since he had no voting rights. In
15600-411: The issue of slavery would be decided later. Washington D.C. would abolish the slave trade but not slavery itself. California would be admitted as a free state but the South would receive a new fugitive slave act which required Northerners to return enslaved people who escaped to the North to their owners. The compromise of 1850 would maintain a shaky peace until the election of Lincoln in 1860. In 1851
15756-470: The lack of basic hygiene, malnourishment, and dehydration diseases spread wildly and death was common. The women on the ships often endured rape by the crewmen. Women and children were often kept in rooms set apart from the main hold. This gave crewmen easy access to the women which was often regarded as one of the perks of the trade system. Not only did these rooms give the crewmen easy access to women but it gave enslaved women better access to information on
15912-503: The majority of Blacks were literate by 1900. Continued violence in the South, especially heated around electoral campaigns, sapped Northern intentions. More significantly, after the long years and losses of the Civil War, Northerners had lost heart for the massive commitment of money and arms that would have been required to stifle the white insurgency. The financial panic of 1873 disrupted the economy nationwide, causing more difficulties. The white insurgency took on new life ten years after
16068-484: The most likely candidates to mutiny and only at times they were on deck. While rebellions did not happen often, they were usually unsuccessful. In order for the crew members to keep the enslaved Africans under control and prevent future rebellions, the crews were often twice as large and members would instill fear into the enslaved Africans through brutality and harsh punishments. From the time of being captured in Africa to
16224-548: The nadir, Northern areas struggled with upheaval and hostility. In the Midwest and West, many towns posted "sundown" warnings , threatening to kill African Americans who remained overnight. These "sundown" towns also expelled African Americans who had settled in those towns both before and during Reconstruction. Monuments to Confederate War dead were erected across the nation – as far away as in Montana, for example. Black housing
16380-563: The nation. In addition to the Great Migration and immigration from Europe, African American Army veterans, newly demobilized, sought jobs, and as trained soldiers, were less likely to acquiesce to discrimination. Massacres and attacks on Blacks that developed out of strikes and economic competition occurred in Houston , Philadelphia , and East St. Louis in 1917. In 1919, there were so many violent attacks in several major cities that
16536-790: The new world. From an imagination cultivated in her youth, Margaret Mitchell's defensive weapon would become her writing. Mitchell said she heard Civil War stories from her relatives when she was growing up: On Sunday afternoons when we went calling on the older generation of relatives, those who had been active in the Sixties , I sat on the bony knees of veterans and the fat slippery laps of great aunts and heard them talk. On summer vacations, she visited her maternal great-aunts, Mary Ellen ("Mamie") Fitzgerald and Sarah ("Sis") Fitzgerald, who still lived at her great-grandparents' plantation home in Jonesboro . Mamie had been twenty-one years old and Sis
16692-528: The next day by a terrific explosion in the town. Captain Henry was a graduate of Harvard University. The Bridgeport Telegram , July 4, 1927. Henry repeatedly advanced in front of the platoon he commanded, drawing machine-gun fire so that the German nests could be located and wiped out by his men. Although wounded in the leg in this effort, his death was the result of shrapnel wounds from an air bomb dropped by
16848-400: The north. There they learned that Irish Americans were not treated as equal to other immigrants. Margaret's relationship with her grandmother would become quarrelsome in later years as she entered adulthood. However, for Margaret, her grandmother was a great source of "eye-witness information" about the Civil War and Reconstruction in Atlanta prior to her death in 1934. In an accident that
17004-514: The other African Americans on Nova Scotia left for Sierra Leone in 1792. Peters died soon after they arrived, but the other members of his party lived on in their new home where they formed the Sierra Leone Creole ethnic identity. The colonists eventually won the war and the United States was recognized as a sovereign nation. In the provisional treaty, they demanded the return of property, including enslaved people. Nonetheless,
17160-525: The pain inflicted upon him to uphold his honor and win the girl. The same themes were treated with increasing artistry in Lost Laysen , the novella Mitchell wrote as a teenager in 1916, and, with much greater sophistication, in Mitchell's last known novel, Gone with the Wind , which she began in 1926. In her pre-teens, Mitchell also wrote stories set in foreign locations, such as The Greaser (1913),
17316-528: The period when "the Negro's status in American society" reached its lowest point. He argued for 1901 as its end, suggesting that race relations improved after that year; other historians, such as John Hope Franklin and Henry Arthur Callis , argued for dates as late as 1923. The term continues to be used; most notably, it is used in books by James W. Loewen as recently as 2006, and it is also used in books by other scholars. Loewen chooses later dates, arguing that
17472-739: The plantation land ( forty acres and a mule ) on which they worked, never came to pass. In the South, many former Confederates were stripped of the right to vote, but they resisted Reconstruction with violence and intimidation. James Loewen notes that, between 1865 and 1867, when white Democrats controlled the government, whites murdered an average of one Black person every day in Hinds County, Mississippi . Black schools were especially targeted: School buildings frequently were burned, and teachers were flogged and occasionally murdered. The postwar terrorist group Ku Klux Klan (KKK) acted with significant local support, attacking freedmen and their white allies;
17628-450: The post-Reconstruction era was in fact one of widespread hope for racial equity due to idealistic Northern support for civil rights. In Loewen's view, the true nadir only began when Northern Republicans ceased supporting Southern Blacks' rights around 1890, and it lasted until the United States entered World War II in 1941. This period followed the financial Panic of 1873 and a continuing decline in cotton prices. It overlapped with both
17784-565: The religious and moral implications of slavery, though it remained legal in each of the Thirteen Colonies until the American Revolution. Slavery led to a gradual shift between the American South and North, both before and after independence, as the comparatively more urbanized and industrialized North required fewer slaves than the South. By the 1750s, the native-born enslaved population of African descent outnumbered that of
17940-567: The right of black suffrage, and had fought against disfranchisement laws in Georgia, Louisiana, and other Southern states. This included secretive funding of litigation resulting in Giles v. Harris , 189 U.S. 475 (1903), which lost due to Supreme Court reluctance to interfere with states' rights. Many Blacks left the South in an attempt to find better living and working conditions. In 1879, Logan notes, "some 40,000 Negroes virtually stampeded from Mississippi , Louisiana , Alabama , and Georgia for
18096-461: The rioting continued, rumors ran wild that black people would burn Jackson Hill. At his daughter's suggestion, Eugene Mitchell, who did not own a gun, stood guard with a sword. Though the rumors proved untrue and no attack arrived, Mitchell recalled twenty years later the terror she felt during the riot. Mitchell grew up in a Southern culture where the fear of black-on-white rape incited mob violence, and in this world, white Georgians lived in fear of
18252-500: The scale and rid the United States of slavery. The latter half of the 18th century was a time of significant political upheaval on the North American continent. In the midst of cries for independence from British rule, many pointed out the hypocrisy inherent in colonial slaveholders' demands for freedom. The Declaration of Independence , a document which would become a manifesto for human rights and personal freedom around
18408-401: The scientific community such as Franz Boas , eugenics and scientific racism were promoted in academia by many scientists, like Lothrop Stoddard and Madison Grant , who argued "scientific evidence" for the racial superiority of whites and thereby worked to justify racial segregation and second-class citizenship for Blacks. Numerous Black people had voted for Democrat Woodrow Wilson in
18564-439: The ship's crew, fortifications, and daily routine, but little opportunity to communicate this to the men confined in the ship's hold. As an example, women instigated a 1797 insurrection aboard the slave ship Thomas by stealing weapons and passing them to the men below as well as engaging in hand-to-hand combat with the ship's crew. In the midst of these terrible conditions, enslaved Africans plotted mutiny. Enslaved males were
18720-520: The size of their population in any state. For several years after the Civil War , the federal government, pushed by Northern opinion, showed that it was willing to intervene to protect the rights of Black Americans . There were limits, however, to Republican efforts on behalf of Blacks: In Washington, a proposal of land reform made by the Freedmen's Bureau , which would have granted Blacks plots on
18876-424: The slaves involved in the uprising. At this time , slavery existed in all American colonies. In the North, 2% of people owned enslaved people, most of whom were personal servants. In the south, 25% of the population relied on the labour of enslaved people. Southern slavery usually took the form of field hands who lived and worked on plantations. These statistics show the early imbalance that would eventually tip
19032-495: The small plots of lands they were granted. They also did not receive the same privileges and opportunities as the white Loyalists had. Peters sailed to London in order to complain to the government. "He arrived at a momentous time when English abolitionists were pushing a bill through Parliament to charter the Sierra Leone Company and to grant it trading and settlement rights on the West African coast." Peters and
19188-488: The story of the life of an enslaved person and the brutality that is faced by that life day after day. It would sell over 100,000 copies in its first year. The popularity of Uncle Tom's Cabin would solidify the North in its opposition to slavery, and press forward the abolitionist movement. President Lincoln would later invite Stowe to the White House in honor of this book that changed America. In 1856 Charles Sumner ,
19344-406: The streets, pulling black people from street cars, beating, killing dozens over the next three days. Eugene Mitchell went to bed early the night the rioting began, but was awakened by the sounds of gunshots. The following morning, as he later wrote, to his wife, he learned "16 negroes had been killed and a multitude had been injured" and that rioters "killed or tried to kill every Negro they saw". As
19500-477: The successful free men was Benjamin Banneker , a Maryland astronomer, mathematician, almanac author, surveyor, and farmer, who in 1791 assisted in the initial survey of the boundaries of the future District of Columbia . Despite the challenges of living in the new country, most free Black people fared far better than the nearly 800,000 enslaved Blacks. Even so, many considered emigrating to Africa. By 1800,
19656-526: The summer of that year became known as Red Summer . The Chicago race riot of 1919 erupted into mob violence for several days. It left 15 whites and 23 Blacks dead, over 500 injured and more than 1,000 homeless. An investigation found that ethnic Irish, who had established their own power base earlier on the South Side , were heavily implicated in the riots. The 1921 Tulsa race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma ,
19812-565: The system. Between 1889 and 1922, as political disenfranchisement and segregation were being established, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) calculates lynchings reached their worst level in history. Almost 3,500 people fell victim to lynching, almost all of them Black men. Historian James Loewen notes that lynching emphasized the powerlessness of Blacks: "the defining characteristic of
19968-464: The tablet paper pages together and added her own artwork. At age eleven she gave a name to her publishing enterprise: "Urchin Publishing Co." Later her stories were written in notebooks. May Belle Mitchell kept her daughter's stories in white enamel bread boxes and several boxes of her stories were stored in the house by the time Margaret went off to college. "Margaret" is a character riding
20124-611: The thrashing lasted far longer than the physical marks. Jackson Hill was an old, affluent part of the city. At the bottom of Jackson Hill was an area of African-American homes and businesses called " Darktown ". The mayhem of the Atlanta Race Riot occurred over four days in September 1906 when Mitchell was five years old. Local white newspapers printed unfounded rumors that several white women had been assaulted by black men, prompting an angry mob of 10,000 to assemble in
20280-490: The undersigned citizens of the city of Wilmington and county of New Hanover, do hereby declare that we will no longer be ruled, and will never again be ruled, by men of African origin. . . . " The Wilmington Weekly Star (North Carolina) November 11, 1898 As noted above, white paramilitary forces contributed to whites' taking over power in the late 1870s. A brief coalition of populists took over in some states, but Democrats had returned to power after
20436-459: The urging of President Thomas Jefferson , Congress abolished the importation of enslaved workers. While American Black people celebrated this as a victory in the fight against slavery, the ban increased the internal trade in enslaved people. Changing agricultural practices in the Upper South from tobacco to mixed farming decreased labor requirements, and enslaved people were sold to traders for
20592-737: The war. Conservative white Democrats waged an increasingly violent campaign, with the Colfax and Coushatta massacres in Louisiana in 1873 as signs. The next year saw the formation of paramilitary groups, such as the White League in Louisiana (1874) and Red Shirts in Mississippi and the Carolinas, that worked openly to turn Republicans out of office, disrupt Black organizing, and intimidate and suppress Black voting. They invited press coverage. One historian described them as "the military arm of
20748-706: The world, was written by Thomas Jefferson , a man who owned over 200 enslaved people. Other Southern statesmen were also major slaveholders. The Second Continental Congress considered freeing enslaved people to assist with the war effort, but they also removed language from the Declaration of Independence that included the promotion of slavery amongst the offenses of King George III . A number of free Black people, most notably Prince Hall —founder of Prince Hall Freemasonry —submitted petitions which called for abolition, but these were largely ignored. This did not deter Black people, free and enslaved, from participating in
20904-706: The yearbook: Little Sister and Sergeant Terry . Ten-year-old "Peggy" is the heroine in Little Sister . She hears her older sister being raped and shoots the rapist: Coldly, dispassionately she viewed him, the chill steel of the gun giving her confidence. She must not miss now—she would not miss—and she did not. Mitchell received encouragement from her English teacher, Mrs. Paisley, who recognized her writing talent. A demanding teacher, Paisley told her she had ability if she worked hard and would not be careless in constructing sentences. A sentence, she said, must be "complete, concise and coherent". Mitchell read
21060-530: The years to come, the institution of slavery would be so heavily involved in the South's economy that it would divide America. The most serious slave rebellion was the 1739 Stono Uprising in South Carolina. The colony had about 56,000 enslaved Blacks, outnumbering whites two-to-one. About 150 enslaved people rose up, seizing guns, ammunition, and killing twenty whites before fleeing to Spanish Florida . The local militia soon intercepted and killed most of
21216-483: Was a boy named Jimmy until she was fourteen. Stephens Mitchell said his sister was a tomboy who would happily play with dolls occasionally, and she liked to ride her Texas plains pony. As a little girl, Mitchell went riding every afternoon with a Confederate veteran and a young lady of "beau-age". She was raised in an era when children were "seen and not heard" and was not allowed to express her personality by running and screaming on Sunday afternoons while her family
21372-545: Was a crime to kill an enslaved person, for example, and several whites were hanged for it. Generally, enslaved Africans developed their own family system, religion, and customs in the slave quarters with little interference from owners, who were only interested in work outputs. Before the 1660s, the North American mainland colonies were still fairly small in size and did not have a great demand for labour, so colonists did not import large numbers of enslaved Africans at this point. By 1700, there were 25,000 enslaved Black people in
21528-649: Was a fair vision of youthful loveliness in her robe of exquisite ivory white and satin ...her slippers were white satin wrought with pearls ...an elegant supper was served. The dining room was decked in white and green, illuminated with numberless candles in silver candlelabras...The bride's gift from her father was an elegant house and lot...At 11 o'clock Mrs. Mitchell donned a pretty going-away gown of green English cloth with its jaunty velvet hat to match and bid goodbye to her friends. Mitchell spent her early childhood on Jackson Hill, east of downtown Atlanta . Her family lived near her maternal grandmother, Annie Stephens, in
21684-638: Was a prize for guessing the greatest number of identities under the masks, and another for the guest who best concealed his or her identity. The pretty young hostess was a demure Martha Washington in flowered crepe gown over a pink silk petticoat and her powdered hair was worn high. Mrs. Mitchell wore a ruby velvet gown. The Constitution , Atlanta, November 21, 1914. While the Great War carried on in Europe (1914–1918), Margaret Mitchell attended Atlanta's Washington Seminary (now The Westminster Schools ),
21840-604: Was an American novelist and journalist. Mitchell wrote only one novel that was published during her lifetime, the American Civil War -era novel Gone with the Wind , for which she won the National Book Award for Fiction for Most Distinguished Novel of 1936 and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937. Long after her death, a collection of Mitchell's girlhood writings and a novella she wrote as
21996-526: Was chief bayonet instructor at Camp Gordon from May 10 until the time he set sail for France on July 17. Henry was "slightly effeminate", "ineffectual", and "rather effete-looking" with "homosexual tendencies", according to biographer Anne Edwards . Before departing for France, he gave Mitchell an engagement ring. On September 14, while she was enrolled at Smith College, Henry was mortally wounded in action in France and died on October 17. As Henry waited in
22152-479: Was even more deadly; white mobs invaded and burned the Greenwood district of Tulsa; 1,256 homes were destroyed and 39 people (26 Black, 13 white) were confirmed killed, although recent investigations suggest that the number of Black deaths could be considerably higher. Black literacy levels, which rose during Reconstruction, continued to increase through this period. The NAACP was established in 1909, and by 1920
22308-435: Was indignant. I still find it hard to believe, so strong are childhood impressions." Her mother would swat her with a hairbrush or a slipper as a form of discipline. May Belle Mitchell was "hissing blood-curdling threats" to her daughter to make her behave the evening she took her to a women's suffrage rally led by Carrie Chapman Catt . Her daughter sat on a platform wearing a Votes-for-Women banner, blowing kisses to
22464-412: Was known as the " Battle of Liberty Place ". Northerners waffled and finally capitulated to the South, giving up on being able to control election violence. Abolitionist leaders like Horace Greeley began to ally themselves with Democrats in attacking Reconstruction governments. By 1875, there was a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. President Ulysses S. Grant , who as a general had led
22620-484: Was of a Protestant background, while her mother was a devout Catholic; Mitchell was raised in a Catholic household. As a young woman, she spent time visiting the Sisters of Mercy convent affiliated with St. Joseph's Infirmary in downtown Atlanta. Her religious upbringing influenced her decision to make the O'Hara family in her novel Catholics in a Protestant-majority state. One of Mitchell's mother's cousins entered
22776-718: Was often segregated in the North. There was competition for jobs and housing as Blacks entered cities which were also the destination of millions of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe. As more Blacks moved north, they encountered racism where they had to battle over territory, often against Irish American communities, including in support of local political power bases. In some regions, Blacks could not serve on juries. Blackface shows, in which whites dressed as Blacks portrayed African Americans as ignorant clowns, were popular in North and South. The Supreme Court reflected conservative tendencies and did not overrule Southern constitutional changes resulting in disfranchisement. In 1896,
22932-535: Was one that was on par with men's colleges, and this type of education was available only at northern schools. Her mother chose Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts for Margaret because she considered it to be the best women's college in the United States. Upon graduating from Washington Seminary in June 1918, Mitchell fell in love with a Harvard graduate, a young army lieutenant, Clifford West Henry, who
23088-766: Was presented the Distinguished Service medal from the War department today in honor of her son, Captain Clifford W. Henry for bravery under fire during the World war. The medal, recommended by General Pershing, was presented by Major General Edwards. Captain Henry, who during the war was a lieutenant with Co.F, 102nd infantry, captured the town of Vignuelles, nine kilometers inside the Hindenburg line on September 13, 1918. Lieutenant Henry and 50 of his men were killed
23244-563: Was renamed George Wilkes.) During her years at Washington Seminary , Mitchell's brother, Stephens, was away studying at Harvard College (1915–1917), and he left in May 1917 to enlist in the army, about a month after the U.S. declared war on Germany. He set sail for France in April 1918, participated in engagements in the Lagny and Marbache sectors, then returned to Georgia in October as a training instructor. While Margaret and her mother were in New York in September 1918 preparing for Margaret to attend college, Stephens wired his father that he
23400-413: Was represented in D. W. Griffith 's popular movie The Birth of a Nation (1915) and to some extent, it was also represented in Margaret Mitchell 's novel Gone with the Wind (1934). More recent historians of the period have rejected many of the Dunning School's conclusions, and in their place, they offer a different assessment. Today's consensus regards Reconstruction as a time of idealism and hope,
23556-427: Was safe after his ship had been torpedoed en route to New York from France. Stephens Mitchell thought college was the "ruination of girls". However, May Belle Mitchell placed a high value on education for women and she wanted her daughter's future accomplishments to come from using her mind. She saw education as Margaret's weapon and "the key to survival". The classical college education she desired for her daughter
23712-474: Was the first colony to legalize slavery in 1641. Other colonies followed suit by passing laws that made slave status heritable and non-Christian imported servants slaves for life. At first, Africans in the South were outnumbered by white indentured servants who came voluntarily from Europe. They avoided the plantations. With the vast amount of arable land and a shortage of laborers, plantation owners turned to African slavery. The enslaved had some legal rights—it
23868-434: Was the only slave revolt that led to an independent country. Many slave owners fled to the United States with tales of horror and massacre that alarmed Southern whites. The invention of the cotton gin in the 1790s allowed the cultivation of short staple cotton, which could be grown in much of the Deep South, where warm weather and proper soil conditions prevailed. The industrial revolution in Europe and New England generated
24024-405: Was thirteen when the Civil War began. An avid reader, young Margaret read "boys' stories" by G.A. Henty , the Tom Swift series, and the Rover Boys series by Edward Stratemeyer . Her mother read Mary Johnston 's novels to her before she could read. They both wept reading Johnston's The Long Roll (1911) and Cease Firing (1912). Between the "scream of shells, the mighty onrush of charges,
24180-434: Was traumatic for her mother although she was unharmed, when Mitchell was about three years old, her dress caught fire on an iron grate. Fearing it would happen again, her mother began dressing her in boys' pants, and she was nicknamed "Jimmy", the name of a character in the comic strip Little Jimmy . Her brother insisted she would have to be a boy named Jimmy to play with him. Having no sisters to play with, Mitchell said she
24336-445: Was visiting relatives. Mitchell learned the gritty details of specific battles from these visits with aging Confederate soldiers. But she didn't learn that the South had actually lost the war until she was 10 years of age: "I heard everything in the world except that the Confederates lost the war. When I was ten years old, it was a violent shock to learn that General Lee had been defeated. I didn't believe it when I first heard it and I
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