The Ambiguity of Freedom: Reconstruction, Redemption, Populism, and Disfranchisement in a Progressive Era

Thematic Question: What institutions did African Americans create to sustain their community after emancipation? 

Main Landmark: Thomasville History Center

Readings:     

• E. K. Love, Emancipation Oration! (1891).
• David Kyvig, Myron A. Marty, and Larry Cebula, Nearby History: Exploring the Past Around You, 4th edition.  (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2019), Chapters 6 & 7. 
• Gregory Mixon, Show Thyself a Man: Georgia State Troops, Colored, 1865-1905 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2016).
• Documentary Reader 1:  Politics

Tenant Farming, Sharecropping, and Hunting Plantations

Thematic Question: How did most African Americans make a living in the aftermath of the Civil War? 

Main Landmark: Tall Timbers Research Station (Jones Family Tenant Farm), Leon County, Florida and Jack Hadley Black History Museum

Readings: 

• Julia Brock, “A ‘Sporting Fraternity’: Northern Hunters and the Transformation of Southern Game Laws in the Red Hill Regions, 1880-1920,” and Robin Bauer Kilgo, “Life and Labor on the Southern Sporting Plantation: African American Tenants at Tall Timbers Plantations, 1920-1944” in Julia Brock and Daniel Vivian, editors, Leisure, Plantations, and the Making of a New South: The Sporting Plantations in the South Carolina Lowcountry and Red Hills Region, 1900-1940 (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015)Le’Trice Donaldson, Duty Beyond the Battlefield: African American Soldiers Fight for Racial Uplift, Citizenship, and Manhood, 1870-1920 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Press, 2020).
• Kyvig, Nearby History, Chapter 9
• Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point (1878).
• Documentary Reader 2: Sharecropping, Farming, and Making a Living

Northern Tourism and Race Relations

Thematic Question(s): How did the influx of Northern tourists change the dynamics of race relations in Thomasville? Did it afford greater opportunities for African Americans?

Main Landmark: Pebble Hill Plantation

Readings: 

• Titus Brown and Jack Hadley, African-American Life on the Southern Hunting Plantation. (Arcadia, 2000), chapter 2 & 3
• Kyvig, Nearby History, Chapter 10
• Nina Silber, The Romance of Reunion: Northerners and the South, 1865-1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), Chapter 3, “Sick Yankees in Paradise: Tourism in the Reconstructed South.” 
• Documentary Reader 3: Tourism and Hunting Plantations
• Documentary Reader 4: Commemorating

The Geography of Segregation 

Thematic Question(s): How did the Georgia legislature’s enactment of rigid segregation laws cause widespread disenfranchisement of Black male voters over time and how did this impact the African American community?  Why did Thomasville manage to develop such a vibrant Black middle class in the first half of the Twentieth century?

Main Landmark(s): Walking Tour of Downtown that includes both the traditional Black and White business districts. Part of the tour will include the Courthouse and nearby Confederate Memorial. 

Readings:

• W. E. B. Dubois, The Negro Church, chapter: A black belt county, Georgia by Rev. W. H. Holloay (1903) 
• Kyvig, Nearby History, Chapters 3-6.
• Gregory Mixon, The Atlanta Riot: Race, Class, and Violence in a New South City (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005), Chapter 4 “’Sowing Dragon’s Teeth: Watson and Hardwick, and Progressive Reform, 1904-1906,” pp. 53-63; and Chapter 5 “The Seeds of Incendiarism” The Gubernatorial Campaign of 1905-1906,” pp. 64-72 (Chapter 4 is on Thomasville native sons: Thomas W. Hardwick and Thomas E. Watson. Chapter 5 covers Hardwick’s role and Watson’s role)
• Scott McAleer, “Great Indignation: A Study of Racial Violence in Thomas County, Georgia, 1930,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 87: 1 (Spring 2003): 48-8.
• Arthur Roper, The Tragedy of Lynching (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1933), chapter 11, “The Sheriff Keeps Faith with the Mob.”
• Michael Ayers Trotti, “What Counts: Trends in Racial Violence in the Postbellum South,” Journal of American History 100:2 (September 2013): 375-400
• Documentary Reader 5: Crime, Violence, and Lynching
• Documentary Reader 6: Religion, Education, and Culture

The Legacy of the world wars in the African American Community

Thematic Question(s): How did World War I and World War II impact the African American community in Thomasville and nationally?

Main Landmark(s): Regional Airport, site of former Finney Army General Hospital, Jack Hadley Black History Museum

Readings:

• Jennifer E. Brooks, Defining the Peace: World War II Veterans, Race, and the Remaking of Southern Political Tradition (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004).

• Irwin MacIntyre, Colored Soldiers (Macon, GA: J. W. Burke, 1923), excerpts 

• Chad L. Williams, Torchbearers of Democracy: African American Soldiers in the World War I Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2010), chapters 7

• Documentary Reader Seven: War and Society

• The American Soldier Project Website: www.americansoldierww2.org