The Problem of the Color Line: Atlanta Landmarks and Civil Rights History

FAIN: BH-261604-18

Georgia State University Research Foundation, Inc. (Atlanta, GA 30302-3999)
Timothy J. Crimmins (Project Director: February 2018 to October 2022)

Two one-week workshops for 72 school teachers on southern segregation and the civil rights movement in Atlanta.

Atlanta is a fitting locale to consider the weighty issues of race reform in American history. Politicians and businessmen supported by the majority white population erected the color line in cities, while African Americans resisted the imposition of Jim Crow laws and practices. Within this national context, our workshop will use historic landmarks to focus on the creation and maintenance of a color line in Atlanta in the decades after emancipation as well as the resistance by African Americans that led to the dismantling of Jim Crow laws in the aftermath of the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Atlanta’s National Historic Landmarks are perfect teaching tools for interpreting the history of race in America using public spaces.