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

FAIN: BH-293700-23

Georgia State University Research Foundation, Inc. (Atlanta, GA 30302-3999)
Timothy J. Crimmins (Project Director: February 2023 to present)
Glenn T. Eskew (Co Project Director: October 2023 to present)

Two one-week residential programs for 72 K-12 educators on the civil rights movement and desegregation in Atlanta.

At the core of the workshop is the weighty issue of race reform in a contested southern past. Atlanta, destroyed in the Civil War, was rebuilt as a “New South” city where memorials to the Old South became symbols of white supremacy that relegated African Americans to legal and economic second-class status. The struggle of resistance begins with Atlanta University and continues to W. E. B. Du Bois to Martin Luther King. Atlanta has an ideal nexus of historic sites where teachers can explore these struggles, from the legacy of slavery, the promise of emancipation, the betrayal of Reconstruction, the terror of redemption and race riot, the erection of the color line and resistance to segregation, the civil rights movement, legal desegregation, and integration to a multicultural and pluralistic society. Teachers from middle and high school can bring home lessons for many subjects for their students, colleagues, and districts.