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

FAIN: BH-281173-21

Georgia State University Research Foundation, Inc. (Atlanta, GA 30302-3999)
Timothy J. Crimmins (Project Director: March 2021 to present)

Two one-week workshops for 72 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 on the ashes of slavery 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 follows from 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 tragedy of war and defeat, 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, desegregation, integration and resegregation, to a multicultural and pluralistic society. Participants will see how race relations figured into the landscape as Americans who once venerated the civil war dead now memorialize civil rights martyrs.

Associated Products

Color Line Google Classroom (Web Resource)
Title: Color Line Google Classroom
Author: NEH workshop participants
Author: Timothy Crimmins
Abstract: This site contains the readings, field guides, and primary sources that were added in advance of the workshops and the lesson plans that the teacher work groups prepared during their sessions..
Year: 2022
Primary URL: https://classroom.google.com/u/0/w/NDc2ODYxNDg0Mzky/t/all
Primary URL Description: This URL connects to the video of the session with Lynn Cothren and Beverly Guy Sheftall that details the work of Coretta Scott King for LGBTQ people.
Secondary URL: https://vimeo.com/730144779/cb649e1ea3

Charles Black and the Student Movement to End Segregation in Atlanta (Web Resource)
Title: Charles Black and the Student Movement to End Segregation in Atlanta
Author: Timothy J. Crimmins and Hal Jacobs
Abstract: This is a video about the Atlanta Student Movement, a four-year protest effort by Atlanta University Students to end segregation in Atlanta. It relies on an interview with Charles Black who participated in the initial March 1960 sit-in and became the chair of the Committee for the Appeal for human Rights in 1961-2. We have added detail about desegregation efforts before the student movement and about its continuation through the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://vimeo.com/916421580/8a79b8f974?share=copy

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