COMMUNITY BUILDING IN ATLANTA: THE PITTSBURGH / RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITY, 1883-1930 A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF ATLANTA UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS BY RAYMOND F. GORDON DEPARTMENT OF AFRO-AMERICAN STUDIES ATLANTA, GEORGIA AUGUST 1977 T - A-2. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES iii LIST OF MAPS iv INTRODUCTION 1 Chapter I. GENERAL BACKGROUND—ATLANTA1S GROWTH DURING THE POST-RECONSTRUCTION ERA 2 II. THE PITTSBURGH RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITY: THE FORMATION OF A BLACK COMMUNITY, 1883-1930 10 III. THE INTERNAL DYNAMICS OF THE PITTSBURGH RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITY 23 CONCLUSION 37 BIBLIOGRAPHY 40 i i LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Pittsburgh Residential Community Population, 1883-1930 . 13 2. Pittsburgh Residential Community Migrant Popula¬ tion, 1900-1910 17 3. Pittsburgh Residential Community Occupational Structure, 1910 18 4. Pittsburgh Residential Community Occupational Structure, 1920 19 5. Pittsburgh Residential Community Occupational Structure, 1930 19 6. Pittsburgh Residential Community Black Property Owners 22 iii LIST OF MAPS Map Page 1. Atlanta's Black Communities 8 2. Residences Occupied by Blacks and Whites in the Pittsburgh Residential Community, 1890 14 3. Residences Occupied by Blacks and Whites in the Pittsburgh Residential Community, 1900 15 4. Residences Occupied by Blacks and Whites in the Pittsburgh Residential Community, 1910 16 5. Black Residential Areas, 1890 25 6. Black Residential Areas, 1920 26 7. The Pittsburgh Residential Community 30 INTRODUCTION The economic progress of Blacks in Atlanta's earliest periods of growth and development was the result of a vigorous drive on the part of leading black and white citizens to bring about a better working relation¬ ship between these two groups. Thus, the roots and foundation of the com¬ paratively high living standards for Blacks in Atlanta can be traced back to communities like Pittsburgh. However, on the whole, Blacks were burden¬ ed with social, political, religious, and economic restrictions and con¬ finements that may easily have destroyed the spirit and the initiative of a more vulnerable and less potent people. The purposes of this research are several. First, it will reveal the ethnic patterns of the community. Second, it will indicate where people worked, which reveals much about the lines of movement within the community and the socio-economic character of the neighborhood. Third, it should serve to determine patterns in land values and development: who bought the property, why, and what was built on it. Fourth, it will identify the important institutions in the area which is a part of the developmental history of the community. Fifth, it may serve as the founda¬ tion for a more intensive research project that would provide a complete study of the developmental history of black communities in Atlanta. 1 CHAPTER I GENERAL BACKGROUND—ATLANTA'S GROWTH DURING THE POST-RECONSTRUCTION ERA The South after 1877 differed from the South of the 1867-1877 era. The intensified drive on the part of Southern whites to bring about com¬ plete redemption of Southern institutions, while preoccupied with a grow¬ ing industrialization, was very much the same atmosphere that had pre¬ vailed since its defeat in 1865• The critical factor in the success of this redemption was not so much the attitude of the so-called "New South" but what can be more accurately termed the new national attitude. The series of national events that had so much influence on national politics, the economy, and the social order, made possible the overthrow of "Radi¬ cal Reconstruction." The virtual abandonment of Southern Negroes by both parties is revealed in their 1880 platforms. The Republican Party as¬ serted: The dangers of a "Solid South" can only be averted by a faithful performance of every promise which the nation has made to the citizens. A nation cannot with safety relegate this duty to the States. The "Solid South" must be divided by the peaceful agencies of the ballot, and all honest opinions must there find free expression. To this end the honest voter must be protected against terrorism, violence or fraud.1 The section (i.e., North) that had expressed deep feelings about slavery ^Rayford W. Logan, The Betrayal of the Negro: From Rutherford B. Hayes to Woodrow Wi1 son (London: Collier-Macmillan Ltd., 1970), p. 48. 2 3 and degradation and had gone to war to preserve the Union had itself been transformed. It was an industrial colossus with new values, new leader¬ ship, and new aspirations. It did not want to be involved in anything 2 that would distract or disturb its phenomenal growth and expansion. In the unhealthy climate of national indecision, indifference, and "let the South solve its own problems," the South, in 1880, plunged forward with the unsettled question of the Negro. The topic of this chapter is the industrialization and growth of Atlanta during the Post-Reconstruction Era. The discussion in the chapter will center around the railroad industry and its impact on Atlanta's de¬ velopment, the attitude of the South toward the Negro question, and the challenges that Afro-Americans were confronted with during this crucial period. ; The South manifested overt racism, and the city of Atlanta was no exception to the rule. Blacks in the South became the victims of politi¬ cal disfranchisement, educational discrimination, Jim Crow laws, lynch- 3 ings, the convict lease system, and numerous other atrocities. Because of discriminations and preconceived notions whites held concerning them, politically Blacks had little power and their civil rights were almost totally disregarded. By 1880 there was more industry in the South than there had been before. This fact was not so much a measure of progress as it was an 2 John Hope Franklin, Reconstruction: After the Civil War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), pp. 226-227. 3 Clarence A. Bacote, "Negro Proscriptions, Protest and Proposed Solutions in Georgia 1880-1908," Journal of Negro History 25 (November 1959): 471. 4 indication of past Southern industrial backwardness. Southern states increased railroad mileage between 1870—1880; by 1880 iron furnaces were being fired in several Southern states. Thus, during the antebellum period the South was preoccupied with the extension of a railroad system between the West and the South. The business community and politicians of Georgia recognized the strategic location of the railroad terminus and therefore the potential of its becoming a commercial center. As James M. Russell describes it: The demand for railroads in the South grew out of two trans¬ portation requirements which were common to all the cotton belt states: 1) A means of importing the cheap food stuffs of the West (principally wheat, corn, whiskey, bacon, lard, and butter). 2) A means of transporting the cotton farmed in the interior to markets.5 Establishing Atlanta as a commercial center of the South was not an easy task. The post-war railroad construction boom resulted in highly competitive activities among the cities and towns of the South which was not to Atlanta's advantage. Some of the obstacles that impeded the growth of Atlanta railroads were pooling, high local freight tariffs on cotton, coal and other goods, and discrimination on through freight. In an effort to eliminate the problems created by competition, the mercantile communities placed their hopes on regulatory agencies, pools, trade agree¬ ments, and consolidation of lines.^ In 1856 the Southern Railway Associa¬ tion in several meetings held in Atlanta attempted to eliminate freight 4 Stanley P. Hirshson, Farewell to the Bloody Shirts: Northern Republicans and the Southern Negro 1877-1893 (Bloomington: Indiana Uni¬ versity Press, 1962), pp. 129-130* "’James M. Russell, "Atlanta, Gate City of the South, 1847-1885" (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1971), p* 12. 6Ibid., p. 237. 5 discrimination against the town. Although the organization received some reductions, Atlanta continued to pay more for classes of freight per 100 lbs. than, for example, Nashville. It was not until 1875 when the South¬ ern Railway and Steamship Association was organized that railroad coopera¬ tion in the South was achieved. Some twenty-one railroad companies and six steamship lines agreed to confer authority to set freight tariffs upon a rate committee of the association.7 More progress was made in the railroad industry when two railroad companies arrived in Atlanta. The East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia came in 1882, and the Georgia Pacific arrived in 1883• The former gave Atlanta competitive routes to Chattanooga and Macon while the latter provided a through line to Birmingham with its rapidly developing coal and steel industry. Both lines merged with the Southern Railway Company in 1894.8 Thus, railroad development became a distinguishing characteristic of local progress. Economically, Atlanta became a rail center of the South. Furthermore, for many years railroad companies like Southern Railway be¬ came one of Atlanta's most valued corporate citizens, not only in the performance of an essential transportation service, but also as taxpayer and employer. The black labor force in Atlanta between 1880 and 1900 was not exempted from the abuses and denials created by Jim Crowism. The follow¬ ing statement by Herman D. Bloch is an appropriate description of the 7Ibid., p. 215. Q Franklin M. Garrett, Yesterday's Atlanta (Miami: E. A. Seemann Publishing, Inc., 1974), p. 42. 6 black labor situation in Atlanta, as well as other cities, during the turn of the century: In part low occupational status stems from thwarting the Negro's possible acquisition of requisite skills to compete for skilled jobs. Even if the Negro does acquire the requisite skill, usual¬ ly, he finds his economic mobility blocked from either no craft union admission and no job placement.9 Though the acquisition of a trade by Blacks was a legacy of slavery, an increase of white artisans in Atlanta made it difficult for some black Atlantans to learn a trade by 1900.