Savannah in the New South

The Estate of Walter J. Fraser

Description

An examination of the Georgian city's complicated and sometimes turbulent development

Savannah in the New South: From the Civil War to the Twenty-First Century, by Walter J. Fraser, Jr., traces the city's evolution from the pivotal period immediately after the Civil War to the present. When the war ended, Savannah was nearly bankrupt; today it is a thriving port city and tourist center. This work continues the tale of Savannah that Fraser began in his previous book, Savannah in the Old South, by examining the city's complicated, sometimes turbulent development.

The chronology begins by describing the racial and economic tensions the city experienced following the Civil War. A pattern of oppression of freed people by Savannah's white civic-commercial elite was soon established. However, as the book demonstrates, slavery and discrimination, harassment, intimidation, and voter suppression galvanized the African American community, which in turn used protests, boycotts, demonstrations, the ballot box, the pulpit—and sometimes violence—to gain rights long denied.

As this fresh, detailed history of Savannah shows, economic instability, political discord, racial tension, weather events, wealth disparity, gang violence, and a reluctance to help the police continue to challenge and shape the city. Nonetheless Savannah appears to be on course for a period of prosperity, bolstered by a thriving port, a strong, growing African American community, robust tourism, and the economic and historical contributions of the Savannah College of Art and Design. Fraser's Savannah in the New South presents a sophisticated consideration of an important, vibrant southern metropolis.

Sujets

• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Savannah Bank
• Black school
• Savannah metropolitan area
• Savannah Music Festival
• Southern Living
• Port of Savannah
• Savannah Country Day School
• Plantation era
• Siege of Savannah
• New South
• University of South Carolina
• Georgia Southern University
• Clark Atlanta University
• State
• Savannah River
• Confederate Memorial Day
• Black rage (law)
• South
• History of the Americas
• Black Death
• 21st Century
• American Liberty League
• Savannah State University
• United States
• Université de Caroline du Sud
• FL
• Local
• KY
• LA
• TN
• MS
• SC
• NC
• AR
• VA
• GA

Informations

• Publié par: University of South Carolina Press
• Date de parution: 08 mars 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781611178371
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Savannah in the New South
Savannah
in the
New South

From the Civil War to the Twenty-First Century

Walter J. Fraser Jr.

The University of South Carolina Press
2018 University of South Carolina
Published by the University of South Carolina Press Columbia, South Carolina 29208
www.sc.edu/uscpress
27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data can be found at http://catalog.loc.gov/
ISBN 978-1-61117-836-4 (cloth)
ISBN 978-1-61117-837-1 (ebook)
Front cover illustration: Detroit Photographic Co. s Oglethorpe Avenue, Savannah Ga . (ca 1900), courtesy of Library of Congress
For Lynn
This book is dedicated to Lynn Wolfe, my beloved wife, who has read, reread and offered welcomed advice on this manuscript and others over the past thirty-five years, in days both sunny and sometimes rainy.
Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction
CHAPTER ONE
Reconstruction, Ruins, and Revival: 1864-1872 8
CHAPTER TWO
Depression, Neo-Confederates, Fevers, Society, and Labor: 1873-1891
CHAPTER THREE
Murder, a Strike, a Swindle, and a Boycott: 1892-1915
CHAPTER FOUR
World War I, Boom, Bust, and a New Deal: 1916-1941
CHAPTER FIVE
From World War II to Rousakis s Last Term: 1942-1991
CHAPTER SIX
From Susan Weiner to Edna Jackson: 1992-2015 268
Conclusion

Notes
Bibliography
Index
Preface

M onuments in cities reveal much about the people and their country s past-Trafalgar Square in London; the larger-than-life statues that honor the Russians who died in defense of Stalingrad; the Lincoln memorial in Washington, D.C. And so it is with Savannah.
A bronze statue of General James Edward Oglethorpe in the uniform of an eighteenth-century British Army officer crafted by the renowned sculptor Daniel Chester French stands in Chippewa Square. He faces south in the direction of his enemies, ready to defend the city against attack by the Spaniards in Florida and their Native American allies. Atop a tall monument in Madison Square, Sergeant William Jasper rushes forward heroically. He holds aloft a flag he carried during the American assault against the British at the Spring Hill Redoubt in 1779 until a rain of bullets cut him down. During the same assault, a bullet severed the femoral artery of Count Casmir Pulaski, who fell from his horse and died for lack of a tourniquet; a statue in Monterey Square honors his heroism. In Johnson Square stands a monument to General Nathaniel Greene, whose forces swept the British from Georgia and oversaw their evacuation from Savannah. In Wright Square a cenotaph rises in honor of William Washington Gordon, Georgia s first graduate of West Point, who founded the Central of Georgia Railway, which revived Savannah s moribund economy in the 1840s. The city s tallest monument stands in Forsyth Park, where a Confederate soldier in battle dress faces north, symbolically defending the city from invasion by another Union Army.
Each monument is that of a white, trained military man who represents order, duty, and preservation of the city; together they give the city a somewhat martial atmosphere. White men like them, a civic-commercial elite, for over 250 years controlled Savannah s government, economy, politics, urban development, and its predominant culture even though the city s population was sometimes nearly evenly divided between black and white.
Dramatic change in the city s political leadership came only in the mid-1990s when the African American population had grown to 57 percent. Savannah elected two black men as mayor, Floyd Adams and then Dr. Otis Johnson. Each served two four-year terms, the maximum allowed. They were followed by Edna Jackson, the first African American female to serve as mayor; she took office in 2012. The City Council members elected with them were about evenly balanced between black and white.

Monuments to these men, like those who came after them, represent a white, civic-commercial elite who dominated Savannah s politics, culture, and economy for 250 years. Center, Confederate War Memorial. Top left, monument to Count Casimir Pulaski, killed in the Siege of Savannah in the Revolutionary War. Top right, monument to General James Oglethorpe, founder of Savannah and Georgia, 1733. Bottom left, monument to Georgia Revolutionary War hero Sergeant William Jasper, killed in the Siege of Savannah. Bottom right, cenotaph in honor of W. W. Gordon, founder of the Central of Georgia Railroad. Photographs courtesy of Bob Paddison.

The African American Family Monument, located on the John P. Rousakis Riverfront Plaza. The last line of the inscribed tribute, written by poet Maya Angelou, reads, Today, we are standing up together with faith and even some joy. Photograph courtesy of Bob Paddison.
With such profound change in the city s governmental leadership came new and very different monuments. Dr. Abigail Jordan, a University of Georgia graduate, initiated a petition drive in 1991 to erect a memorial to the city s African American community, some of whom were her forebearers. After eleven years of often acrimonious debate over the location, images, and inscription, a monument went up on River Street, where nearby shackled Africans once were herded ashore from slave ships.
A seven-foot bronze statue by local sculptor Dorothy Spradley depicts a standing father, mother, and two children dressed in twenty-first-century clothes, their broken chains at their feet. The original inscription on the base of the statue, written by Maya Angelou, read: We were stolen, sold and bought together from the African continent. We got on the slave ships together. We lay back to belly in the holds of the slave ships in each others excrement and urine together, sometimes died together, and our lifeless bodies thrown overboard together. But the City Council objected to the wording, which they feared might offend some of the vast numbers of tourists who strolled nearby. Ms. Angelou proposed an additional line: Today, we are standing up together, with faith and even some joy. 1

Part of the inscription on the Haitian Monument in Franklin Square reads, Their sacrifice reminds us that men of African descent were also present on many other battlefields during the Revolution. Photograph courtesy of Bob Paddison.
Another, smaller statue soon went up in Franklin Square memorializing the five hundred to seven hundred Haitian free men of color who assisted in the defense of Savannah during the American Revolution. The inscription on one panel reads: The largest unit of soldiers of African descent who fought in the American Revolution was the brave Les Chasseurs Volontaires de Saint Domingue from Haiti. This regiment consisted of free men who volunteered for a campaign to capture Savannah from the British in 1779. Their sacrifice reminds us that men of African descent were also present on many other battlefields during the Revolution.
The narrative that follows focuses on the lives of both blacks and whites and their interactions with one another. It suggests that apartheid has come at a profound cost to the city of Savannah since the end of slavery and the Civil War. It is history from the bottom up and the top down, with the consequence being collision-a story of heroes, heroines, and villains and their lives, labor, culture, and politics from Reconstruction to the present. Boosters, writers, and tour guides have long romanticized Savannah. This book is in many ways another side of the story.
Acknowledgments

T his book and my life have moved through many cycles over the last few years, and I have learned again, as Thomas Jefferson said, that writing is no harder than digging a ditch. But the process has been made easier and more meaningful because of the support of many, and though I risk overlooking some who should be mentioned, I would like to thank especially the following.
For photography used in the book, I am indebted to: Bob Paddison for photographing many Savannah monuments; Richard Burke for his photograph of a container vessel moving up the Savannah River to the port; Peter Bergeron and the staff of Worldwide Camera for their technical expertise and helpful suggestions on the use of digital images; and Steve Engerrand, deputy director of the Georgia Archives, who assisted me with photographs from the Vanishing Georgia collection. The Savannah Housing Authority s executive director, Earline Wesley Davis, graciously helped me locate and secure photographs that document urban renewal in Yamacraw, and Tammy Brawner, management analyst, helped in many stages of this process.
Even in today s digital age, I enjoy nothing more than being in a library, and I would like to thank all the librarians, archivists, and staff who made these forays so helpful, including the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, staff of the Wilson Library Special Collections for assistance with the resources of the Southern Historical Collection; Perkins Library, Duke University, staff of the Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library; University of Georgia Special Collection Libraries staff of the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library and the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies. I am very appreciative of the more than thirty years of assistance by the staff of the Zach S. Henderson Library at Georgia Southern University.
Closer to home I would also thank the staff of Armstrong State University: Lane Library especially; Judith S. Garrison, head of reference and instruction; Christian (Alec) Jarboc, peer reference assistant; Lauren Mc