Atlanta uses riot centennial to reflect on racial past
As a boy, Farrow Allen, Jr., heard stories about the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 from his mother, whose father was hustled out of town to safety at the height of the four-day melee where 10,000 blacks and whites clashed in the streets.
Allen said he recalls little of the stories he was told as a child about his grandfather Luther Price, a fair-skinned black postmaster who ran a general store in a black neighborhood at the turn of the last century. But he remembers being scared to death of the stories _ and of the South.
"I thought the South was the most horrible place in the world," said the 64-year-old now living in Asheville, N.C., whose family moved to New England after the riot.
"I didn't want anything to do with the South. I thought it was primi tive, backward," he said.
A century ago, on a hot September Saturday, many of Atlanta's blacks and whites started to riot in a bloody downtown battle that would become known as the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot. The situation exploded after months of hostility between the races in the city fueled by state politics and local media, which conjured stories of black men attacking white women.
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Allen said he recalls little of the stories he was told as a child about his grandfather Luther Price, a fair-skinned black postmaster who ran a general store in a black neighborhood at the turn of the last century. But he remembers being scared to death of the stories _ and of the South.
"I thought the South was the most horrible place in the world," said the 64-year-old now living in Asheville, N.C., whose family moved to New England after the riot.
"I didn't want anything to do with the South. I thought it was primi tive, backward," he said.
A century ago, on a hot September Saturday, many of Atlanta's blacks and whites started to riot in a bloody downtown battle that would become known as the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot. The situation exploded after months of hostility between the races in the city fueled by state politics and local media, which conjured stories of black men attacking white women.