Progress and Race: Atlanta's Negro Building, The New South, & the Making of a Southern Capital
As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, the Department of City Planning, in partnership with Martin Luther
Three decades after the end of the Civil War, Atlanta was eager to showcase its rebirth and position itself as the unrivaled capital of the “New South”— a vision championed by journalist and Atlanta Constitution editor Henry Grady. The 1895 Cotton States & International Exposition fulfilled this purpose. But while the City of Atlanta was focused on shedding its agricultural past and moving towards the goal of becoming an industrial center, African Americans longed to recast their image and show the progress they had made in the thirty years since the abolition of slavery. The Exposition’s Negro Building provided the platform for this undertaking. This talk will track the steps that led to the Negro Building’s inclusion in the Exposition and the impact it had on Atlanta and its residents.
Speaker: Mabel O. Wilson, Ph.D., Chair, Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies and the Nancy and George E. Rupp Professor of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University