The Southwest Georgia in the Civil Rights Era option contains newspapers from counties where high profile racial injustices and civil rights movement activity took place, including titles from Americus, Albany, Leesburg, Camilla, Cordele, and Sylvester. This selection also includes an anti-Civil Rights paper from Columbus, and the paper of record from Tifton, which sits 40 miles east of Albany.
Southwest Georgia was considered a particularly hostile area to African Americans in the Jim Crow Era. Many of the state’s counties from that region earned nicknames exemplifying the hostile conditions for African Americans, including “Bad Baker,” “Terrible Terrell,” and “Lynching Lee.” In the 1940s and 50s, activists began efforts to register voters with minimal success. In 1961, the efforts of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to challenge voting restrictions and segregation in southwest Georgia inspired the formation of the Albany Movement. The movement organized demonstrations that led to the jailing of hundreds of protesters across southwest Georgia, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Although the movement was unsuccessful in ending segregation in Albany, their efforts inspired civil rights activists throughout southwest Georgia and the rest of the nation.
In 1963, the Americus Movement began with a march to desegregate the city’s Martin Theater. In July of that year, a group of young women were arrested for attempting to desegregate the theater. They were placed in a stockade in Leesburg and kept there in squalid conditions for forty-five days. That same summer, a group of organizers known as the Americus Four were arrested under charges of treason, although the case was eventually dismissed. Related events in surrounding counties, including the shooting of Charles Ware and the beating of his wife Louise in Baker County in 1961, the Burning of Mt. Olive Baptist Church in 1962 in Terrell County, and the beating of Marion King by Camilla police that same year were integral moments that shone a light on racial injustice in southwest Georgia and the efforts of activists to break the chains of the Jim Crow South.
These papers likely had editors, publishers, and staff that were not sympathetic to Civil Rights activism in Southwest Georgia.
Important Civil Rights Events (SS5H6)
Important Civil Rights Leaders (SS5H6)
Jim Crow Laws (SS5H6)
Impact of major developments in Civil Rights from the 1940’s -1950’s (SS8H11)
Impact of major developments in Civil Rights from the 1960’s -1970’s (SS8H11)
Impact of significant individuals and organizations during this era (SS8H11)
The Civil Rights Movement in Southwest Georgia
Americus Movement
Albany Movement
Cordele Dispatch, Crisp County (1942-1963, 30 reels, daily, 32.3k pages)
Albany Journal, Dougherty County (1941-1952, 2 reels, weekly, 1.3k pages)
Camilla Enterprise, Mitchell County (1940-1963, 11 reels, weekly, 13.5k pages)
Americus Times-Recorder, Sumter County (1940-1963, 43 reels, daily, 58.1k pages)
Dawson News, Terrell County (1938-1963, 11 reels, weekly, 14.9k pages)
Sylvester Local, Worth County (1934-1963, 13 reels, weekly, 17.6k pages)
Lee County Journal, Lee County (1936-1959, 5 reels, weekly, 6.8k pages)
Georgia Tribune, Muscogee County (1947-1961, 4 reels, weekly, 5.4k pages)
Daily Tifton Gazette, Tift County (1941-1962, 48 reels, daily, 64.8k pages)