dc.contributor.author	Butler, Joshua
dc.coverage.spatial	North and Central America--United States--Georgia--Mitchell--Camilla	en_US
dc.date.accessioned	2012-05-11T12:36:34Z
dc.date.available	2012-05-11T12:36:34Z
dc.date.issued	2012-05-11
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10428/1130
dc.description.abstract	Camilla, Georgia, became the site of a racially motivated political riot on Saturday, September 19, 1868. Determined to promote political and social reform with an organized rally, at least 150 freedmen, along with Republican political candidates, advanced toward the town’s courthouse square. Local citizens warned the black and white activists of the impending violence and demanded that they forfeit their guns, even though carrying weapons was customary at the time. The marchers refused to give up their guns and continued to the courthouse square, where local whites fired upon them. This assault forced the Republicans and freedmen to retreat as locals gave chase, killing an estimated fifteen protestors and wounding forty others. The Camilla Massacre was the culmination of smaller acts of violence committed by white inhabitants that had plagued southwest Georgia since the end of the Civil War. Local whites had individually attacked freedmen and white Republicans for three years without repercussion. That lack of punishment assured the perpetrators that violence was a legitimate way to oppose black activism. At the same time, Camilla was part of a broader attempt across the South to keep former slaves and their Republican leaders in line. Contextualizing the event within the framework of other acts of political mob violence during Reconstruction demonstrates that knowledge of no forthcoming punishment, the oppression of blacks’ voting rights and an inherent racist tradition motivated southern whites to retaliate against freedmen, scalawags and carpetbaggers. At times, whites needed no political motive to attack, but this thesis explores instances when southern whites perpetrated violence on blacks and attempted to justify it using politics since a large quantity of violence occurred at campaign speeches or near elections. Whites who provoked violence used aggression to challenge gains made by blacks with the direct goal of returning the South to a racially oppressive utopia or simply ridding the region of Republicans. Although cut from the same cloth, these people had no recorded affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan, but they orchestrated a systematic pattern of reactionary violence that peaked during certain occasions.	en_US
dc.language.iso	en_US	en_US
dc.publisher	Valdosta State University	en_US
dc.rights	Copyright protected. Unauthorized reproduction or use beyond the exceptions granted by the Fair Use clause of U.S. Copyright law may violate federal law.	en_US
dc.subject	Georgia History	en_US
dc.subject	Reconstruction	en_US
dc.subject	Civil Rights	en_US
dc.subject	Protest	en_US
dc.subject	Democrats	en_US
dc.subject	Republicans	en_US
dc.subject	Carpetbagger	en_US
dc.subject	legitimized violence	en_US
dc.subject	Camilla Georgia	en_US
dc.subject	1868	en_US
dc.subject	massacre	en_US
dc.subject	race riot	en_US
dc.subject	mob violence	en_US
dc.subject	racism	en_US
dc.subject	freedmen	en_US
dc.subject.lcsh	Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877)--Georgia	en_US
dc.subject.lcsh	African Americans--Civil rights--History--19th century	en_US
dc.title	“Almost Too Terrible to Believe”: The Camilla, Georgia, Race Riot and Massacre, September 1868	en_US
dc.type	Thesis	en_US
dc.contributor.department	History	en_US
dc.description.advisor	Aiello, Thomas, Advisor; Williams, David H., Committee Member; Formwalt, Lee, Committee Member; Byrd, Melanie, Committee Member, Peterson, James, Committee Member; Manning, Thomas, Committee Member; Fuciarelli, Alfred, Dean of Graduate School.	en_US
dc.description.degree	B.A.	en_US