From: Michael Hoover <hoov-AT-freenet.scri.fsu.edu>
Subject: Re: Southern populism
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 95 19:05:12 EST


Well, blacks composed almost 50% of Georgia's population at the turn of
century and its lynching record for the years just prior to and right
after 1900 was second only to Mississippi...such factors no doubt
influenced Watson's racist turn...calls for black disfranchisement made 
for "good" politics and Watson proved one of the more skillful agitators 
in playing the race card...in this way, he contributed to the 1906 
Atlanta race riot and the 1908 proscription against black voting in
Georgia...as Woodward points out (too genteelly), "a platform of 
Negrophobia and progressivism was strikingly symbolic of the new era
in the South"...Michael


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