The legal battle for segregation is won but the community battle goes on

December 15, 2017 7:42 AM

African-American mayor in Georgia can't get the keys to get into his own office [auto-playing video]

Mayor Davis said he's fed up with what he said is discrimination within the city government.

"It is creating a social, economic and political disadvantage for most residents," said Davis.

Davis and newly elected Pollard said they will be sitting out of city-meetings to draw attention to issues they say are happening within the local government. "The racial issues are the biggest problems," explained Davis.

Among the list of issues, Davis said the city's cemetery is segregated, the city is gerrymandered and the police department has no black officers.

City Manager Bennett Adams argues not all of that is true. He said anyone can pay the required money to be buried in the cemetery.

Video interview with Mayor Davis.

Camilla, GA has been the staging grounds for white supremacy in the past too:

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.

Meanwhile, in ostensibly progressive Atlanta:

The racial makeup of the candidates and their combined votes really highlighted the divide in the city. The vote results correlated heavily with the city’s racial makeup. In fact, the correlation between the combined racial vote and the runoff vote was near perfect.

And for those interested in doing something, look here, here, here, here or, more locally, here, here, or here.

posted by runt (5 comments total)

And, of course, the South is not the only place where racism is thriving:

The High Costs Of Disparities For People Of Color In Multnomah County

The Portland Police Bureau is one of the few agencies in the state to track the race and ethnicity of people stopped by its officers. The most recent “stop data” report suggests that while police are stopping fewer people than in the past, African-Americans are still stopped at twice the rate of whites by the city’s patrol and gang enforcement officers.

Seattle’s history of housing segregation remains apparent today

“I used to say that I thought Seattle suffers from a bad case of historical amnesia,” said Prof. James Gregory, a University of Washington researcher, author and co-founder of the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project. “(Seattle is) so interested in imagining it is a liberal, nice place that it’s not really aware of its past.”

Written into deeds in the early and middle 20th Century, Seattle’s housing restrictions specified the prohibition of people of “Malay descent” or having “Asiatic features.” Restrictions banned renting or ownership by “Ethiopians” (as shorthand for African) or by any “Orientals.” And if you were a white homeowner, don’t even consider renting a spare room to a Hebrew.

While Seattle’s black population over the past 20 years has migrated south — in some cases pushed south as a result of gentrification — northern movement has remained minimal.

Gregory says he has mentioned Seattle’s segregation to locals who have replied, “There’s no segregation in Seattle.”
posted by runt at 7:52 AM on December 15, 2017 [14 favorites]

I've been buying Camilla Pecans for family members for Christmas every year since I moved back to Georgia. I feel dirty.
posted by hydropsyche at 8:28 AM on December 15, 2017

Seattle is easily the most segregated and geographically racist city I've ever lived in. And I've lived in frickin' Austin and LA. When you point this out to natives they tend to just blink and claim that it's just not possible for liberal Seattle to be racist.

Uh, hi. There's reasons why Madrona is mostly white, right next to what used to be the mostly black Central District. It's not because Madrona started out with a bunch of yoga studios and upscale brunch joints.
posted by loquacious at 11:04 AM on December 15, 2017 [5 favorites]

so TIRED of this shit.
posted by KleenexMakesaVeryGoodHat at 11:40 AM on December 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

GF is from the Pacific Northwest, and before she first took me out there to see Eugene and Portland and Seattle, she warned me over and over again about how surprisingly racist the area was, simply by virtue of so many people there being smugly certain that they could never be.
posted by Navelgazer at 1:17 PM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]