America's Black Capital - by Jeffrey O G Ogbar (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Atlanta is widely considered to be America's Black Mecca. It has a higher concentration of black millionaires, black-owned businesses, and HBCUs than any other city in the United States. African Americans are overrepresented in every strata of Atlanta's governance. In 2020, more black voters in the Atlanta area cast ballots than those in any other state's metro, evincing a political power that flipped a once deeply red state blue. However, 150 years ago, Atlanta was a contender to be the capital of the Confederacy and harbored some of the most virulent white nationalism our country has ever seen. In chronicling the ascent of this iconic hub of Black excellence, America's Black Capital offers a riveting account of the push and pull between Black progress and racist backlash that has always been at the core of America's past. Historian Jeffrey Ogbar shows how in Atlanta African Americans built a city in which they could flourish. In the decades after the Civil War, Confederate ideology continued to linger in Georgia's capital, as city landmarks were renamed in honor of the Lost Cause, former Confederates were elected to political office, and white supremacist violence surged in the city. In response to relentless waves of racist retrenchment, African Americans pushed back, creating an extraordinary locus of achievement in a center of neo-Confederate white nationalism. What drove them, America's Black Capital shows, is the belief that black uplift would be best advanced by the creation and support of black institutions, an ideology that pre-dated Black Power by almost a century. Spanning from the Civil War to the present, America's Black Capital is an inspiring story of Black achievement against all odds--one that reveals both the persistence of the Confederacy and the remarkable legacy of Black resistance in the United States"--

Book Synopsis

The remarkable story of how African Americans transformed Atlanta, the former heart of the Confederacy, into today's Black mecca
 
Atlanta is home to some of America's most prominent Black politicians, artists, businesses, and HBCUs. Yet, in 1861, Atlanta was a final contender to be the capital of the Confederacy. Sixty years later, long after the Civil War, it was the Ku Klux Klan's sacred "Imperial City."

America's Black Capital chronicles how a center of Black excellence emerged amid virulent expressions of white nationalism, as African Americans pushed back against Confederate ideology to create an extraordinary locus of achievement. What drove them, historian Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar shows, was the belief that Black uplift would be best advanced by forging Black institutions. America's Black Capital is an inspiring story of Black achievement against all odds, with effects that reached far beyond Georgia, shaping the nation's popular culture, public policy, and politics.

Review Quotes

"A revealing history that points to a Black Atlanta destined to be an ever more important economic and political center."
--Kirkus

"An illuminating and thought-provoking history of Atlanta from the 19th century to the present...Ogbar's meticulous account is both an eye-opening reassessment of the origins of African American political power and a significant contribution to American history."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Elegantly written and exhaustively researched, America's Black Capital is a brilliant chronicle of both Atlanta, the Southern city, and Atlanta, the metaphor for a segment of the American experience. Here is a saga of race, aspiration, war, ambition, and the tide of history told through the story of a single metropolis. Jeffrey Ogbar has produced a book that is every bit as vital and essential as the place he writes about."
--Jelani Cobb, coeditor of The Matter of Black Lives

"Jeffrey Ogbar has crafted a first-rate work of historical consciousness-raising. America's Black Capital is a stirring testament to the generations of Black Atlantans who, from the ashes of the Confederacy, raised a bastion of Black political power and cultural excellence. A tremendous feat."
--Peniel Joseph, author of The Third Reconstruction

"Spectacular! America's Black Capital is a landmark in Black history. Jeffrey Ogbar provides an expert excavation of how Atlanta came to be seen as the 'Black Mecca, ' including a deftly drawn origin story for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A dazzling book."
--Gerald Horne, author of The Counter-Revolution of 1776

"Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar's America's Black Capital is a towering achievement. It powerfully captures the dynamism of Black politics in Atlanta--in great depth and sheer brilliance. This remarkable book is an inspiring work of history in which Black people take center stage as the key architects of their own destiny."
--Keisha N. Blain, coeditor of the No. 1 New York Times bestseller Four Hundred Souls and award-winning author of Until I Am Free

About the Author

Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar is professor of history and founding director of the Center for the Study of Popular Music at the University of Connecticut. He earned his PhD in US history from Indiana University Bloomington and his BA in history from Morehouse College in Atlanta. He lives in Hartford, Connecticut.