Veiled Visions - by David Fort Godshalk (Paperback)

About the Book

Veiled Visions: The 1906 Atlanta Race Riot and the Reshaping of American Race Relations

Book Synopsis

In 1906 Atlanta, after a summer of inflammatory headlines and accusations of black-on-white sexual assaults, armed white mobs attacked African Americans, resulting in at least twenty-five black fatalities. Atlanta's black residents fought back and repeatedly defended their neighborhoods from white raids. Placing this four-day riot in a broader narrative of twentieth-century race relations in Atlanta, in the South, and in the United States, David Fort Godshalk examines the riot's origins and how memories of this cataclysmic event shaped black and white social and political life for decades to come.

Nationally, the riot radicalized many civil rights leaders, encouraging W. E. B. Du Bois's confrontationist stance and diminishing the accommodationist voice of Booker T. Washington. In Atlanta, fears of continued disorder prompted white civic leaders to seek dialogue with black elites, establishing a rare biracial tradition that convinced mainstream northern whites that racial reconciliation was possible in the South without national intervention. Paired with black fears of renewed violence, however, this interracial cooperation exacerbated black social divisions and repeatedly undermined black social justice movements, leaving the city among the most segregated and socially stratified in the nation. Analyzing the interwoven struggles of men and women, blacks and whites, social outcasts and national powerbrokers, Godshalk illuminates the possibilities and limits of racial understanding and social change in twentieth-century America.

Review Quotes

"A timely publication. . . . A page-turner which must be applauded for its readability and thorough documentation. It should find a ready audience not only in academe but also among readers in the general public."
-- "Florida Historical Quarterly"

"If the contours of Godshalk's narrative are familiar, his treatment is never facile. . . . Provides a complex and nuanced account of inter-class tension in the black community. . . . Noteworthy for its effort to factor themes of class and gender into a book so outwardly concerned with issues of race."
-- "Journal of Social History"

""Veiled Visions" offers important insights into race relations and the emergence of an urban social landscape in the South and the nation."
-- "Historian"

"[This] pioneering study of the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot is a brilliant exposition of the creation of Atlanta's myth of racial progressivism. . . . May be the best monograph ever written on the aftermath of a major race riot in a U.S. city. . . . Deserves the broadest possible audience . . . will critically inform debates in the histories of segregation, urban public policy, and poverty studies."
-- "American Historical Review"

"Godshalk has given us an impeccably researched and extremely well-written book on the tragic 1906 Atlanta Race Riot. In reaching far beyond this topic and placing it in a historical context, he has strikingly illuminated the reshaping of American race relations throughout much of the twentieth century."
-- "Georgia Historical Quarterly"

"This sobering book offers an excellent analysis of American race relations."
-- "History"

About the Author

David Fort Godshalk is professor and chair of the Department of History-Philosophy at Shippensburg University.