What was built
- Established or development period
- 1865–1906
- Peak period
- 1900s
- Who built the community
- Black professionals, educators, tradesmen and business owners, including the Auburn Avenue and Decatur Street merchant class and the Atlanta University Center community.
- Black population
- Roughly 35,000 Black residents, about 40 percent of the city.
- Businesses
- Black-owned barbershops, saloons, restaurants, groceries and Alonzo Herndon's barbershop empire.
- Financial institutions
- Black insurance and mutual-aid enterprises that would become Atlanta Life Insurance Company.
- Churches
- Wheat Street Baptist, Big Bethel A.M.E., First Congregational and others.
- Schools
- Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Spelman Seminary, Clark and Morris Brown.
- Hospitals
- Not yet documented
- Newspapers
- The Atlanta Independent and Voice of the Negro.
- Entertainment & cultural institutions
- Not yet documented
- Other community institutions
- Not yet documented
- Black land & property ownership
- Black home and business ownership concentrated on Auburn Avenue, in Brownsville and near the university campuses.
- Economic significance
- The emerging center of Black higher education and Black enterprise in the South.
What happened
- What happened?
- From September 22 to 24, 1906, white mobs attacked Black residents and businesses in downtown Atlanta and in the Brownsville neighborhood near Clark and Gammon, killing dozens and destroying Black businesses. Black Atlantans responded by consolidating enterprise on Auburn Avenue.
- Trigger or precipitating event
- Sensationalized and largely fabricated newspaper reports of assaults on white women during a heated gubernatorial campaign over disenfranchisement.
- Underlying historical context
- A disenfranchisement campaign, temperance politics aimed at Black saloons, and white resentment of a rising Black professional class.
- Method of destruction / displacement
- Massacre · Mob Violence
- Date or period of destruction
- September 22–24, 1906
- Confirmed / documented deaths
- At least 25 Black deaths documented, and 2 white deaths.
- Estimated deaths
- Estimates run to roughly 40 or more Black deaths. SOURCES DIFFER.
- People displaced
- Hundreds fled the city temporarily; many Black businesses relocated permanently.
- Homes destroyed
- Not yet documented
- Businesses destroyed
- Dozens of Black businesses on Decatur Street and in surrounding blocks.
- Acres or property lost
- Not yet documented
Afterward
- What happened to the land?
- Black commerce shifted toward Auburn Avenue, which became Sweet Auburn.
- Was compensation paid?
- None.
- Was the community rebuilt?
- Yes: Black enterprise reconcentrated on Auburn Avenue.
- What was rebuilt?
- Sweet Auburn, later called 'the richest Negro street in the world.'
- Destroyed or displaced again?
- Not yet documented
- Second displacement date
- Not yet documented
- Second displacement cause
- Not yet documented
- What exists there today?
- Historical markers, the Sweet Auburn historic district and Atlanta University Center institutions.
- Descendant, reparation & restoration efforts
- The Coalition to Remember the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot and centennial commemorations in 2006.
- Historical significance
- Reshaped Black Atlanta's geography and directly produced the Sweet Auburn business district.
Sources
- Book or scholarly workFind
David Fort Godshalk, Veiled Visions: The 1906 Atlanta Race Riot (UNC Press, 2005)
- Book or scholarly workFind
New Georgia Encyclopedia, Georgia Humanities
- Source lookupFind
Atlanta History Center collections
- Primary recordFind
Library of Congress, Chronicling America: 1906 Atlanta newspapers
"Find" opens a focused search for legacy references that do not have a stable link; "Open" goes directly to the source.
Last verified: 2026-09-20. This is a living historical collection. Additional communities and documentation will be added as research and verification continue.