Political Science

Many earthen fortifications defended the city of Savannah and its numerous water approaches after the Civil War broke out. One of these defenses, Fort McAllister, protected the entrance to the Ogeechee River and the strategic railroad and highway bridges upstream. From November 1862 to March 1863 the U.S. Navy bombarded the fort seven different times without success. The fort finally fell to General Sherman in December 1864; ironically, the final threat the fort faced was not from an enemy trying to get up the river, but from one trying to get down the river to the sea. In the 1920s auto magnate Henry Ford renovated the fort and focused new attention on its history. In 1960 the State of Georgia built on Ford's work and opened the fort as a State Historic Site to mark the centennial of the Civil War. Today visitors can quietly wander the massive, earthen walls and gun positions, gaze across the wide river and expansive marshes, and ponder the thundering, blazing reality that once played on this ground.

Many of the dynamics associated with the United States in the mid-20th century had not yet touched the tranquil northeast Atlanta community of Virginia-Highland in 1950. The next quarter-century would be very different. A wave of change—the civil rights movement, public school integration, the highway department's attempt to build an expressway through the community, declining real estate, the advent of suburban flight, an emerging new counterculture, and the bitter antiwar movement—provided an overlapping series of challenges that could have torn the neighborhood apart. Against all odds, it did not. Citizens organized to support public schools, defeat the highway, protect the remaining housing, create parks, and preserve their community. They created an eclectic, entrepreneurial spirit and an unpretentious culture that came to define modern intown living. Preserving the essential features of their booming community soon became a new challenge.

Since Reconstruction, African Americans have served as key protagonists in the rich and expansive narrative of American social protest. Their collective efforts challenged and redefined the meaning of freedom as a social contract in America. During the first half of the 20th century, a progressive group of black business, civic, and religious leaders from Atlanta, Georgia, challenged the status quo by employing a method of incremental gradualism to improve the social and political conditions existent within the city. By the mid-20th century, a younger generation of activists emerged, seeking a more direct and radical approach towards exercising their rights as full citizens. A culmination of the death of Emmett Till and the Brown decision fostered this paradigm shift by bringing attention to the safety and educational concerns specific to African American youth. Deploying direct-action tactics and invoking the language of civil and human rights, the energy and zest of this generation of activists pushed the modern civil rights movement into a new chapter where young men and women became the voice of social unrest.

Inman Park documents the rich and interesting history of this diverse suburb of Atlanta.

The story of Inman Park, Atlanta's first planned suburb, is one closely tied with transportation ingenuity, trade, and the progressive determination of its citizens. Situated two miles east of downtown Atlanta, Inman Park was farmland when the Civil War ravaged its rolling hills. In the 1890s, Inman Park bloomed into Atlanta's first residential park, the location of choice for Atlanta's social elite. The growth of Atlanta, however, struck a blow to the development of this utopian suburb. By the mid-20th century, the suburb fell into dilapidation, abandoned by the prominent families of Atlanta. It was not until the 1970s that the neighborhood, like Atlanta itself, was raised from its ashes to become the celebrated example of Victorian restoration that it is today and was added to the National Register of Historic Places.