The following passage is an excerpt from The Way It Was in the South: The Black Experience in Georgia, by Donald L. Grant (Jonathan L. Grant, ed.) Published by University of Georgia Press, 2001. All rights reserved. Book webpage. Lynching in the New South: Georgia After the Ku Klux Klan won its battle to maintain white supremacy, the lynch mob of the New South assumed a major role in maintaining blacks as a caste of peasants and serfs. Between 1889 and 1918, Georgia had more lynchings than any other state, and 94 percent of the victims were black. By no coincidence, Georgia had the South’s lowest cotton-field wages during this time. The post-Reconstruction reign of terror was nearly totally demoralizing. With good…
