Editing Madison, Georgia (section)

=== Jim Crow era ===
In 1895 Madison was reported to have an oil mill with a capital of $35,000, a soap factory, a fertilizer factory, four steam ginneries, a mammoth compress, two carriage factories, a furniture factory, a grist and flouringmill, a bottling works, a distillery with a capacity of 120 gallons a day, an ice factory with a capital of $10,500, a canning factory with a capital of $10,000, a bank with a capital of $75,000, surplus $12,000, and a number of small industries operated by individual enterprise.<ref name=afruitparadiseis00cott>{{cite book |author=Cotton States Publishing and Advertising Company |title=A Fruit Paradise |url=https://archive.org/details/afruitparadiseis00cott |date=1895 |others=Issued for Madison and Morgan Counties, Georgia |publisher=The Foote & Davies Co. |location=Atlanta, Ga. |lccn=tmp92003490 |ol=22843961M |via=[[Internet Archive]]}}</ref> One of the carriage factories was owned and operated by prominent African-American businessman and entrepreneur H. R. Goldwire.{{Citation needed|date=February 2024}}

Against the backdrop of this [[Jim Crow laws|Jim Crow-era]] prosperity, white Madisonians participated in at least three documented [[lynching]]s of African Americans. In February 1890, after a rushed trial involving knife-wielding [[jurors]], Brown Washington, a 15-year-old,<ref name=":3">{{Cite web|url=http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/athnewspapers/id:abw1890-0071|title=Athens Weekly Banner|website=dlg.galileo.usg.edu|language=en|access-date=2018-05-17}}</ref> was found guilty of the murder of a 9-year-old local white girl. After the verdict, though the sheriff with the governor's approval called up the Madison Home Guard to protect Washington, "only three militiamen and none of the officers" responded to the order. Washington was thus easily taken from jail by a posse of ten men organized by a "leading local businessman".<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Brundage |first=W. Fitzhugh |url=https://archive.org/details/lynchinginnewsou0000brun |title=Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |year=1993 |isbn=9780252063459 |url-access=registration}}</ref> Described as "among the best citizens", they promptly handed him over to a mob of over 300 people waiting outside the courthouse. From there, he was taken to a telegraph pole behind a local residence, allowed a prayer, then strung up and shot, his body mutilated by more than 100 bullets. Afterwards, in the patriarchal exhibition-style common of southern lynchings, a sign was posted on the telegraph pole: "Our women and children will be protected."<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":0" /> His body was not taken down until noon the next day.<ref name=":1">{{Cite news|title=He Deserved His Fate: The Brave Men of Morgan Have Done Justice|date=March 1, 1890|work=The Atlanta Constitution}}</ref>

According to Brundage's account of the lynching of Brown Washington in ''Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930'':

{{blockquote|The open participation of men 'of all ages and standing in life,' the carefully organized public meeting that planned the mob's course of action, the obvious complicity of the militia, and the ritualized execution of Washington all highlight the degree to which the lynching was sanctioned by the community at large. Shared attitudes toward women, sexuality, and black criminality, combined with local bonds of community and family, focused the fears and rage of whites on Washington and guaranteed mass involvement in his execution.<ref name=":0" />}}

In the aftermath, though local and state authorities vowed to thoroughly investigate the lynching as well as the Madison Home Guard's dereliction of duty, just a week later a [[grand jury]] was advised by a judge of the superior court of Madison that any investigation would be a waste of time. In addition, the state body charged with investigating the home guard's non-response reported that their absence had been satisfactorily explained and no tribunal would be convened to investigate the matter."<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2">{{Cite news|title=There Will Be No Investigation: The Lynching of a Morgan County Negro Passes Out of Notice|date=March 7, 1890|work=The Atlanta Constitution}}</ref>

Although the local Madisonian newspaper failed to report on the 1890 extra-judicial murder of Mr. Washington, an even earlier first lynching by Madisonians of a man they similarly pulled out of the old stone county jail appears in the contemporary accounts from the ''[[Atlanta Constitution]]''.<ref name=":2" />

In 1919, ten years after the erection of a [[List of Confederate monuments and memorials in Georgia|Confederate memorial]] one block from the newly built Morgan County courthouse, another lynching occurred in the dark of night a few days before [[Thanksgiving (United States)|Thanksgiving]]. This time, citizens skipped the show-trials altogether, opting to travel to the home of Mr. Wallace Baynes in what one paper of the day called an "arresting party", though no charges against Mr. Baynes were stipulated in the news account.<ref name=":4">{{Cite news|title=Two Men Slain Near Broughton|date=November 21, 1919|work=The Madisonian}}</ref> Baynes shot at the party, striking Mr. Frank F. Ozburn of Madison in the head, killing him instantly. In response, the mob outside his home grew to 40-50 men. Despite the arrival of Madison Sheriff C.S. Baldwin, Mr. Baynes was pulled from his home by a rope and shot near the Little River. Afterwards, the sheriff present at the lynching said he could not identify any of the men who came for Mr. Baynes, despite the fact that they arrived in cars and lit up Mr. Baynes' home with the headlights of their vehicles.<ref name=":4" /> In an editorial that argued that mobs in the [[Southern United States|South]] were no worse than mobs in the [[Northern United States|North]] yet condemned future lynchings, the local Madisonian claimed: "There is not now and perhaps will never be, any friction between the races here."<ref>{{Cite news|title=Lynchings in Georgia|date=December 1919|work=The Madisonian}}</ref>

The Confederate monument erected in 1909 by the Morgan County Daughters of the Confederacy one block from the courthouse where Mr. Baynes was not afforded a trial was inscribed in part: "NO NATION ROSE/SO WHITE AND FAIR, NONE FELL SO PURE OF CRIME."<ref>{{Cite news|title=An Appeal to the Women of Morgan County|date=May 19, 1905|work=The Madisonian}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM9E9K_Morgan_County_Confederate_Monument_Madison_GA|title=Morgan County, Georgia Confederate Monument|website=waymarking.com}}</ref> In the 1950s, the monument was moved to Hill Park, a Madison city property donated by Bell Hill Knight, daughter of Joshua Hill, the aforementioned pro-Union senator who before the [[American Civil War|Civil War]] resigned his position rather than support secession. Mrs. Knight, whose husband Captain Gazaway Knight was Commander of the Panola Guards, a Confederate brigade that was organized in Madison, was a staunch member of the Morgan County Daughters of the Confederacy.{{Citation needed|date=February 2024}}