Editing Americus, Georgia (section)

===Race relations and the civil rights movement===
In 1913, a young black man named Will Redding was lynched by a white mob. Redding refused the Chief of Police's order to stop loitering, was arrested, a struggle ensued, and ultimately Redding grabbed the Chief's gun and shot him. He was then chased down, shot, and put in jail. An angry mob went into the jail and tore down the door to Redding's cell, dragged him out onto Forsyth street, and beat him to death with crow bars and hammers.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Anderson|first1=Alan|title=Remembering Americus Georgia: Essays on Southern Life|date=July 30, 2006|publisher=History Press (SC)|isbn=9781596291317|pages=73–74https://books.google.com/books?id=svf_7DV9i6UC&pg=PA129&lpg=PA129&dq=remembering+americus+georgia+essays&source=bl&ots=8fJVoP2Xbf&sig=Z4YA9QeYHCJoQkww6tZLuGRoLv4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=J64cVLmbAoGZyAS8lIHYDg&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=remembering%20americus%20georgia%20essays&f=false }}</ref>

[[Koinonia Farm]], an interracial Christian community, was organized near Americus in 1942 by [[Clarence Jordan]]. Its interracial nature occasioned much opposition from local residents. A terrorist campaign of violence, intimidation, vandalism, and harassment by the [[Ku Klux Klan]] and others went on for the next 25 years, as well a boycott of Koinonia's products, such that by the late 1960s the once-thriving community was practically  depopulated and essentially defunct. In the late 1960s [[Millard Fuller|Millard]] and Linda Fuller, with Clarence Jordan, revived Koinonia Farm and it thrived again. Miller and Fuller founded [[Habitat for Humanity International]] at Koinonia in 1976 before moving it into Americus the following year. In 2005, they founded [[The Fuller Center for Housing]], also in Americus. Koinonia Farm remains in operation and is currently located southwest of Americus on Highway 49.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/koinonia-farm/ |title=Koinonia Farm |encyclopedia=New Georgia Encyclopedia |accessdate=September 18, 2023}}</ref>

The [[Civil rights movement|civil rights era]] in Americus was a time of great turmoil. An uptown store which had refused to honor the Koinonia boycott was bombed in 1957.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://sojo.net/articles/sponsored/facing-down-kkk-story-koinonia-farm-and-christian-hospitality#%20 |title=Facing Down the KKK: The Story of Koinonia Farm and Christian Hospitality |author=Amanda Moore |date=April 25, 2017 |work=Sojourners  |accessdate=September 18, 2023}}</ref> The [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee]] (SNCCC) organized the peaceful protests and a voter registration drive, the [[Americus Movement]]. Rev. Dr. [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] spent a weekend in the courthouse jail in 1961, after an arrest in Albany.

In 1963 occurred the [[Leesburg Stockade]] incident. A group of African-American girls aged 12 to 15 were arrested in Americus after trying to buy movie tickets at a theatre's whites-only window, as a form of civil protest. At least fourteen girls were taken to a filthy "hellhole",<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.gpb.org/news/2016/08/15/the-girls-of-the-leesburg-stockade |title=The Girls Of The Leesburg Stockade |author=Bradley George, Grant Blankenship |date=August 15, 2016 |publisher=GBP (Georgia Public Broadcasting) |accessdate=September 18, 2023}}</ref> an isolated prison in [[Leesburg, Georgia]] where they were held incommunicado for at least 45 days, in appalling conditions, without right of correspondence or legal representation, and with their families not knowing where they had been or disappeared to. Some weeks later, the girls were surreptitiously photographed by [[Danny Lyon]] who had learned the girls' location. The publishing of Lyon's photograph in the black press eventually brought the situation to national attention, and the girls were released some weeks later without ever having been charged with any crime.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional/leesburg-legacy/VJ665jMdNmoTkeaZiKF9kM/ |title=Leesburg's legacy |author=Nedra Rhone, Rosalind Bentley |date=March 21, 2019 |work=Atlanta Journal-Constitution |accessdate=September 18, 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/hidden-herstory-leesburg-stockade-girls |title=Hidden Herstory: The Leesburg Stockade Girls |author=Tulani Salahu-Din |date= |publisher=Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture |accessdate=September 18, 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/17/us/leesburg-stockade-girls-return-after-60-years/index.html |title=Stolen Girls: The untold story of the Leesburg Stockade Girls |author= Randi Kaye, Anne Clifford |date=September 17, 2023 |work=CNN |accessdate=September 18, 2023}}</ref>

In the same year of 1963, the local Sumter Movement to end [[racial segregation]] was organized and led by Rev. Joseph R. Campbell. Four of its activists were arrested under Georgia's 1871 Anti-Treason Act. A federal court ruled the law unconstitutional, establishing that peaceful protests could not be punishable by execution.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/americus-movement/ |title=Americus Movement |author=Glenn Robins |date=2020 |encyclopedia=New Georgia Encyclopedia |accessdate=September 18, 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://georgiahistory.com/ghmi_marker_updated/sumter-county-in-the-civil-rights-movement/ |title=Sumter County in the Civil Rights Movement |publisher=Georgia Historical Society |accessdate=September 18, 2023}}</ref> Color barriers were first removed in 1965 when J.W. Jones and Henry L. Williams joined the Americus police force. Lewis M. Lowe was elected as the first black city councilman ten years later. With their election in 1995, Eloise R. Paschal and Eddie Rhea Walker broke the gender barrier on the city's governing body. In 1968, the last segregated black school in Americus was closed, [[A. S. Staley High School]].<ref name="Frady-1971">{{Cite book |last=Frady |first=Marshall |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qVMEAAAAMBAJ&dq=staley+high+school+americus&pg=PA49 |title=One Another Town |date=February 12, 1971 |publisher=[[Life (magazine)]] |page= |pages=46–49 |language=en}}</ref>

In 1971, the city was featured in a [[Marshall Frady]] article, "One Another Town", in ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'' magazine.<ref name="Frady-1971" /> The portrayal of the city's school integration was relatively benign, especially considering the community's history of troubled race relations.