Editing Georgia (U.S. state) (section)

===Reconstruction and civil rights===
[[File:Sign at bus terminal in Rome, Georgia.jpg|thumb|A so-called "Colored" waiting room sign in 1943 at a bus terminal in [[Rome, Georgia]], where [[Jim Crow laws]] created "[[de jure]]" legally required [[Racial segregation in the United States|segregation]]]]
Georgia did not re-enter the Union until July 15, 1870, as the last of the former Confederate states to be re-admitted.<ref>{{citation|author=Andrew Glass|title=Georgia readmitted to Union, July 15, 1870|date=July 15, 2014|website=Politico|url=https://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/georgia-civil-war-108886|access-date=April 12, 2025}}</ref> Federal troops would continue to be stationed in the state until the end of the [[Reconstruction era]] in 1877.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Richard N. Engstrom|author2=Robert M. Howard|author3=Arnold Fleischmann|title=Georgia's Constitution and Government|publisher=University of Georgia Press|location=Atlanta, GA|year=2014|isbn=9780820371115|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pJpREQAAQBAJ|page=21-22}}</ref> With white Democrats having regained power in the state legislature, they passed a [[Poll tax (United States)|poll tax]] that year which [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchised]] many poor black (and some white) people, preventing them from registering.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.atlantahighered.org/civilrights/essay_detail.asp?phase=1 |title="Atlanta in the Civil Rights Movement", Atlanta Regional Council for Higher Education |publisher=Atlantahighered.org |access-date=July 27, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141009111816/http://www.atlantahighered.org/civilrights/essay_detail.asp?phase=1 |archive-date=October 9, 2014 |url-status=dead}}</ref> In 1908, the state established a [[white primary]]; with the only competitive contests within the Democratic Party, it was another way to exclude black people from politics.<ref name="auto">{{cite journal|jstor=2716218|title=Racial Violence and Social Reform-Origins of the Atlanta Riot of 1906|first=Charles|last=Crowe|date=January 1, 1968|journal=The Journal of Negro History|volume=53|issue=3|pages=234–256|doi=10.2307/2716218|s2cid=150050901 | issn = 0022-2992}}</ref> They constituted 46.7% of the state's population in 1900, but the proportion of Georgia's population that was African American dropped thereafter to 28%, primarily due to tens of thousands leaving the state during the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]].<ref name="pop/perc">[http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/php/state.php Historical Census Browser, 1900 Federal Census, University of Virginia] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070823030234/http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/php/state.php |date=August 23, 2007}}, accessed March 15, 2008</ref> In 1910, a secret meeting was held on [[Jekyll Island]], off Georgia's Atlantic coast, to plan for the creation of an American central banking system. The decisions made at the meeting resulted in the passing of the [[Federal Reserve Act]] of 1913.<ref>{{cite book|author=Tyler E. Bagwell|title=The Jekyll Island Club|date=1998 |publisher=Arcadia Publishing|location=Charleston, SC|isbn=9780752409351|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vJgXQdWB5kUC|page=7}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Michael D. Bordo|author2=David C. Wheelock|editor1=Michael D. Bordo|editor2=William Roberds|title=The Origins, History, and Future of the Federal Reserve: A Return to Jekyll Island|chapter=The Promise and Performance of the Federal Reserve as Lender of Last Resort 1914-1913|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge, UK|year=2013|isbn=9781107013728|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qiQqq5trRz8C |page=60}}</ref>

According to the [[Equal Justice Initiative]]'s 2015 report on lynching in the United States (1877–1950), Georgia had 531 deaths, the second-highest total of these extralegal executions of any state in the South. The overwhelming number of victims were black and male.<ref name="appendix">{{Cite web|url=https://eji.org/sites/default/files/lynching-in-america-second-edition-supplement-by-county.pdf|title=''Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror'', "Supplement: Lynching by County" 2nd edition, Montgomery, Alabama: Equal Justice Initiative, 2015|website=Eji.org|access-date=April 17, 2021|archive-date=June 27, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180627005306/https://eji.org/sites/default/files/lynching-in-america-second-edition-supplement-by-county.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> Many of the killings were committed by the [[white supremacist]] hate group the [[Ku Klux Klan]] (KKK), whose second iteration was formed at Georgia's [[Stone Mountain, Georgia|Stone Mountain]] by [[William Joseph Simmons]] on November 25, 1915.<ref>{{citation|author=David B. Freeman|title=Carved in Stone The History of Stone Mountain|publisher=Mercer University Press|location=Macon, GA|year=1997|isbn=9780865545472|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NjyjVQwTwfUC|page=51-52}}</ref> The Klan's revival was spurned in part by the 1913 murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan and the lynching two years later of her convicted killer, Jewish pencil factory supervisor and [[B'nai B'rith]] Atlanta chapter president [[Leo Frank]]. The affair led to the creation of the [[Anti-Defamation League]], which successfully lobbied for Frank to be posthumously pardoned in 1986.<ref>{{citation|author=Oren Segal|title=Seeking Justice: The Pardon of Leo Frank|website=ADL|date=March 18, 2016|url=https://www.adl.org/resources/article/seeking-justice-pardon-leo-frank|access-date=April 12, 2025}}</ref> Political disfranchisement persisted through the mid-1960s, until after Congress passed the [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]].

[[File:MLK Memorial in Atlanta, Georgia by George Paul Puvvada..jpg|thumb|[[Martin Luther King Jr.]]'s tomb at [[Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park]] in [[Atlanta]]]]
[[Martin Luther King Jr.]], an Atlanta-born [[Baptists|Baptist minister]] who was part of the educated middle class that had developed in the city's African-American community, emerged as a national leader in the [[civil rights movement]] in the 1950s. King joined with others to form the [[Southern Christian Leadership Conference]] (SCLC) in Atlanta in 1957 to provide political leadership for the civil rights movement across the South. In 1956, riots occurred at the [[1956 Sugar Bowl|Sugar Bowl]] in Atlanta following a clash between [[Georgia Tech]]'s president [[Blake R. Van Leer]] and Governor [[Marvin Griffin]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.fromtherumbleseat.com/2019/11/14/20914927/rearview-revisited-segregation-and-the-sugar-bowl-georgia-tech-pittsburgh-bobby-grier-1955-1956-game|publisher=Georgia Tech|title=Rearview Revisited: Segregation and the Sugar Bowl|first=Jake|last=Grantl|date=November 14, 2019|access-date=November 14, 2019|archive-date=November 14, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191114161717/https://www.fromtherumbleseat.com/2019/11/14/20914927/rearview-revisited-segregation-and-the-sugar-bowl-georgia-tech-pittsburgh-bobby-grier-1955-1956-game|url-status=live}}</ref>

On February 5, 1958, during a training mission flown by a [[Boeing B-47 Stratojet|B-47]], a [[Mark 15 nuclear bomb]], also known as the [[Tybee Bomb]], was lost off the coast of [[Tybee Island, Georgia|Tybee Island]] near Savannah. The bomb was thought by the [[United States Department of Energy|Department of Energy]] to lie buried in silt at the bottom of [[Wassaw Sound]].<ref>{{cite news |title=For 50 Years, Nuclear Bomb Lost in Watery Grave |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18587608&t=1566568815867 |work=NPR |date=February 3, 2008 |access-date=August 23, 2019 |archive-date=May 10, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210510145909/https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18587608&t=1566568815867 |url-status=live }}</ref>

By the 1960s, the proportion of African Americans in Georgia had declined to 28% of the state's population, after waves of migration to the North and some immigration by whites.<ref name="pop/perc" /> With their voting power diminished, it took some years for African Americans to win a state-wide office. [[Julian Bond]], a civil rights leader, was elected to the Georgia's House of Representatives in 1965, and served multiple terms there and subsequently in Georgia's State Senate.

Atlanta mayor [[Ivan Allen Jr.]] testified before [[United States Congress|Congress]] in support of the Civil Rights Act, and Governor [[Carl Sanders]] worked with the [[Presidency of John F. Kennedy|Kennedy administration]] charged with ensuring the state's compliance. [[Ralph McGill]], editor and syndicated columnist at the ''[[Atlanta Constitution]]'', wrote supportively of civil rights movement. In 1970, [[Jimmy Carter]], who was recently elected the state's governor, declared in his inaugural address that the era of racial segregation had ended. In 1972, Georgians elected [[Andrew Young]] to Congress as the first African American Congressman since the [[Reconstruction era]].