Virginia E. Causey - Red clay, white water, and blues. A history of Columbus, Georgia.

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RED CLAY, WHITE WATER, AND BLUES

RED CLAY
WHITE WATER
& BLUES

A HISTORY OF Columbus, Georgia

VIRGINIA E. CAUSEY

THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA PRESS ATHENS

Published in association with Georgia Humanities

Publication of this book was made possible
in part by generous gifts from
Cecil and Bettye Cheves
Frank and Tammy Lumpkin
Wright and Katherine Waddell
Wyler Hecht
The Loft, Columbus GA

2019 by the University of Georgia Press
Athens, Georgia 30602
www.ugapress.org
All rights reserved Designed by Kaelin Chappell Broaddus Set in 10/13.5 Sentinel Book by Kaelin Chappell Broaddus Printed and bound by Thomson-Shore, Inc.
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

Most University of Georgia Press titles
are available from popular e-book vendors.

Printed in the United States of America
19 20 21 22 23 C 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Causey, Virginia Estes, author.
Title: Red clay, white water and blues : a history of Columbus, Georgia / Virginia E. Causey.
Description: Athens : The University of Georgia Press, [2019]
| Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018049447| ISBN 9780820354996 (hardcover : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9780820355030 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Columbus (Ga.)History.
Classification: LCC F294.C7 C38 2019 | DDC 975.8/473dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018049447

Title page photo: Columbus Georgia Downtown by SeanPavonePhoto/Adobe Stock.

To John Lupold,
Billy Winn, and
Clason Kyle,
who paved
the way.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1
Stepping to the Music of Jingling Dimes

A Trading Town on the Chattahoochee

Chapter 2
The Last Battle and Black Reconstruction

The Civil War and Its Aftermath

Chapter 3
Plethoric, Laborious, Well-Fed, Jolly, and Complacent

Politics and Economics, 18801920

Chapter 4
Lynching, Industrial Education, Babe Ruth, and Christian Communism

Social Change at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Chapter 5
The Klan and Coca-Cola

The Roaring Twenties

Chapter 6
Columbus in the 1930s and 1940s

Depression and World War

Chapter 7
Violence, Direct Action, Negotiation

The Struggle for Civil Rights, 19441975

Chapter 8
From Optimism to Malaise

Economics, Politics, and Culture, 1950s1980s

Chapter 9
Renaissance

Columbus since the 1990s

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Deep thanks go to Nick Norwood, the manuscripts first reader, critic, and grammarian. Editing by my husband, Tim Chitwood, and copy editor Ellen Goldlust cut the academic blather and made the book more readable. The archivists who provided invaluable support included Reagan Grimsley, David Owings, Jesse Chariton, and Dalton Royer. The Fussell family helped on several fronts: Cathy by critiquing my analysis of Carson McCullers, Fred by reviewing the section on Ma Rainey, and Jake by sharing his knowledge of Jimmie Tarlton and Tom Darby. Thanks to Columbus State University professors John Ellisor, Gary Sprayberry, and Amanda Rees. Jesse Williams knows more about the river than anyone. He also shared information on the 1934 general textile strike, in which his uncle, Reuben Sanders, was killed. Superior court judge Bobby Peters, councillor Gary Allen, Muscogee tax commissioner Lula Lunsford Huff, Phenix City collector Jim Cannon, Katherine Jordan Waddell, Aflac, and the W. C. Bradley Company allowed me to use rare photographs from their collections.

John Lupolds tremendous body of local scholarship provided the foundation for this book. My appreciation goes to Billy Winn, whose passion for social justice shaped his writing for half a century. Clason Kyle shared his knowledge of Old Columbus families, many of whom are his relatives, and made seminal contributions to historic preservation. And, most of all, thanks to the gazebo sitters, whose discussions of local scandals, lore, history, and myths were sometimes as muddy as the river flowing by but were ever entertainingCathy, Fred, Elinor, Billy, John, Nuria, Tim, Mike, and Craig.

NOTES ON THE TEXT

All quotations have been transcribed as they appear in the original. Errors in grammar and spelling are not indicated by [sic].

Racial identifiers such as colored, Negro, black, and African American are used within their chronological context. The epithet nigger in direct quotations reflects the attitudes of the times discussed.

RED CLAY, WHITE WATER, AND BLUES

INTRODUCTION

T he red brick matching the oldest buildings in Columbus, Georgia, to its newest comes from clay tinted with iron leached from ancient mountains along a primordial ocean shore. The shore-lines remains underlie the city, which is strategically fixed along the fall line where the Chattahoochee River foams white as it plunges through miles of rapids. The plummeting water powered brick mills that spun white cotton into cloth. The land yielding the clay produced the cotton. City founders drove off indigenous Indians and imported enslaved Africans to work the cotton fields. From those workers despair came music. In the brick mills, white laborers also helped birth what became known worldwide as the blues. Though there were boom times, the city suffered reversals and conflicts, deepening the peoples embrace of the blues.

Red clay, white water, and blues.

Several themes weave through Columbuss history:

Columbus is a city on a physical and a metaphorical fall line. Founded in 1828 as a trading town, Columbuss site at the Chattahoochees falls made it the lower river valleys economic, political, and social center. At the head of navigation, the town was a collection point for agricultural products, principally cotton from West-Central Georgia and East-Central Alabama used in local textile mills or shipped through the port at Apalachicola to world markets. The falls also powered industry beginning in the 1830s. By 1860 Columbus was the third-largest city in Georgia and a leading commercial and industrial center, especially for textile production. Its antebellum industry was unusual in the South. Though the Civil Wars destruction and economic downturns in the late nine-teenth century slowed the citys development, textile manufacturings robust growth dominated the citys economy through the mid-twentieth century.

The city historically teetered on the verge of success but was too geographically isolated or faced too many barriers to achieve the triumphs that local leaders expected. Beginning in antebellum times, promoters branded the city a progressive place with slogans such as the Center of the Sunbelt South; the Electric City; the Brightest Light on the Georgia Horizon; Georgias West Coast; Georgias Best Kept Secret; Were Talking Proud!; Alive and Doin Well!; the Lowell of the South; What Progress Has Preserved; We Do Amazing. Local boosters often wildly overestimated Columbuss potential. Through much of its history, the city remained on the brink of achieving major regional status, but it never quite crossed that threshold.

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