Time Machinations
The Augusta Chronicle “Time Machine” from May 11, 2019.
The Augusta Chronicle “Time Machine” from May 11, 2020.
The Augusta Chronicle’s extensive database has been a vital asset to our historical work. We were pleased to see Black voices centered in the May 10, 2020 headline story “Golden Anniversary, Dark Past,” and encourage others to read it. At the same time, we have to say candidly that for fifty years now, the Augusta Chronicle has been the principal mouthpiece of a fundamentally skewed account of the event, and as the most accessible source of information, the Augusta Chronicle has been considerable in its influence and reach.
Racial violence did not erupt when Black folks showed up. Racial violence—the violence of White people against Black people—had a long, long history, from slavery, to lynching, to police brutality. It was the violence done to Charles Oatman that mobilized hundreds of Black citizens to demand answers from White officials. At both of these demonstrations (at the county jail at 8pm on May 10; at the Municipal Building at 3pm on May 11), Black citizens faced off against heavily-armed local law enforcement. Any fair observer of the scene would look to police officers and sheriff’s deputies, wielding shotguns and pointing them at demonstrators, as the ones being violent.
The White sheriff charged and all-White juries convicted two teenagers in Oatman’s death. In December 1969 the Committee of Ten had called for a congressional investigation of the Sheriff’s Department, a congressional investigation of the country prisons, elimination of police brutality, and trials of African Americans by juries that included African Americans. The was a sweeping indictment of the carceral and judicial systems, and involved concerns much deeper than “better supervision” of “youngsters.” White officials refused to concede to any of these demands, and telegrams to the President and Attorney General were not answered. Such deep, systemic issues had not gone away the following year. It’s true that in the official mechanics of the system two teenagers were charged and convicted, but given that law enforcement and the judicial system were part of the machinery of white supremacy, this was not justice. See Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow and Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy for extended analysis of the systemic racism of wrongful convictions and mass incarceration.
Faced with the stonewalling of White officials and the threatened violence that sought to stifle further pressing of Black demands, the militants among the demonstrators called for “warfare”—for a rebellion against white supremacy. This is what we know as the “riot.” It was not random, directionless violence, and it was not the work of vague, faceless people (“large crowds of blacks”). Paine College student militants, working-class African Americans, elementary and high school students who could see themselves in Charles Oatman: two to three thousand Black citizens collectively rebelled against white supremacy, damaging White- and Chinese-American-owned property to send a forceful No to the status quo, a clear message that we’re not going to take it anymore! As Dr. King said emphatically in 1966, “A ‘riot’ is the language of the unheard.”
“Six black men would die…Gov. Lester Maddox asked James Brown…”: The passive voice erases the violent suppression of the riot. The six men died because police officers killed them with shotgun blasts—acting on shoot-to-kill orders from their captain and with the sanction of the state’s highest office. (Even though it also used the passive voice, the 2019 entry did note that the men were “all shot in the back with buckshot.” This telling phrase has notably been omitted from the 2020 entry). As he mobilized the National Guard and State Patrol, Gov. Maddox barked, “they’re going in with live ammunition—we’re not going to tolerate anarchy in this state!” Maddox was no friend to James—Soul Brother Number 1, “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud” Brown, but made a strategic decision to appear with him. Brown insisted on the need for White officials to truly engage with and listen to representatives of the Black community, and noted pointedly that the loss of White property paled in comparison to the loss of Black life. This was not “calming the situation,” but critiquing the status quo. Brown publicly acknowledged the legitimacy of Black grievances—something that White officials and White media refused to do.
In short: the Augusta Chronicle’s basic account—that faceless, violence-prone people got violent and destroyed stuff for no real reason, until massive mobilization of law enforcement restored order to chaos—seeks to fundamentally discredit the event.
In reality:
Charles Oatman’s brutal death crystallized the severity of racial violence in Augusta.
Racial violence had a long, long history.
The real story of what happened to Charles Oatman remains unknown.
Law enforcement threatened violence when Black demonstrators mobilized to call White officials to account.
In response to this threatened violence and to White officials’ stonewalling, some demonstrators called for warfare.
The destruction of property was a rebellion against white supremacy.
The riot was suppressed with wanton violence.
The violent suppression was sanctioned by the governor of the state.
The pre-May 11-12, 1970 status quo did not make a ready return—it was fundamentally shaken, and a new wave of Black activism sought change in this shaken structure.
It was not just a major event for Augusta or for Georgia (though it certainly was that); in the era of Watts and Detroit, of Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, it was the largest urban rebellion in the Deep South, and rallies around the country memorialized the Augusta 6.
