It should not have happened: Dismantling institutional tensions, class stratification and traditional notions of uplift ideology during the Atlanta Student Movement, 1960–1961

This thesis argues that had the first generation of Atlanta Student Movement leaders not acknowledged and confronted historic institutional tensions prevalent among the historically black colleges and universities and class stratifications in the city’s black community, the movement would not have been able to successfully challenge and dismantle segregation in downtown Atlanta between the years of 1960 and 1961. By providing a history of each institution’s founding and examining leadership formation within Atlanta’s black community, I argue that prior to the founding of the Atlanta Student Movement, black Atlanta’s leaders were established based on institutional affiliations and class status (whether real or imagined). This method for leadership formation contributed to traditional notions of uplift ideology, an ideology that argued that as African Americans continued to make economic and moral progress, white racism would continue to diminish. Ultimately uplift ideology created a black middle-class whose duty it was to speak for the entire community. As a result, other groups, including the working-class, college students, and women had fewer opportunities to advocate for themselves. This thesis argues that uplift ideology not only perpetuated racism and paternalism in Atlanta, but also served as a means to fracture the black community. By confronting the very system that contributed to uplift ideology the first generation of Atlanta Student Movement participants ushered in a new method for challenging segregation. This effort to grapple with class tensions within the black community was manifested both intellectually and concretely in terms of creating a movement that placed an emphasis on democratic methods for selecting leaders. Through the creation of a more democratic movement, the students not only empowered themselves, but also empowered working-class members of their community by continuously inserting issues of labor equality into their agenda