A voluntary citizens committee directed Atlanta’s residential racial change

Evidence

More than any other public or private agency, the WSMDC played the pivotal role in determining the course of residential racial change in postwar Atlanta. Despite its importance, the committee generally reacted to rumors of racial change and conflict as they surfaced. Typically, the WSMDC began by investigating reports of neighborhoods “threatened” by racial transition, gauging the attitudes of local whites with telephone canvasses, written questionnaires, and public meetings. The information collected offers a rare degree of detail and an impressive amount of insight into the processes of residential racial change at the most minute levels. The polls conducted by the committee offer immediate measures of the mood of different neighborhoods, while the house-by-house surveys enable mapping the geography of white resistance with unprecedented precision. Most important, for the WSMDC and its allies in city hall, the reams of information they collected stood as a means to limit the impact of residential desegregation on their city and maintain the peace on its streets. — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 184

Categorization

• XREF: This closely parallels the information-gathering and surveillance logic in ‘Along the Archival Grain’ — colonial officials collecting detailed subject data to control population movement. — connects to: White resistance in transitioning Atlanta neighborhoods targeted institutions like schools and churches. — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 211; Volunteers spontaneously raised environmental and racial concerns rather than avoiding them — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”: The work of avoiding…, 64

Broader Connections

• White resistance in transitioning Atlanta neighborhoods targeted institutions like schools and churches. #complicates (0.78) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 211
• Volunteers spontaneously raised environmental and racial concerns rather than avoiding them #corroborates (0.72) — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”, 64