Black homebuyers with no alternative housing effectively resisted segregationist intimidation.

Evidence

To that end, Wallace and his allies slipped out of the guise of respectability and stepped up their intimidation campaign. In this regard, the WECC relied on men like H. C. Harris Jr., a pipe fitter in the Southern Railway’s repair shop. As the WECC’s vice-president, Harris took neighborhood “defense” every bit as seriously as Wallace. For instance, in November 1948, when real-estate agents showed a home at 328 Ashby Street to a prospective black buyer, Harris appeared on the lawn and ominously mentioned that “some property occupied by negroes in the neighborhood had been blown up.” Intimidated, the prospect refused to bid on the home. But another black buyer, Bennie Glenn, purchased the house in early 1949. When Glenn’s mother Estelle showed up at the home, Joe Wallace was waiting for her. He repeated his usual threats, adding that he would not be responsible “for what harm might happen to them and any negroes in the event they did move in.” The Glenns refused to budge. Their old home had been condemned as part of an expressway project; they had nowhere else to go. Refusing to be intimidated, they secured a restraining order against Wallace and Harris, arranged for police protection, and then moved in. — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 135

Categorization

• QUESTION: The Glenns’ success hinged on having police protection and nowhere else to go — worth investigating what made black buyers vulnerable versus resistant to these threats.
• XREF: connects to: Losing legal restrictive covenants forced segregationists to rely on private intimidation alone. — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 134; Segregationist leaders staged mob intimidation while posing as protectors to force black homebuyers out. — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 133; Threats and Klan intimidation failed to stop black-home-selling whites. — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 153 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Threats and Klan intimidation failed to stop black-home-selling whites. #corroborates (0.85) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 153
• Black self-migration, not persuasion, drove the retreat of segregationist ideas #corroborates (0.80) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 851