White working-class Atlanta neighborhoods were socially cohesive webs of work, kin, and residence.

Evidence

Situated in southeast Atlanta, Kirkwood was a white, working-class neighborhood of long standing. Surveys from 1957 showed that more than three-fourths of its residents had lived on the same block for more than five years, although many had been there much longer, some since the 1910s. As in Adamsville, many of the residents not only lived together, but worked together too. Within just a few blocks of each other, for instance, stood the homes of two textile workers, the time-card handler, and a power-room employee at the Fulton Bag Mill. Likewise, three switchmen, a foreman, and the chief clerk of the Atlanta Joint Terminal all lived in close proximity. In rare cases, family ties overlapped with these connections of work and home. Clay Sims, George Sims, and James Sims, for instance, all lived on the same block of Wylie Street and all worked for their family’s radiator repair service. — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 205

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Atlanta’s ward system concentrated power in white working-class neighborhoods. — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 65; Atlanta civil rights histories overlooked working-class and middle-class whites’ central role — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 629; White resistance in transitioning Atlanta neighborhoods targeted institutions like schools and churches. — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 211 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Atlanta civil rights histories overlooked working-class and middle-class whites’ central role #expands (0.88) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 629
• Residential desegregation fractured white working-class solidarity into defensive individualism #contradicts (0.83) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 191
• Atlanta’s ward system concentrated power in white working-class neighborhoods. #expands (0.82) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 65
• White resistance in transitioning Atlanta neighborhoods targeted institutions like schools and churches. #complicates (0.78) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 211
• Members’ class and racial identities shape how communities do commoning. #exemplifies (0.76) — Yael Arbell, The Circle of Commoning, 57
• White mob violence met Black families who moved into white neighborhoods. #complicates (0.74)