Augusta (Georgia) Riot of 1970

As news of Oatman’s death spread among Augusta’s black community, its leaders met with the chairman of the county commission at the county municipal building and negotiated separate juvenile detention within the jail. When they emerged from the meeting, a crowd of 500 had gathered around the building. Some members of the crowd tore down the Georgia state flag, which was emblazoned with the confederate battle flag, and burned it. Rev. A.D. Sims, a leader of the local Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) branch, urged those assembled to meet for a rally. As the crowd made its way to the appointed location, the riot began. People threw rocks at motorists, looted stores in the area, and eventually destroyed at least fifty stores.

The unrest was quickly contained, but as the smoke cleared it became apparent that police and other leaders, including Georgia’s Gov. Lester Maddox, were guilty of overreacting. The governor immediately adopted a scorched-earth policy toward the rioters, whom he claimed were stirred to action by communists and members of the Black Panther Party (BPP). Concerned about snipers, although none were actually ever found, Maddox also ordered the police to deal with them by razing ”any building they’re in to its very foundation if necessary to get them out” (Southern Regional Council, 25_26). At 1:00 A.M. on the morning of May 12, 1,200 national guardsmen arrived on the scene. Although the riot was over before dawn, the National Guard did not leave the area until May 18. Autopsies confirmed that the six men killed in the riot were all shot in the back-one was shot nine times-with police-issued shotguns. According to witnesses, as many as four of these men were bystanders. In any case, not a single one of the victims was armed and two were teenagers. After the riot, police arrested the city’s ”one true militant,” Wilbert Allen, and charged him with inciting a riot (Southern Regional Council, 38). The Committee of 10 negotiated the creation of the interracial Human Relations Committee to deal with race relations surrounding the issues of employment, education, housing, and law enforcement in Augusta. The committee still exists today.