On September 19, 1868, as Black politicians and supporters held a peaceful political rally, mobs of white people in Camilla, Georgia, led by the sheriff, opened fire, killing at least seven Black people, including a Black mother and her infant child, in a mass lynching, and assaulting and wounding at least 30 others. The political rally, which started in Albany, Georgia, and culminated in Camilla, Georgia, was held to protest the expulsion of Black elected officials from the Georgia Assembly. In an effort to terrorize Black communities further, over the weeks following the massacre, white men from Camilla and the surrounding areas intimidated and assaulted Black people throughout the Georgia countryside, threatening to kill any Black person who dared to vote in the next election. In the period after the Civil War, Black men seized new opportunities for political power by exercising their right to vote, running for office, and holding political positions. In an effort to uphold racial hierarchy, white state legislators devised a strategy to purge the Georgia Assembly of the 33 Black and mixed race men who had been democratically elected. On September 3, ignoring the results of the democratic process, the white majority successfully voted to expel all Black and mixed race lawmakers from the Assembly. On the morning of September 19, one of the expelled Black lawmakers named Philip Joiner organized a 25-mile peaceful march from Albany, Georgia, to the town of Camilla, Georgia. The group, composed of a few hundred people, marched with a plan to deliver political speeches in Camilla. An armed white man and the sheriff met them outside town and warned them that white residents were prepared to respond with violence if they honored their speaking engagement. When the men refused to be intimidated, the sheriff informed them that “the people would not allow Radical[s] to speak at Camilla.” By the time the group reached the courthouse square in Camilla, they were met by the sheriff who, instead of protecting their constitutional right to assembly, had mobilized white men in Camilla to ambush the group. Stationed outside of storefronts and surrounding the courthouse square, armed white men shot at the lawmakers and their supporters, and then pursued them with bloodhounds, horses, and shotguns for 10 miles outside of Camilla. Eyewitness accounts later recounted that Black people were shot repeatedly as they lay dead or wounded on the ground and ran for cover in the surrounding wooded areas outside of the town. By the end of this mass lynching, at least seven Black people lay dead. At least 30 more people were wounded. One 20-year-old Black man reported that after being pursued by a group of armed white men into a ditch, he was struck on the head with a gun and forced to go back to Camilla to pick up the bodies before he escaped. The Camilla Massacre not only took the lives of Black people on September 19, but traumatized Black communities and served as a deterrent to those who dared to exercise their political rights. Learn more about more episodes of racial violence during the Reconstruction era by reading EJI’s Reconstruction in America report.
 Thomas Nast Cartoon, The Camilla Massacre, 1868 Illustration by Thomas Nast, Public domain
The Camilla Massacre was aftermath of a political rally in Mitchell County, Georgia, that ended with numerous participants killed and wounded in the town courthouse square. Following the Georgia Constitution of 1868, thirty-three African American men, all Republicans and often called the Original 33, were elected to the Georgia State Assembly, during the early years of Reconstruction. They were some of the first African American state legislators in the United States. After the election, the white Democratic majority in the legislature conspired to remove all black and mixed-race members from the Assembly. The Original 33 were subsequently expelled on September 3, 1868. Southwest Georgia Representative Philip Joiner, one of the expelled members, made plans for a march and rally to be held on the courthouse square in Mitchell County, roughly twenty-five miles away to protest the expulsion. The march began on the morning of September 19, 1868, in Albany, Georgia. In each passing town, more people joined the march, until there were almost three hundred men, both black and white. They carried guns and weapons with them into the town of Camilla and were met by local sheriff, Mumford S. Poore and a citizens committee. Poore warned the participants to surrender their guns or they would be met with violence in the town square even though it was customary and legal to carry weapons at the time. The marchers refused and continued into the courthouse square for the rally. Local whites who gathered were quickly deputized by Poore before the marchers arrived and stationed themselves in town storefronts. As the marchers entered the square, they were fired upon from all directions. The participants retreated into the swamps outside the town, but at least fifteen were killed and another forty were wounded. Joiner survived the attack and later gave testimony to the Freedman’s Bureau. Over the next few weeks, white men from Camilla proceeded through the countryside beating and warning blacks that they would be killed if they voted in the next election. The intimidation significantly reduced the Republican vote and none of the Original 33 returned to the Georgia Assembly. In 1976 the Black Caucus of the Georgia Assembly honored the Original 33 with a statue that depicts the rise of the African American politicians, on the grounds of the Georgia State Capital, in Atlanta. The “Expelled Because of their Color” monument, done by sculptor John Riddle, has an inscription of the names of the thirty-three members on its base along with the counties they represented. They were: Representatives Philip Joiner (Dougherty), Malcolm Claiborn (Burke), Tunis Campell Jr. (McIntosh), Samuel Williams (Harris), John Warren (Burke), Abraham Smith (Muscogee), Alexander Stone (Jefferson), Alfred Richardson (Clarke), Robert Lumpkin (Macon), Peter O’Neil (Baldwin), George Linder (Laurens), James M. Simms (Chatham), Ulysses L. Houston (Bryan), William A. Golden (Liberty), Samuel Gardner (Warren), F.H. Fyall (Macon), Monday Floyd (Morgan), Madison Davis (Clarke), John T. Costin (Talbot), Romulus Moore (Columbia), Abram Colby (Greene), George H. Clower (Monroe), Edwin Belcher (Wilkes), Thomas A. Allen (Jasper), William Henry Harrison (Hancock), Thomas Beard (Richmond), William Guilford (Upson), Henry McNeil Turner (Bibb), James Ward Porter (Chatham) and Eli Barnes (Hancock), and State Senators Tunis Campell Sr. (McIntosh, Liberty and Tattnail) Aaron Alpeoria Bradley (Chatham, Bryan and Effingham) and George Wallace (Hancock, Baldwin and Washington). In 1998, 130 years later, the Camilla Massacre was officially publicly recognized by the residents of Camilla.
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Nielsen, E. (2020, June 19). The Camilla Massacre (1868). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/events-african-american-history/the-camilla-massacre-1868/ Source of the author's information:
Lee W. Formwalt, “Camilla Massacre,” Georgiaencyclopedia.org, August 5, 2002, https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/camilla-massacre; Ann Taylor Boutwell, “In Case You Were Wondering: Expelled Monument,” Web.archive.org, July 16, 2015, https://web.archive.org/web/20150716011805/http://www.atlantaintownpaper.com/features/INCaseWondering.php; Morris Duncan, Freedom’s Shore (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986). The Camilla massacre took place in Camilla, Georgia, on Saturday, September 19, 1868. African Americans had been given the right to vote in Georgia's 1868 state constitution, which had passed in April, and in the months that followed, whites across the state used violence to combat their newfound political strength, often through the newly founded Ku Klux Klan. Georgia agents of the Freedmen’s Bureau recorded 336 cases of murder or assault with intent to kill against freedmen from January 1 through November 15.[1] Camilla, Georgia
African-Americans, Southern white Republican sympathizers (scalawags) (Republicans)
Sheriff's Department, Mitchell County, Georgia
150-300
9–15
None The massacre followed the expulsion of the Original 33 black members of the Georgia General Assembly earlier that month. Among those expelled was southwest Georgia representative Philip Joiner. On September 19, Joiner led a twenty-five-mile march of several hundred blacks (freedmen), as well as a few whites, from Albany, Georgia, to Camilla, the Mitchell County seat, to attend a Republican political rally on the courthouse square.[2] Estimates of the number of participants range from 150[3] to 300.[4] The local sheriff and "citizens committee" in the majority-white town warned the black and white activists that they would be met with violence, and demanded that they surrender their guns, even though carrying weapons was legal and customary at the time.[4] The marchers refused to give up their guns and continued to the courthouse square, where a group of local whites, quickly deputized by the sheriff, fired upon them. This assault forced the Republicans and freedmen to retreat into the swamps as locals gave chase, killing an estimated nine to fifteen of the black rally participants while wounding forty others. "Whites proceeded through the countryside over the next two weeks, beating and warning Negroes that they would be killed if they tried to vote in the coming election."[4] The Camilla Massacre was the culmination of smaller acts of anti-Black violence committed by white inhabitants that had plagued southwest Georgia since the end of the Civil War.[3]: 1–2 The massacre received national publicity, prompted Congress to return Georgia to military occupation, and was a factor in the 1868 U.S. presidential election.[2][5] "The Camilla Massacre remained part of southwest Georgia's hidden past until 1998, when Camilla residents publicly acknowledged the massacre for the first time and commemorated its victims."[2]
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Which of these issues was a major role in the camilla massacre in southwest georgia in 1868?
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