- Park
- Segregation
- 1895–1960s
- City of Atlanta
- General area only
Piedmont Park: whites-only parks and the 'Atlanta Compromise' (1895)
At the 1895 Cotton States Exposition here, Booker T. Washington urged Black Southerners to accept segregation for now. In the years after 1906 every city park was designated for whites only.
The record
In his Atlanta Exposition address Washington proposed that Black Southerners accept segregation and set aside the demand for voting rights, in return for basic legal protection, property ownership and vocational education. W. E. B. Du Bois and others rejected the bargain. After the 1906 massacre Jim Crow ordinances followed quickly. Wikipedia's history of Atlanta says all parks were designated whites-only, with the private Joyland (1921) as an exception; Washington Park (1919) was the first park opened for Black Atlantans. The New Georgia Encyclopedia notes that Ponce de Leon Park admitted Black people 'only as servants'. The NAACP sued to open the city's golf courses and other facilities in the 1950s.
Today: Now a city park open to all.