Demographics of Georgia (U.S. state)
The demographics of Georgia are inclusive of the ninth most populous state in the United States, with over 9.68 million people (2010 census), just over 3% of America's population.
Georgia (U.S. state)
With white Democrats having regained power in the state legislature, they passed a poll tax in 1877, which disenfranchised many poor blacks and whites, preventing them from registering. In 1908, the state established a white primary; with the only competitive contests within the Democratic Party, it was another way to exclude blacks from politics. They constituted 46.7% of the state's population in 1900, but the proportion of Georgia's population that was African American dropped thereafter to 28%, primarily due to tens of thousands leaving the state during the Great Migration.Historical Census Browser, 1900 Federal Census, University of Virginia , accessed March 15, 2008 According to the Equal Justice Institute's 2015 report on lynching in the United States (1877-1950), Georgia had 531 deaths, the second-highest total of these extralegal executions of any state in the South. The overwhelming number of victims were black and male. Political disfranchisement persisted through the mid-1960s, until after Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
An Atlanta-born Baptist minister who was part of the educated middle class that had developed in Atlanta's African-American community, Martin Luther King, Jr. emerged as a national leader in the civil rights movement. King joining with others to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in Atlanta in 1957 to provide political leadership for the Civil Rights Movement across the South.