A Most Stirring and Significant Episode

Religion and the Rise and Fall of Prohibition in Black Atlanta, 1865–1887

H. Paul Thompson, Jr.

• Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9780875804583
• eBook ISBN:
  9781609090739
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

When Atlanta enacted prohibition in 1885, it was the largest city in the United States to do so. A Most Stirring and Significant Episode examines the rise of temperance sentiment among freed African Americans that made this vote possible—as well as the forces that resulted in its 1887 reversal well before the 18th Amendment to the Constitution created a national prohibition in 1919.

H. Paul Thompson Jr.'s research also sheds light on the profoundly religious nature of African American involvement in the temperance movement. Contrary to the prevalent depiction of that movement as being one predominantly led by white, female activists like Carrie Nation, Thompson reveals here that African Americans were central to the rise of prohibition in the south during the 1880s. As such, A Most Stirring and Significant Episode offers a new take on the proliferation of prohibition and will not only speak to scholars of prohibition in the US and beyond, but also to historians of religion and the African American experience.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Timeline
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part I— Messengers from the North
• chapter 1 — “Our Enterprise Flows from the Gospel of Christ"
• Chapter 2 — The Message Trickles South
• Chapter 3 — The Trickle Becomes a Flood
• Part II — Reformers in the South
• Chapter 4 — Taking Ownership
• Chapter 5 — “The Most Enthusiastic Election Ever Held in This Country”
• Chapter 6 — The “Dry” Years, 1885–1887
• Chapter 7 — Prohibition Revisited
• Afterword
• Appendix I — Biographical Sketches of Key Personalities
• Appendix II — Regulating Atlanta’s Liquor Industry, 1865–1907
• Notes to Introduction
• Notes to Chapter 1 — “Our Enterprise Flows from the Gospel of Christ"
• Notes to Chapter 2 — The Message Trickles South
• Notes to Chapter 3 — The Trickle Becomes a Flood
• Notes to Chapter 4 — Taking Ownership
• Notes to Chapter 5 — “The Most Enthusiastic Election Ever Held in This Country”
• Notes to Chapter 6 — The “Dry” Years, 1885–1887
• Notes to Chapter 7 — Prohibition Revisited
• Notes to Afterwords
• Notes to Appendix II
• Works Cited
• Index