Sundown towns are all-white communities that intentionally exclude African Americans or other minorities from residing within their boundaries by forced expulsion, violent threats, or economic coercion. Multiple sundown towns and counties appeared in Georgia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  Creation and Enforcement Most sundown towns emerged between the 1880s and 1960s. They were common in communities of the Northeast, Midwest, West, and parts of the South that had few African American and other minority residents prior to the 1880s.

Visitors enjoy the activities offered at the Sweet Auburn Heritage Festival, held each year in the Auburn Avenue historic district. The festival was founded in 1984 by civil rights leader Hosea Williams. The New Georgia Encyclopedia does not hold the copyright for this media resource and can neither grant nor deny permission to republish or reproduce the image online or in print. All requests for permission to publish or reproduce the resource must be submitted to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Synovus now operates banks in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and Tennessee, as well as separate trust, brokerage, and mortgage subsidiaries. The company also owns 81 percent of TSYS, one of the largest third-party processors of electronic payments.  Courtesy of Synovus Financial Corporation The New Georgia Encyclopedia does not hold the copyright for this media resource and can neither grant nor deny permission to republish or reproduce the image online or in print.

The Color Purple is the international best-selling novel by Alice Walker, an African American writer from Eatonton. Published in 1982, Walker’s epistolary tale chronicles the startling tragedy and triumph of a poor Black woman named Celie in her struggle for self-empowerment, sexual freedom, and spiritual growth in rural Georgia in the early twentieth century. The novel has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award, and was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Troup County, Georgia’s sixty-third, was established on the border of Alabama, along with four other counties, by an act of the state legislature in 1825. Georgia governor George Troup, for whom the county was named, signed an act organizing the former Creek Indian lands into counties. As one of its first official acts, the new Troup County government selected a site for the county seat. They chose a location near the geographic center of the county and named the town after the Chateau de LaGrange, the country estate of the Marquis de Lafayette, a French general and hero of the American Revolution (1775-83).