A rare archival photograph of Pryor Street in Atlanta, Georgia, captured around 1880, provides a stark visual record of a bustling southern cityscape operating ten years after a monumental national milestone. On July 15, 1870, Georgia officially became the very last Confederate state to be readmitted to the Union under the strict, chaotic guidelines of the Reconstruction Acts, formally ending its status as a military district and reinstating its political sovereignty.
The bitter, unmentioned legislative drama behind this specific July 15 readmission was that Georgia had actually been readmitted to the Union once before in 1868, only to be expelled by the federal government. The U.S. Congress revoked Georgia’s statehood and reinstated strict military rule after the white-majority state legislature expelled twenty-eight newly elected African American senators and representatives. To win back their statehood on July 15, Georgia was forced to ratify the Fifteenth Amendment and seat those black legislators, making their final readmission a monumental victory for civil rights on the Reconstruction home front.
Image: Wikimedia Commons, public domain
