Negro Participation in Southern Expositions, 1881-1915

Abstract

Not to be outdone by other sections of the country a series of Southern expositions was held, beginning in 1881 when Georgia initiated era of expositions centered on the reviving prosperity of the South. Southern expositions called attention to the population, the resources, and the products of the South. As integral part of the South, the Negro played important role in these expositions. Although there was no separate Negro exhibit at the first Atlanta International Cotton Exposition, it might be called an exhibition of the potentialities of the future.' Atlanta's success led other Southern states to undertake expositional activities.2 A real world's fair in the South had long been a subject of persistent discussion and tentative effort.3 New Orleans undertook this endeavor and held the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial in 1884, a hundred years after cotton had first been exported from America.4 The Negro, now, had a special section devoted to the work of his people. The management set aside fifty thousand dollars for this purpose, and the Negro department occupied a gallery