Parchment Rights in Treacherous Hands: The History and Future of Georgia’s “Social Status Provision”

In the throes of “Radical Reconstruction,” the population of Georgia remained sharply divided along racial and political lines. Three long years passed between emancipation and the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, during which time the status of the state’s Black population remained uncertain. They were no longer enslaved but not yet citizens, and the bounds of their freedom were uncharted. For the first time, Black men obtained political power and participated in the recreation of the Georgia constitution. When Reconstruction came to an abrupt and violent end, most of that charter met the same fate. The Social Status Provision survived, apparently serving the ends of two regimes with irreconcilable visions for Georgia’s post-war society. This Note examines the history of the Provision to help clarify its meaning in the modern day.