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Georgia Negro Exhibit was assembled by W. E. B. Du Bois and his students
at Atlanta University in the months preceeding the Exposition. Subtitled
``A Sociological Study," it included four major sections:
A. Statistical data showing the progress of Blacks since the Civil War
1. Charts 1
2. Charts 2
3. Charts 3
B. Portraits of Georgia Blacks
C. The Black Code in Georgia--Colonial period
to 1900

In his Autobiography Du Bois reflected on the exhibit:
In 1900 came a significant occurrence which
not until lately have I set in its proper place in my life. I had been
for over nine years studying the American Negro problem. The result
had been significant because of its unusual nature and not for its positive
accomplishment. I wanted to set down its aim and method in some outstanding
way which would bring my work to the notice of the thinking world. The
great World's Fair at Paris was being planned and I thought I might
put my findings into plans, charts and figures, so one might see what
we were trying to accomplish. I got a couple of my best students and
put a series of facts into charts: the size and growth of the Negro
American group; its division by age and sex; its distribution, education
and occupations; its books and periodicals. We made a most interesting
set of drawings, limned on pasteboard cards about a yard square and
mounted on a number of moveable standards. 1
Approximately sixty charts were included, carefully illustrated with
hand colored graphs and black and white pictures. Du Bois recalled having
relatively little time to do the project, almost no money to finance
it and little encouragement:
I was threatened with nervous prostration
before I was done and had little money left to buy passage to Paris,
nor was there a cabin left for sale. But the exhibit would fail unless
I was there. So at the very last moment I bought passage in steerage
and went over and installed the work. 2
The Georgia Negro Exhibit was included as part of the larger Exhibit
of the American Negroes at the Paris Exposition. Black and White newspapers
in the United States reported positively on the organization of both
the general exhibit and DuBois's materials dealing with Blacks in Georgia.
Both the general exhibit and the Georgia Negro Exhibit were awarded
Grand Prizes by the organizers of the Expositionl for their efforts.
3

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