Cold War Civil Rights in Atlanta

This chapter explains how the Cold War, and especially the Red Scare, shaped Reddick’s actions while serving as the chief librarian of Atlanta University from 1948 to 1955, where he worked with Clarence Bacote, Hylan G. Lewis, and Benjamin Mays. Reddick’s refusal to condone America’s militarist foreign policy and its persecution of leftists at home contributed to his becoming the subject of a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe as well as a target of white Southern politicians, such as Herman Talmadge, who were committed to halting the burgeoning civil rights movement. Reddick nevertheless continued to his cultivate Pan-African ties, particularly by coordinating a monthlong visit by Nigeria’s Nnamdi Azikiwe and by co-authoring with W. Sherman Savage a history of his fraternity, Phi Beta Sigma. Reddick also promoted desegregation as a two-way street while helping prepare for a post-Brown v. Board of Education world. He likewise participated in local politics and the protracted struggles of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in the wake of Carter G. Woodson’s death. Finally, he left in Atlanta in 1955 after being fired by Atlanta University president Rufus Clement.