New Georgia Encyclopedia: Columbus

New Georgia Encyclopedia: Columbus: "At war's end U.S. president Andrew Johnson named his friend and fellow Unionist James Johnson, a Columbusite, as provisional governor of Georgia. Local Reconstruction was marked by a violent confrontation with black Union troops in February 1866 and the Ku Klux Klan�style murder of George Ashburn, an outspoken Scalawag (local Republican) in 1868. Reconstruction brought free schools to the city. Since the Freedmen's Bureau created black schools, white leaders finally moved to establish public schools in 1867. Freedmen from rural areas built shanties on the East Commons. Despite harassment from locals and white federal troops, these blacks persevered and created a vibrant neighborhood in the southeast corner of the city known as 'Sixth and Eighth' (Avenue and Street respectively). The city's most important black churches are still in this area. Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey, a Columbus native recognized as the mother of blues, purchased a home in this area and retired here in the mid-1930s. "