A Most Stirring and Significant Episode

When Atlanta enacted prohibition in 1885, it was the largest city in the United States to do so. A Most Stirring and Significant Episode examines the rise of temperance sentiment among freed African Americans that made this vote possible—as well as the forces that resulted in its 1887 reversal well before the 18th Amendment to the Constitution created a national prohibition in 1919. H. Paul Thompson Jr.'s research also sheds light on the profoundly religious nature of African American involvemen