The Camilla Massacre, which took place on September 19, 1868, was one of the more violent episodes in Reconstruction Georgia. Thomas Nast CartoonTwo months earlier, Georgia had fulfilled the requirements of Congress's Radical Reconstruction plan and been readmitted to the Union. Yet, in early September, the state legislatureexpelled twenty-eight newly elected members because they were at least one-eighth black. Among those removed was southwest Georgia representative Philip Joiner. On September 19, Joiner, along with northerners Francis F. Putney and William P. Pierce, led a twenty-five-mile march of several hundred blacks and a few whites from Albany to Camilla, the Mitchell County seat, to attend a Republican political rally.
