Margaret Mitchell and Black Atlanta

Although of the details of Margaret Mitchell's public life are well known, there was a secret life which only recently surfaced with the discovery of Margaret Mitchell's extraordinary involvement with Atlanta's African American community.

At a time when segregation was the law of the land and the Ku Klux Klan regularly held rallies at nearby Stone Mountain, Margaret Mitchell was working on several projects with black Atlantans, notably one involving medical education.

Her involvement with the African American community began when Peggy was a 19-year old debutante. She was the only one of her debutante group who chose to work in the city’s black clinics. This was a reason why she was rejected from the Junior League.

Providing Scholarships for Medical Students

In 1941, Dr. Benjamin Mays had come to historically black Morehouse College as its new president and sought help for promising students. The first person he approached was Margaret Mitchell. Despite the stern admonitions she received from her parents about hoarding money in time of war, Margaret agreed to an anonymous donation of $80, enough at that time to put one student through one year of medical school.

When Dr. Mays wrote her a letter describing, in detail, the impact her gift had on its young recipient, the novelist decided to arrange her finances to make these contributions a regular event. Dr. Mays agreed to keep the scholarship fund a secret, and did so for many years after her death.

The fund came to light when Dr. Otis Smith, the first African American in the state of Georgia to be certified as a pediatrician, approached Mary Rose Taylor, chairman of the Margaret Mitchell House, Inc., with the story.

Dr. Smith, who also is a past president of the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP, had been a first-year student at Meharry Medical College, in Nashville, Tenn., when his money ran out. Despite his years of work as a teacher, shoe shiner and field hand, he told Dr. Mays he simply had no more money. Mays sent him back to Nashville, and said cryptically, “Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll take care of it.”

His tuition and fees were completely paid, but it was 35 years later (and Margaret Mitchell had long ago died) before Dr. Mays revealed the source of the gift – one of about 40 to 50 Margaret Mitchell had made to African American medical students.

Her interest in Atlanta’s black community was again made evident when it was also revealed that she supported the early efforts to desegregate the city’s police department.