Remembering The Augusta Riot

We can document almost everything around us with devices of all kinds. But in 1970, there were few cameras around when police opened fire on crowds in Augusta, Georgia. A protest-turned-riot over the brutal murder of a Black teenager left six Black men dead from police bullets. But there was never justice for any of the deaths, including 16-year-old Charles Oatman in the Richmond County Jail. The story of that riot remains relatively unknown among Augusta residents both Black and white. Us & Them host Trey Kay talks with podcast producer Sea Stachura about her award-winning work, “Shots in the Back: Exhuming the 1970 Augusta Riot.” Historians call it one of the largest uprisings of the Civil Rights Era in the Deep South.