Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America

In 1987, a local of Forsyth, Chuck Blackburn, proposed a short march “opposed to ‘fear and intimidation’” (207). This “brotherhood walk” (208) was both intended to mark the 75th anniversary of 1912 and “to coincide with the second annual—and still highly controversial—Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday” (208). Within days, Blackburn received a number of vicious threats from callers old and young. Blackburn “canceled the protest” (209) and a friend, Dean Carter, took up the cause.

Despite receiving multiple threats to their home, Carter and his wife Tammy were “[d]etermined to go ahead” (210), and merged forces with Atlanta activist Hosea Williams. As the newspapers and civic leaders responded with “annoyance” (210) and denial, a larger group of citizens began preparing “by loading pistols, tying lengths of rope into nooses, and planning a ‘White Power Rally’ for the day of the march” (211). The leaders of the rally “played on whites’ fears of [Atlanta]” (212), selling the march as the only way to keep Forsyth safe, secure, and pure.

On the morning of the march, January 17th, 1987, more than “twenty-five hundred whites” (212) gathered for the White Power Rally. Among the crowd was “notorious white supremacist” (213) J.B. Stoner. When a chartered bus of marchers finally arrived, including Hosea Williams, “an attack came to seem almost inevitable” (218).