Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America

While many journalists and white residents touted Forsyth County’s violent exile of black residents as a coincidental, unintentional series of events, it was in fact the result of and continuance of a consistent erasure of racially motivated events. In the 19th century, Forsyth County was the site of a violent military removal of “sixteen thousand native people” (77). In a series of events remarkably similar to what would later happen in 1912, this history was quickly erased from the records and “descendants of the county’s oldest families…celebrated their ‘pioneer ancestors” (77). Like many places in the United States, Forsyth County’s history began with the forced removal of indigenous people, then continued with a legacy of other racially motivated violence.

By ignoring or intentionally subverting historical narratives of racial violence, Forsyth County maintained a veneer of respectability and economic viability. This cycle repeatedly happened: Shortly after the events of 1912, “the county went into a kind of Rip Van Winkle sleep, as residents resumed lives that on the surface looked no different from any other rural place in Georgia” (182). Later, in 1987, white residents were outraged that they were accused of not being “peaceful” (223) after the “attacks on the Brotherhood Marchers” (223).