Terror in the night

In the early fall of 1912, night riders were on a mission in rural Forsyth County, Georgia: the complete expulsion of every black man, woman, and child in the county.  With torches, dynamite and guns vengeful white citizens incensed by the recent rape and murder of pretty Mae Crow, a crime allegedly committed by three young black men, delivered their hate-filled message to their black neighbors: get out of the county and don’t ever come back.

And leave they did.  Rich, poor, landowners and field hands, from well-respected pastors to well-loved servants, all the black residents of Forsyth County left their homes, their fields, their schools, their churches and began new lives across the county line.  With all traces of the black community eradicated, Forsyth County was now “whites only” and would be for another 75 years.

In this powerful story of racial expulsion, Patrick Phillips traces the history of Forsyth County and the roots of racial hatred from the removal of the Cherokees, through slavery and reconstruction, to the lynchings and racial violence that led to Forsyth County’s notorious “whites only” status.  Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America is riveting story of racism, white supremacy and a decades-long racial divide.