Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America

“I set myself the task of finding out what really happened—not because the truth is an adequate remedy for the past, and not because it can undo what was done. Instead, I wanted to honor the dead by leaving a fuller account of what they endured and all that they and their descendants lost.”

Though much of the book is a detailed narrative of the events of 1912, Phillips’ purpose overall is to begin specifically documenting the depth of the tragedy of Forsyth’s expulsion of its black residents. In the final pages of the text, Phillips quotes the archived, recorded interviews of several black people who directly experienced exile from Forsyth. Thus, the book ends in the same way it begins: honoring the people who lost their livelihoods and lives because of the white violence in Forsyth.

“In only a single generation, the Crows went from working fields their ancestors had owned before the war to being tenants and sharecroppers.”

The economic circumstances post-emancipation in Georgia were a vital catalyst for the events of 1912 in Forsyth. As newly freed black families began to work to build lives from themselves, with varying degrees of success, white farmers found themselves in competition. As a result, families like the Crows had a reservoir of resentment about their poverty and felt it appropriate to direct this anger at their black neighbors and coworkers.

“African Americans in Forsyth knew that nothing they said or did was likely to convince Bill Reid to pursue those who had murdered Rob Edwards.”

The futility of trying to utilize the American legal systems to obtain justice was not lost on the black residents of Forsyth County. Though Bill Reid was a particularly dangerous, racist sheriff, none of the black residents of Forsyth would have assumed, in 1912, that they could have found fairness or equality in the county’s police or courts. Phillips traces the history at play in Forsyth’s legal system, pointing out that for a time prior to 1912, black residents did have access to legal recourse. That access, however, was swiftly taken away as political interests shifted in the country at large.

“When darkness fell, the night riders set out with one goal: to stoke the terror created by the lynching of Edwards and use it to drive black people out of Forsyth County for good.”

The terror of the nightriders in Forsyth echoed in counties across the South both in 1912 and the years preceding and following it. Yet Forsyth County’s white men managed to carry out this horrific practice with such intensity and impunity that they were able to completely exile all black residents in only a few weeks. The white men participating in this terror used guns and explosives to scare black residents or worse, injure and murder them. Phillips also includes the detail that sometimes, white children would be enlisted in this horrific practice—they would go up to a black neighbor’s door to warn them of the violence that was coming.

“All over the county, beneath the ground on which black churches stood, the soil is rich with ashes.”

One of the most successful aspects of the nightriders' reign of terror in Forsyth was the destruction of the heart of the black community: the church. The physical erasure of the five black churches of Forsyth helped establish the grounds for the total removal of black people from the county. Phillips refers to this haunting legacy several times towards the end of the book, since there are no actual monuments or any public recognition of the events that took place in Forsyth.

“From what source did all that energy come, and in what epic drama did these people think they were at last taking part?”

The lynchings and other forms of violence perpetrated by white Forsyth citizens were part of a larger “epic drama” people believed they were undertaking. Phillips emphasizes this aspect of the white mob violence that occurred in the county. The substantial “energy” and hatred that came out of white residents had to have come from somewhere; it is most likely that these people felt that they were participating in something that was tradition—a cornerstone of southern, white identity.

“Resentful of their rich white neighbors and eager to show that they were not at the very bottom of the social hierarchy, many of these earliest ‘night riders’ approached the task with a brutal zeal.”

The economic circumstances of white sharecroppers and farmers, many of whom felt anger towards their wealthier neighbors, was a crucial part of the white violence of 1912. Earlier in American history, white people in poverty might not have felt as resentful towards black people in their communities; post-emancipation, southern whites felt pushed into economic circumstances and dominant narratives of white superiority that allowed them to revise their identities and to approach violence towards black people as a righteous undertaking.

“As he sat in his handcuffs, watching his sister through the candlelight and listening as her words quietly sealed his doom, at least a few jurors must have seen before them not a fiendish black rapist but a frightened teenage boy.”

This description of Oscar Daniel in the closing moments of his trial are an optimistic take on the potential perspective of the all-white jury who would shortly thereafter sentence him to death by hanging. Yet this is also an important reminder of the harmful stereotypes that plagued young black men in the South and that often led to their deaths. Daniel was young and innocent, yet many of the white people in the courtroom were unable to view him as anything other than “fiendish.”

“All these people had in common an urgent goal, and that was to stop the intimidation as soon as possible, lest they wake to find that every black field hand, overseer, driver, cook, and washerwoman in the county had vanished into the night.”

The wealthier white citizens of Forsyth County had difficulties adjusting to domestic life after their black servants were gone. Though they intended to stop “the intimidation,” this quickly proved unsuccessful. Shortly after, white citizens simply moved on to using new systems and technologies to replace the black bodies in which they formerly relied. The speed of this replacement demonstrates how little even more moderate white citizens cared, in particular, about the humanity or well-being of their black workers and neighbors.

“Nash described how whites had exploited the desperate situation of their black neighbors in 1912 and had swooped in with offers to buy livestock and farm implements at a fraction of their real value.”

Phillips cites the work of white journalist Royal Freeman Nash, who was sent by W.E.B. DuBois to Forsyth in 1915 to investigate the circumstances of the black expulsion. Nash’s work is some of the only documentation of the horrific economic abuse that white residents undertook as their black neighbors fled, under duress. In many cases, black people were forced to sell their homes at a fraction of the actual value; in others, black residents left with such urgency that their land was simply abandoned. This exploitation was part of how Forsyth could reestablish itself as an all-white, economically viable county.

“Only in 1952, on her deathbed, did she admit to her daughter Esta that she still remembered the look on Oscar Daniel’s face, and had carried all her life a terrible fear that the boy was innocent.”

On the morning of Oscar Daniel’s hanging, he made prolonged eye contact with Azzie Crow, Mae’s mother. Azzie eventually admitted that she carried, “a terrible fear that the boy was innocent.” This heartbreaking moment reveals an important thematic aspect of the legacy of the white violence that took place in Forsyth: Despite the internal resistance of some white people to the events unfolding around them, they would ignore these feelings and carry their regret to their deathbed.

“The last thing Knox and Daniel saw before black sacks were placed over their heads was a hillside dotted with thousands of white faces—young and old, rich and poor, men, women, and children.”

Before Ernest Knox and Oscar Daniel were killed, they would have seen the thousands of white people gathered to witness the double hanging. Sheriff Reid helped arrange the event so that despite the fact that the hangings were carried out by the courts, instead of mob justice, the mob could still celebrate the violent murder of these two young black men. Phillips continues to note the ways that white citizens, including those who might be presumed innocent—like women, children, or the elderly—actively participated in racialized violence towards black people in Forsyth County.

“[Forsyth] was a place where powerful whites rejected black citizenship on principle and resented the very idea of paying for black labor.”

The crux of wealthy white citizens’ ability to go along with the expulsion of black residents was their participation and belief in an economic system that could rely on free black labor. As a result, it was relatively easy for these white people to passively support the events of 1912, since it allowed them to reaffirm their values of white superiority and white domination. In addition, the support of wealthy white residents allowed poor whites to carry out extreme violence against black residents without fear of the law; Phillips shows how in other nearby counties, this was not necessarily the case. Forsyth’s unique composition allowed for a new social agreement between rich and poor white residents that redefined the whole county as all white.

“At the heart of the controversy was not justice so much as decorum.”

Critiques of Bill Reid’s behavior at the double hangings of Knox and Daniel likened the event to a “three-ring circus” (154). Yet Phillips notes that this behavior was condemned more because it went against convention and decorum than because it was unjust or unnecessarily violent. This was a sentiment echoed in the earlier trials of both young men as the judge ended the case with a series of compliments for the excellent comportment of the Georgia soldiers guarding the trials. For upstanding white Forsyth citizens, as well as other leading white political figures in Georgia, decorum was much more important than justice.

“But privately, some people must have shaken their heads at the fact that Elliot had died in the exact same fashion as Mae Crow and in almost the exact same place—despite the fact that Crow’s alleged murderers were now dead and the entire black population of Oscarville had been banished across the county line.”

After the hangings, when citizens located another white body in the same place as Mae Crow in the Forsyth woods, some white people might have questioned the justice system. The evidence seemed to point to the existence of an actual murderer—not Ernest Knox or Oscar Daniel. Yet the pervasive collective racism of Forsyth County white people meant that this parallel was quickly forgotten and nothing was done to right the scales of justice.

“After a few generations of silence, what began as an open secret had become a carefully guarded one, revealed only at the very end, and only to a select few.”

In deathbed confessions to the local doctor, many of the white nightriders of 1912 professed their deep regret for the violence they caused. These revelations were profound reflections of the pain of having internalized such incredible levels of hatred and resentment, as well as having caused such damage to other people. This is a vital part of the narrative of the text as Phillips illustrates the human cost of active participation in white supremacist beliefs and actions.

“But for all that, Forsyth still seemed normal to me as a kid.”

Phillips' reflections on his own ignorance to the racism surrounding him in 1970s Forsyth is an important part of the text. The normalcy of white supremacy in white people’s daily lives is one of the most important reasons for its pervasiveness and continuity. As Phillips grew older and began to examine the circumstances of his childhood, he began to unpack the ways that the society around him facilitated beliefs in white superiority and dominance, as well as to look at the history and erasure that led Forsyth County to where it was in the latter half of the 20th century.

“There, less than a mile from the spot where Mae had been found with her skull bashed in—where she had sickened and died, and where Ernest Knox had first ‘confessed his crime’—stood two black people, holding hands and wading knee-deep in the waters of Lake Lanier.”

The presence of two black people who arrived in Forsyth as part of a company picnic became the impetus for another act of racial violence in 1980. The perpetrator was a distant relative of Mae Crow, whose murder was the catalyst for the original violence of 1912. In a disturbing parallel to the events of 1912, Melvin Crowe attacked the young visitors by shooting at them in their car, significantly wounding the man, Miguel Marcelli. To complete this parallel, some of the white neighbors who witnessed the event chose to ignore the violence happening directly outside their door, just like their counterparts in the early 20th century.

“Organizers of the White Power Rally played on whites’ fears of the city and presented the gathering not only as a celebration of ‘white power,’ but as a defense of the ‘racial purity’ that had defined Forsyth for as long as anyone could remember.”

As activists prepared for a Brotherhood March to bring attention to the racism of Forsyth County, a huge number of counter-protesters planned a White Power Rally to defend the “racial purity” of the county. This event brought to light, both locally and nationally, the violent, hateful underbelly of Forsyth County’s social structure that had practically remained the same since 1912. Worse, the public attention for the White Power Rally tapped into a larger population of white citizens who were able to buy into pandering of fear. This is an important reflection of larger social dynamics that allow white supremacy to fester in American life: Active participants in white supremacist hate groups are able to tap into the fears of the wider white community and garner support for racist actions.

“For the second time in a week, we were left alone in Forsyth.”

Patrick Phillips' family, dedicated liberal white activists, moved to Forsyth in part because of its legacy of white violence and hatred. As the Brotherhood Marches took place in 1987, Phillips watched his parents participate in resisting white supremacy and noted the difference between the actions of activists who had come from outside and the experience of his family, who continued living side by side with the counter-protesters and KKK members publicly rallying for white racial purity. Where earlier in his life Phillips had felt that his childhood home was normal, he was able to begin understanding as a teenager the dramatic ways that Forsyth was quite different than other contexts.

“Could a culture of fear as deeply engrained as Forsyth’s really be changed by a peace march—even one attended by twenty thousand people and broadcast all over the world?”

The optimism of the Brotherhood Marchers for shifting the “culture of fear” in Forsyth was short-lived as it became clear that the county was dedicated to continuing its legacy of white supremacy. Though several government-level interventions were proposed and carried out, very little social or political shift happened in Forsyth after the marches. Phillips later points out that these changes only took place as the gradual result of larger economic shifts in Georgia.

“In other words, even after working together for almost a year, the two races were as divided as ever in Forsyth—and above all on the very first issue they discussed: reparations for the victims of 1912.”

One of the resolutions carried out after the second Brotherhood March was a biracial committee of Forsyth citizens who worked on several race-related issues. At the end of the year they worked together, the committee had not agreed on one conclusion; most importantly, they were not able to make any ground on determining reparations for the victims of 1912. Even in the present, Phillips notes with sadness that despite the social shifts in Forsyth, no public acknowledgement, apology, or act of attrition has been made towards the families of those affected by the racial violence of 1912.

“You will find the only visible reminder of 1912 in the entire county: the headstone of Bud and Azzie Crow’s oldest daughter, Mae.”

Phillips underscores the complete lack of recognition of the victims of 1912 by describing the “only visible reminder” as Mae Crow’s headstone. Though Mae Crow was indeed a victim of violence in 1912, her death was the catalyst for a rash of terrorist incidents against black residents; the myth of Mae’s white purity caused the deaths and dispossessions of hundreds of black people. The fact that none of these people have been recognized or memorialized in any public way is a harmful aspect of Forsyth’s legacy in need of rectification.