Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America (34 page)

I also owe a debt to several researchers who came before me. Troy Dempsey shared his own work on the expulsions and became a trusted friend; Elliot Jaspin’s writing about the seizure of black-owned land was a great help; and Marco Williams’s film
Banished
inspired me to reach out to more descendants. More than anyone else, the late Don Shadburn was my guide to “old Forsyth,” and he taught me a lot about the white community of the early and mid-twentieth century. Don and I danced a delicate dance, as I probed for documents and information that I was certain he possessed but that he had sometimes discretely, unilaterally decided to keep out of the public eye. Whenever I was in Cumming, we had lunch at Steven’s Country Kitchen, and he usually arrived with an armload of maps, photographs, and crumbling old ledgers—some of
which looked like they belonged in a museum, not in the trunk of Don’s car. He was always collegial and generous, and we formed an unexpected friendship around our shared—and very different—obsessions with the history of home. Don never once let me pick up the check.

My mother and father, Bill and Nan Phillips, deserve special thanks. Raised in the Alabama of Jim Clark, Bull Connor, and George Wallace, they rebelled against segregation in the 1950s and ’60s, and they paid a price for that in their own families. Their bravery has been an inspiration all my life.

Thanks are due to many other friends who listened at one point or another. Some of them may not remember how much they helped, but I do: Mary Anne Andrei, Joelle Biele, Will Cox, Matt Donovan, Jesse Dukes, Merrell Feitell, Serge Filanovsky, David Gessner, Jennifer Grotz, Renee Morris Hand, Rachel and Jeff Hayden, Chester Johnson, Neil Levi, Joe Murphy, Tom Platoni, James and Paula Phillips, Hirsh Sawhney, Delphine Schrank, Tom Sleigh, and Patrick and Lisa Whelchel. Deep gratitude to Tiphanie Yanique and Moses Djeli for their generosity and invaluable insights.

Alane Salierno Mason is a brilliant editor, and it has been a joy and an education to be one of her writers. To paraphrase Wallace Stegner: Oh, how beautiful a thing it is to work with those who know their job! I am grateful to all of her colleagues at Norton, and especially to Marie Pantojan for her tireless help. Thanks also to Bonnie Thompson, my wonderful copy-editor, for improving this book in so many ways.

This project began with my awe and wonder at a photograph of the Forsyth prisoners, and my spirits lifted each time I found a new image. I wish there were more pictures of the African American community of Forsyth, but just as most field laborers left no more than an X beside their names, the poor people of the county
rarely found themselves in front of a camera. In my search for whatever scraps of imagery remain, I was lucky to correspond with many photographers and collectors, and I am deeply grateful to Joe Tomasovsky, Molly Read Woo, James Michael, Bob Ramsak, Jeff Slate, Ben Chapnick on behalf of Charles Moore, and Spider Martin. Thanks to Gary Doster for his vintage postcards of Cumming, and to Melissa Montero at the Associated Press.

I didn’t know John Witherspoon back when we both lived in Georgia, but he also stumbled into that Ku Klux Klan celebration in January of 1987—when I was a junior in high school and he was a young Atlantan with a VHS recorder. It was surreal to watch his footage together thirty years later, and to realize that we might have been standing shoulder to shoulder when Frank Shirley picked up a microphone and screamed out over the Cumming square, “White Power!” Thanks to John and his videos for confirming so many of my memories of that day.

My research would not have been possible without the help of the expert archivists and librarians who so quietly and nobly preserve the past for all of us. Thanks especially to Stephen Engerrand and Allison Hudgins at the Georgia Archives; Nathan Jordan at the National Archives in Morrow; Cynthia Lewis at the King Center Archives; Jada Harris at the Atlanta History Center; Chuck Barber of the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library; the Georgia Newspaper Project at the University of Georgia; the University of North Georgia Library; the New York Public Library; the Rose Library at Drew University; the Pratt Institute Library; and New York University’s Bobst Library. Thanks to John Guillory and Ernest Gilman of the NYU English Department for teaching me what to do once those fading relics were placed in my hands.

Finally, Ellen Brazier, Sid Phillips, and Cam Phillips gave more hope, encouragement, and patience to this project than anyone. To the three who matter most:
love, love, love
. Love beyond words.

NOTES

Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.

INTRODUCTION: LAW OF THE LAND

CHAPTER 1: THE SCREAM

1
     
“at once sounded an alarm”
: “Two Companies of Militia Prevent a Serious Race Riot,”
Macon Telegraph
, September 8, 1912.

1
     
“a negro man in her bed”
: “Troops Rushed to Cumming in Autos to Check Race Riot,”
Atlanta Journal
, September 7, 1912.

2
     “
SAWNEE KLAVERN”
: Don Shadburn,
The Cottonpatch Chronicles
(Cumming, GA: Pioneer-Cherokee Heritage Series, 2003), Appendix H, 478–79.

2
     
The farm in Vickery’s Creek
: 1880 U. S. Census, Vickerys Creek, Forsyth, Georgia; roll 147; p. 402C; Enumeration District 075; image 0085; FHL microfilm 1254147.

3
     
died of meningitis
: Forsyth County Heritage Book Committee,
Forsyth County, Georgia Heritage, 1832–2011
(Waynesville, NC: County Heritage, Inc., 2011), 222.

3
     
Lillie, eleven, Jewell, eight
: 1910 U. S. Census, Settendown, Forsyth, Georgia; roll T624_188; p. 10B; Enumeration District 0043; FHL microfilm 1374201.

3
     
declared his candidacy
: “County Candidates,”
Macon Telegraph
, June 21, 1912.

4
     
men held as accomplices
: “More Trouble at Cumming,”
Augusta Chronicle
, September 12, 1912.

4
     
Morgan and Harriet Strickland
: 1910 U. S. Census, Big Creek, Forsyth, Georgia; roll T624_188; p. 18A; Enumeration District 0036; FHL microfilm 1374201; Forsyth County Return for Colored Taxpayers, 1912, Big Creek District, Georgia Archives, Morrow, GA.

4
     
“rounded up suspects”:
“Two Companies of Militia Prevent a Serious Race Riot,”
Macon Telegraph
, September 8, 1912.

4
     
black men and white women
: Roberto Franzosi, Gianluca De Fazio, and Stefania Vicari, “Ways of Measuring Agency: An Application of Quantitative Narrative Analysis to Lynchings in Georgia (1875–1930),”
Sociological Methodology
42 (2012), 1–42.

5
     
“will probably be the victim”
: “Threatened Lynching at Cumming Averted,”
Atlanta Georgian
, September 7, 1912, home edition.

5
     
“no excitement prevailed”
: Ibid.

6
     
“a determined spirit”
: “Threatened Lynching at Cumming,”
Atlanta Georgian
, September 7, 1912, final edition.

6
     
one of the first “white primary” systems
: C. Vann Woodward,
The Strange Career of Jim Crow
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 85.

6
     
the chaotic war year of 1863
: 1880 U. S. Census, Little River, Cherokee, Georgia; roll 140; FHL microfilm 1254140; p. 254B; Enumeration District 026; image 0089.

7
     
educated black man
: 1910 U. S. Census, Big Creek, Forsyth, Georgia; roll T624_188; p. 16B; Enumeration District 0036; FHL microfilm 1374201.

7
     
“a sorry white woman”
: “Two Companies of Militia Prevent a Serious Race Riot,”
Macon Telegraph
, September 8, 1912.

7
     
“the infuriated mob was upon him”
: “State Troopers Rescue Negroes at Cumming, Ga.,”
Atlanta Constitution
, September 8, 1912.

8
     
burn Grant Smith alive
: “Troops Rushed to Cumming in Autos to Check Race Riot,”
Atlanta Journal
, September 7, 1912.

8
     
to treat and dress his wounds
: “Militia Prevents Clash of Races at Cumming,”
Columbus Enquirer-Sun
, September 8, 1912.

9
     
North Georgia Agricultural College
: “Alumni Personals,”
Delta of Sigma Nu Fraternity
, 26.3 (1909), 988.

9
     
at the University of Georgia
:
Register of the University of Georgia
(Athens, 1906), 112.

9
     “
stupendous results”
: “Railroad Meeting at Cumming, Georgia,”
Atlanta Constitution
, March 11, 1871.

9
     “
build a road through the county”
:
Carroll County Times
, January 12, 1872.

9
     
“the sum of $20,000”
: “They Want a Railroad,”
Atlanta Constitution
, August 29, 1891.

10
    
Plans for the Atlanta Northeastern
: “Petition for Charter,”
Marietta Journal
, July 9, 1908.

10
    
“The line which is to be built”
: “Trolley for North Georgia,”
Atlanta Constitution
, January 9, 1910.

10
    
To many of the county’s wary hill people
: For more on the anxiety of change in the new century, see Steven Hahn,
The Roots of Southern Populism
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 37.

12
    
largest black-owned property in the county
: Forsyth County Return for Colored Taxpayers, 1912, Big Creek District, Georgia Archives, Morrow, GA.

12
    
Cumming city limits
: “Sheriff Sales,”
Baptist Leader
, January 19, 1893.

12
    
first and only black member
: Garland C. Bagley,
History of Forsyth Count
y, vol. 2 (Milledgeville, GA: Boyd Publishing, 1990), 691.

13
    
“25 cent pieces”
: Ibid., 812.

14
    “
women and children”
: “Trouble at Cumming Prevented by Militia,”
Atlanta Journal
, September 8, 1912.