Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America (35 page)

14
    
“armed for war”
: Ibid.

14
    
“pitched battle between the races”
: “Race Riot, Sheriff Shot,”
Macon Telegraph
, July 28, 1912.

14
    
“a plot to burn the town”
: “Race Riot Ends, Order Reigns in Plainville,”
Macon Telegraph
, July 29, 1912.

15
    
armed black men
: “Race War: Whites Clash with Negroes Near Calhoun,”
Atlanta Constitution
, July 28, 1912.

15
    
“the battle was maintained”
: “Plainville Quiet After Two Days of Excitement,”
Macon Telegraph
, July 30, 1912.

15
    
“a band of negroes”
: “Shot in Race Riot,”
New York Times
, July 29, 1912.

CHAPTER 2: RIOT, ROUT, TUMULT

17
    
[But] “while we were sitting there”
: Isabella D. Harris, letter to Max Gilstrap, January 28, 1987, postscript p. 5–6. Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library / University of Georgia Libraries, ms2687(m).

18
    
“fully 500 white men”
: “Threatened Lynching at Cumming Averted,”
Atlanta Georgian
, September 7, 1912, final edition.

18
    
“many arms and munitions”
: “Troops Rushed to Cumming in Autos to Check Race Riot,”
Atlanta Journal
, September 7, 1912.

18
    
“old rifles, shotguns ancient and modern”
: “Terror in Cumming, Race Riot Feared,”
Atlanta Georgian
, September 11, 1912, home edition.

19
    
“A hundred or more white men”
: “Threatened Lynching at Cumming Averted,”
Atlanta Georgian
, September 7, 1912, final edition.

19
    
“They accepted the warning”
:
Columbus Enquirer
, September 8, 1912.

19
    
“We wants
nigger
for dinner!”
: Isabella D. Harris, letter to Max Gilstrap, January 18, 1987, postscript p. 1.

21
    
“Night Riders are said to have killed”
: “Riders Burn 4 Churches,”
Washington Post
, February 1, 1910, 4.

21
    
“Terror exists”:
“Terror Reign in Georgia,”
Washington Post
, December 16, 1910.

21
    
“Owing to the posting of anonymous placards”
:
Chicago Defender
, January 28, 1911.

22
    
“to apprehend the outbreak”
:
The Code of the State of Georgia
,
Adopted August 15th, 1910
(Atlanta: Foot & Davies), 1912, article 2, §6480. §141–42;
Acts of 1912
.

22
    
“repealing the powers”
: “Hitch in the Law,”
Augusta Chronicle
, September 14, 1912, 2.

22
    
safeguard the supply of cheap black labor
: For more on the exploitation and reenslavement of African American workers in the twentieth century, see Douglas Blackmon,
Slavery By Another Name
(New York: Anchor, 2009).

22
    “
a number of the more rabid”
: “Threatened Lynching at Cumming Averted,”
Atlanta Georgian
, September 7, 1912, final edition.

23
    
Fifty-two soldiers of the Candler Horse Guards
: “Troops Rushed to Cumming in Autos,”
Atlanta Journal
, September 7, 1912.

23
    
“When soldiers are called upon”
: “Soldiers Who Shot Augustans Acquitted,”
News Herald
(Lawrenceville, GA), September 24, 1912.

24
    
“The suppression of anarchy”
:
Railway Age and Railway Review
55.2 (1913), 52.

24
    “
hollow square”
:
Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Georgia, 1911–1912
(Atlanta: Charles P. Byrd), 1912, appendix 2, 12.

25
    
“the soldiers formed a double column”
: “Trouble at Cumming Prevented by Militia,”
Atlanta Journal
, September 8, 1912.

25
    
“Serious Race Riot Averted”
: “State Troops Rescue Negroes at Cumming,”
Atlanta Constitution
, September 8, 1912.

26
    “
There are many white women in the South”
: Ida B. Wells-Barnett,
Southern Horrors
(pamphlet, 1892), reprinted in Ida B. Wells-Barnett,
On Lynchings
(Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2002), 31.

26
    
“has not been made public”
: “Threatened Lynching at Cumming Averted,”
Atlanta Georgian
, September 7, 1912, final edition.

27
    
“The town is perfectly quiet”
: “Cumming Girl, Throat Cut, Found in Woods,”
Atlanta Georgian
, September 9, 1912.

27
    
Azzie had gone to church that morning
: Note dated December 5, 2000, written by Esta Gay Crow Wetherford, sister of Mae Crow, on the reverse side of Mae’s portrait. Courtesy of Debbie Vermaat.

27
    
The two girls had stood chatting
: Ruth Mae Jordan Berry, handwritten account, November 1980, courtesy of Henry Dan Berry.

28
    
“several of the searchers”
: “Girl, 18, Throat Cut, Found Unconscious in Woods Near Cumming,”
Atlanta Georgian
, September 9, 1912, home edition.

28
    
“she had evidently been there”
: Ibid.

29
    
“seething with bitterness”
: “Cumming Negro Caught by Posse,”
Atlanta Georgian
, September 10, 1912, home edition.

29
    “
the inflamed state”
: “Two Negroes to Hang October 25th,”
Atlanta Georgian
, October 4, 1912.

CHAPTER 3: THE MISSING GIRL

30
    
Like most farmers’ children
: Shadburn,
Cottonpatch Chronicles
, 247, n. 1.

31
    
“one of the most prominent planters”
: “Cumming Ga. Girl, Throat Cut, Found in Woods,”
Atlanta Georgian
, September 9, 1912, final edition.

31
    
when Mae’s grandfather Isaac walked to Dawsonville
: Muster Roll of Company L, 38th Regiment, CSA (ancestry.com); 1860 U. S. Census, Population Schedule. NARA microfilm publication M653, 1,438 rolls. Washington, DC: National Archives and Records. See especially Forsyth County, Georgia, roll M653_121; p. 491; Selected U.S. Federal Census Non-Population Schedules, 1850–1880, Census Year: 1870; Chestatee, Forsyth County, Georgia.

31
    
property-owning yeoman farmer
: 1880 U. S. Census, Chestatee, Forsyth, Georgia; roll 147; FHL microfilm 1254147; p. 444B; Enumeration District 078; image 0170. 1900 U. S. Census, Chestatee, Forsyth, Georgia; roll 197; p. 1A; Enumeration District 0033; FHL microfilm 1240197.

31
    
“no property to dispose”
: Indigent Pension Application, Isaac Crow, Forsyth County, 1904, Confederate Pension Applications, RG 58-1-1, Georgia Archives, Morrow, GA.

32
    
“It is said that 36 percent”
: “The Mortgaging of Farm Lands,”
Atlanta Constitution
, December 9, 1888, 18.

32
    
The combined effect of all these forces
: For more on the downward spiral of property owners like the Crows, see William F. Holmes, “The Southern Farmer’s Alliance: The Georgia Experience,”
Georgia Historical Quarterly
72.4 (1988), 628; and C. Van Woodward,
Origins of the New South
,
1877–1933
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1951), 175–204.

33
    
sixty-three people
: Alan Candler and Clement Evans, eds.,
Georgia: Sketches, Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions & People
, vol. 2 (Atlanta: State Historical Association, 1906), 47.

34
    
$100 in personal property: Georgia Tax Digests
[1875], Forsyth County, Georgia Archives, Morrow, GA.

34
    
a “total estate” of five dollars: Georgia Tax Digests
[1890], Forsyth County, Georgia Archives, Morrow, GA.

34
    
Buck and Catie had taken in four relatives
: 1900 U. S. Census, Wilsons, Hall, Georgia; roll 202; p. 13B; Enumeration District 0077; FHL microfilm 1240202.

35
    
common-law wife
: Ruth Mae Jordan Berry, handwritten account, November 1980.

35
    
“I remember passing these children”
: Ibid.

36
    
“hired man”
: 1910 U. S. Census, Chattahoochee, Forsyth, Georgia; roll T624_188; p. 7A; Enumeration District 0041; FHL microfilm 1374201.

37
    
“I [went] to schoole that morning,”
Ruth Mae Jordan Berry, handwritten account, November 1980.

37
    
whites from both sides of the river
: “Cumming, Ga., Girl, Throat Cut, Found in the Woods,”
Atlanta Georgian
, September 9, 1912, final edition.

38
    “Mr. Shackelford identified it”: “Negro Is Rushed in Fast Machine to Fulton Tower,”
Atlanta Constitutio
n, September 10, 1912.

38
    
“The man ask Ern”
: Ruth Mae Jordan Berry, handwritten account, November 1980.

39
    
“Mock Lynching”
: “Mock Lynching Extorts Truth,”
News Tribune
(Duluth, MN), October 1, 1912, 12.

40
    
“barefooted, fiendish-looking”
: “Troops on Guard,”
Atlanta Constitution
, October 4, 1912.

40
    
“eager to unearth a clue”
: “Cumming Ga. Girl, Throat Cut, Found in Woods,”
Atlanta Georgian
, September 9, 1912, final edition.