Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America (40 page)

160
  
“exchange for negro property”
: “A Bargain” (classified advertisement),
Atlanta Constitution
, March 22, 1914, A10.

160
  
“If something is not done”
: “Georgia Negroes in Terror,”
Keowee Courier
, December 25, 1912.

161
  
“I am reliably informed”
:
Journal of the Senate of the State of Georgia
, Regular Session, June 15, 1913, 21.

161
  
“show an excess of negro”
: “White Man Predominates in Culture of Cotton,”
Atlanta Constitution
, December 8, 1914.

162
  
“The extraordinary Heats here”
: Thomas Stephens,
The Hard Case of the Distressed People
(London: 1742), quoted in Jeffrey Robert Young, ed.,
Pro Slavery and Sectional Thought in the Early South, 1740–1829
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006), 63.

163
  
“the black labor of the past”
: “White Man Predominates in Culture of Cotton,”
Atlanta Constitution
, December 8, 1914.

164
  
“a day of pleasure to the ladies”
: “Dr. A. Strickland on the Wash Tub,” undated letter to the editor,
North Georgian
, reproduced in Garland C. Bagley,
History of Forsyth County
, vol. 2 (Milledgeville, GA: Boyd), 1990, 622.

164
  
twenty-one million horses
: Emily R. Kilby, “The Demographics of the U.S. Equine Population,” in
The State of the Animals IV
(Washington, DC: Humane Society Press, 2007), 176.

165
  
the Model T of the agricultural world
: William White, “Economic History of Tractors in the United States,” Economic History Association, March 26, 2008; https://eh.net/encyclopedia/economic-history-of-tractors-in-the-united-states, accessed October 1, 2015.

166
  
“altogether inadvisable”
: “At Princeton, Woodrow Wilson, a Heralded Alum, Is Recast as an Intolerant One,”
New York Times
, November 22, 2015.

166
  
“absolute fair dealing”
: Quoted in Cleveland M. Green, “Prejudices and Empty Promises: Woodrow Wilson’s Betrayal of the Negro, 1910–1919,”
The Crisis
87.9 (November 1980), 380.

167
  
“Your inauguration”
: “An Open Letter to Woodrow Wilson,”
The Crisis
5.5 (March 1913), 236–37.

168
  
“Your manner offends me”
: “Mr. Trotter and Mr. Wilson,”
The Crisis
9.3 (January 1915), 119–20.

168
  
Department of the Treasury and the U.S. Postal Service
: Ibid.

168
  
“the votes of ignorant negroes”
: Woodrow Wilson,
A History of the American People
, vol. 9 (Harper & Brothers, 1918), 58.

168
  
“A Negro’s place is in the cornfield”
: Quoted in Cleveland M. Green, “Prejudices and Empty Promises: Woodrow Wilson’s Betrayal of the Negro, 1910–1919,”
The Crisis
87.9 (November 1980), 383.

169
  
Ophelia Blake
: Don Shadburn,
Pioneer History of Forsyth County, Georgia
(Milledgeville, GA: Boyd), 1981, 287; 1910 U. S. Census, Cumming, Forsyth, Georgia; roll T624_188; p. 1A; Enumeration District 0039; FHL microfilm 1374201.

170
  
“aroused practically the entire town”
: “Dynamite Exploded Under Negro Houses in Cumming,”
Atlanta Constitution
, March 20, 1913.

170
  
“Dr. John”
: “Dr. John H. Hockenhull,”
Forsyth County News
, November 23, 1922.

171
  
Will Phillips
: “Negro Who Is Charged with Robbing Stores in Cumming Is Arrested,”
Atlanta Constitution
, April 9, 1914.

172
  
forty years on the Georgia chain gang
:
Georgia’s Central Register of Convicts
,
1817–1976
, Series 21/3/27. Georgia State Archives, Morrow, Georgia.

172
  
“Sheriff W. W. Reid”
: “Governor Harris Asks Return of Negro Now in Florida,”
Atlanta Constitution
, October 19, 1915, 7.

CHAPTER 14: EXILE, 1915–1920

173
  
“Every family was run out”
: “A County Without a Negro in It,”
Daily Times-Enterprise
(Thomasville, GA), October 7, 1915, 4.

174
  
“rushed them out of the county”
: “County Bars Colored Men,”
Appeal
(St. Paul, MN), September 14, 1915.

174
  
The list of participants
: “Stoddard to Lead Tourists,”
Atlanta Constitution
, September 3, 1915.

176
  
“The good farmers of Hall county”
: “Ms. Martin Insists Trouble Was Serious,
” Macon Telegraph
, October 9, 1915.

176
  
“Mr. McCullough and his guests”
: “State Tourists Come To-night to Atlanta,”
Atlanta Georgian
, October 5, 1915.

177
  
“rocks hurled at the cars”
: “Georgia Tourists Are Greeted with ‘Irish Confetti,’ ”
Atlanta Constitution
, October 5, 1915.

177
  
“most cordial”
: Ibid.

178
  
“was quite pale”
: “Ms. Martin Insists Trouble Was Serious,
” Macon Telegraph
, October 9, 1915.

178
  
“A sense of duty”
: “Seeing Georgia Tourists Stoned,”
Macon Telegraph
, October 5, 1915.

179
  
“bury its fangs in the body politic”
: Ibid.

179
  
“the wonders of this section”
: “Tourists Find Motoring in Georgia Like a Trip in Enchanted Land,”
Atlanta Constitution
, October 4, 1915.

180
  
“Georgia Crackers”
: “Georgia Crackers Rock Negro Chauffeurs,”
New York Age
, October 14, 1915; “Negro Chauffeurs Are Stoned by Georgia Mob,”
Huntingdon Press
(IN), October 5, 1915.

180
  
“an interurban line”
:
Railway Age Gazette
, 60 (1916), 377.

180
  
In 1919, Harris decided to take the plunge
: “Among Cordele Leaders Who Plan Section’s Growth,”
Macon Telegraph
, September 23, 1920.

181
  
He would never again live in Forsyth County
:
Forsyth County, Georgia Heritage 1832–2011
(Waynesville, NC: County Heritage, Inc., 2011), 222. According to his granddaughter, one day Lummus went to Atlanta “and never came home . . . he was never seen again” in Forsyth.

181
  
The room Lummus rented
: 1920 U. S. Census, Atlanta Ward 6, Fulton, Georgia; roll T625_252; p. 3B; Enumeration District 114; image 1101.

CHAPTER 15: ERASURE, 1920–1970

183
  
“and each sale tells a tale”
: Elliot Jaspin,
Buried in the Bitter Waters
(New York: Basic Books, 2007), 136.

184
  
“there is no record”
: Ibid.

184
  
“continuously, openly, and notoriously”
: “Adverse Possession,” Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex, accessed August 6, 2015.

184
  
“must not have orginated in fraud”
:
Park’s Annotated Code of the State of Georgia, 1914
,
Embracing the Code of 1910
(Atlanta: Harrison Company, 1915), §4164 “Adverse Possession,” 2341.

185
  
“There was land for the taking”
: Jaspin,
Buried
, 136.

185
  
“run out all the negroes”
: “Let’s Stop Advertising,”
Macon Telegraph
, January 28, 1921.

185
  
“a little church and school”
: “Serious Race Trouble in North Georgia,”
Norfolk Journal and Guide
, January 22, 1921.

186
  
“a far-famed county”
: “Forsyth Makes Advances,”
Atlanta Constitution
, October 28, 1923.

186
  
records confirm
: 1920 U. S. Census, Big Creek, Forsyth, Georgia; Roll: T625_257; Page: 16B; Enumeration District: 49; Image: 592.

186
  
James had been born a slave
: 1880 U. S. Census; Big Creek, Forsyth, Georgia; Roll: 147; FHL 1254147; Page: 408D; Enumeration District: 076; Image: 0098.

186
  
signed his oath of allegiance
: Georgia, Office of the Governor. Returns of qualified voters under the Reconstruction Act, 1867. Georgia Archives, Morrow, GA.

186
  
But James Strickland stayed in Forsyth
: 1900 U. S. Census; Big Creek, Forsyth, Georgia; Roll: 197; Page: 11A; Enumeration District: 0030; FHL microfilm: 1240197.

186
  
By 1910
: 1910 U. S. Census; Big Creek, Forsyth, Georgia; Roll: T624_188; Page: 16B; Enumeration District: 0036; FHL microfilm: 1374201. James Strickland’s 80 acre farm was on land lots 2-1-990 and 2-1-1000. Forsyth County Returns for Colored Taxpayers, 1912, Georgia Archives, Morrow, GA. According to Forsyth genealogist Donna Parrish the Will Strickland property was sold by his heirs on February 5th, 1943. http://www.donnaparrish.com/forsyth/1912/strickland_james.html, accessed 8/14/2011.

187
  
Ed Moon filled out a WWI draft card
: World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917–1918 [database online]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com, 2005. Registration State: Georgia; Registration County: Jackson; Roll: 1557077.

188
  
sixteen in the census of 1930
: 1930 U. S. Census, Big Creek, Forsyth, Georgia; Roll: 357; Enumeration District: 0001; FHL microfilm: 2340092.

188
  
Great Migration
: For more on the history of northern migration, see Isabel Wilkerson’s
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration
(New York: Vintage, 2011).