Blood at the Root

Last updated
Blood at the Root
Blood at the Root.jpg
Author Patrick Phillips
LanguageEnglish
Genre Non-fiction, history, race and ethnicity in the United States
Published2016
Publisher W. W. Norton & Company
Publication place United States
Pages302 [1]
ISBN 978-0-393-29301-2

Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America is a 2016 non-fiction book written by Patrick Phillips investigating the 1912 racial conflict in Forsyth County, Georgia, the ensuing racial cleansing of the county, and later developments including the 1987 Forsyth County protests. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

Overview

In September 1912 in Forsyth County, Georgia, a young white girl was assaulted, raped, and later died. Following the coerced confession of a young black man, an alleged accomplice was lynched. What then followed was bands of white "night riders" [lower-alpha 1] that drove the black citizens out of the county, via arson and terror. The title Blood at the Root comes from the song Strange Fruit about the lynchings of African Americans in the South. [4]

Summary

Reviews

Carol Anderson, reviewing the book for The New York Times , said it "meticulously and elegantly reveals the power of white supremacy in its many guises." [4] Anderson commented that some of the book was "weighed down by supposition and tangents", noting that the author "is hampered by the scarce records, biased contemporary newspaper reporting, traumatized family memories and oral histories that are few and far between." [4]

Notes

  1. The Ku Klux Klan had disbanded in the early 1870s and did not re-form until 1915.

Related Research Articles

In the broader context of racism in the United States, mass racial violence in the United States consists of ethnic conflicts and race riots, along with such events as:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Forsyth County, Georgia</span> County in Georgia, United States

Forsyth County is a county in the Northeast region of the U.S. state of Georgia. Suburban and exurban in character, Forsyth County lies within the Atlanta metropolitan area. The county's only incorporated city and county seat is Cumming. At the 2020 census, the population was 251,283. Forsyth was the fastest-growing county in Georgia and the 15th fastest-growing county in the United States between 2010 and 2019. Forsyth County's rapid population growth can be attributed to its proximity to high-income employment opportunities in nearby Alpharetta and northern Fulton County, its equidistant location between the big-city amenities of bustling Atlanta and the recreation offerings of the scenic Blue Ridge Mountains, its plentiful supply of large, relatively affordable new-construction homes, and its highly ranked public school system. The influx of high-income professionals and their families has increased the county's median annual household income dramatically in recent years; at $104,687, Forsyth County was the wealthiest in Georgia and the 19th-wealthiest in the United States as of 2018 estimates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cumming, Georgia</span> City in Georgia, United States

Cumming is a city in and the county seat of Forsyth County, Georgia, United States, and the sole incorporated area in the county. It is a suburban city, and part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. In the 2020 census, the population is 7,318, up from 5,430 in 2010. Surrounding unincorporated areas with a Cumming mailing address have a population of approximately 100,000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Strange Fruit</span> 1939 song made famous by Billie Holiday

"Strange Fruit" is a song written and composed by Abel Meeropol and recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939. The lyrics were drawn from a poem by Meeropol published in 1937. The song protests the lynching of Black Americans with lyrics that compare the victims to the fruit of trees. Such lynchings had reached a peak in the Southern United States at the turn of the 20th century and the great majority of victims were black. The song was described as "a declaration of war" and "the beginning of the civil rights movement" by Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun.

Sundown towns, also known as sunset towns, gray towns, or sundowner towns, were all-white municipalities or neighborhoods in the United States. They were towns that practice a form of racial segregation by excluding non-whites via some combination of discriminatory local laws, intimidation or violence. They were most prevalent before the 1950s. The term came into use because of signs that directed "colored people" to leave town by sundown.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynching in the United States</span> Extrajudicial killings in the United States by mobs or vigilante groups

Lynching was the widespread occurrence of extrajudicial killings which began in the United States' pre–Civil War South in the 1830s, slowed during the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, and continued until 1981. Although the victims of lynchings were members of various ethnicities, after roughly 4 million enslaved African Americans were emancipated, they became the primary targets of white Southerners. Lynchings in the U.S. reached their height from the 1890s to the 1920s, and they primarily victimized ethnic minorities. Most of the lynchings occurred in the American South, as the majority of African Americans lived there, but racially motivated lynchings also occurred in the Midwest and border states. In 1891, the largest single mass lynching in American history was perpetrated in New Orleans against Italian immigrants.

This is a list of topics related to racism:

On May 16, 1918, a plantation owner was murdered, prompting a manhunt which resulted in a series of lynchings in May 1918 in southern Georgia, United States. White people killed at least 13 black people during the next two weeks. Among those killed were Hazel "Hayes" Turner and his wife, Mary Turner. Hayes was killed on May 18, and the next day, his pregnant wife Mary was strung up by her feet, doused with gasoline and oil then set on fire. Mary's unborn child was cut from her abdomen and stomped to death. Her body was then repeatedly shot. No one was ever convicted of her lynching.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moore's Ford lynchings</span> 1946 mob lynchings in Georgia, United States

The Moore's Ford lynchings, also known as the 1946 Georgia lynching, refers to the July 25, 1946, murders of four young African Americans by a mob of white men. Tradition says that the murders were committed on Moore's Ford Bridge in Walton and Oconee counties between Monroe and Watkinsville, but the four victims, two married couples, were shot and killed on a nearby dirt road.

Patrick Phillips is an American poet, writer, and professor. He teaches writing and literature at Stanford University, and is a Carnegie Foundation Fellow and a fellow of the Cullman Center for Writers at the New York Public Library. He has been a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Copenhagen, and previously taught writing and literature at Drew University. He grew up in Georgia and now lives in San Francisco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carol Anderson</span> American academic (born 1959)

Carol Elaine Anderson is an American academic. She is the Charles Howard Candler professor of African American Studies at Emory University. Her research focuses on public policy with regard to race, justice, and equality. In 2023, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

Maceo Snipes was a veteran and civil rights leader who was murdered in Taylor County, Georgia on July 18, 1946 after Snipes, a black World War II veteran, voted in the Georgia Democratic Party primary. He was the only Black person to vote in the entire county.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1912 racial conflict in Forsyth County, Georgia</span> Racially motivated violence and subsequent racial cleansing in Forysth County in 1912

In Forsyth County, Georgia, in September 1912, two separate alleged attacks on white women in the Cumming area resulted in black men being accused as suspects. First, a white woman reportedly awoke to find a black man in her bedroom; then days later, a white teenage girl was beaten and raped, later dying of her injuries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Perry massacre</span> Racially motivated conflict in Florida, USA

The Perry massacre was a racially motivated conflict in Perry, Florida, in December 1922. Whites killed four black men, including Charles Wright, who was lynched by being burned at the stake, and they also destroyed several buildings in the black community of Perry after the murder of Ruby Hendry, a white female schoolteacher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African Americans in Georgia</span> Largest minority in Georgia and second largest ethnic group in Georgia after White Americans

African-American Georgians are residents of the U.S. state of Georgia who are of African American ancestry. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, African Americans were 31.2% of the state's population. Georgia has the second largest African American population in the United States following Texas. Georgia also has a gullah community. African slaves were brought to Georgia during the slave trade.

Blood at the Root is a play by Dominique Morisseau that premiered in 2014 at Pennsylvania State University. The title Blood at the Root comes from the song Strange Fruit about the lynchings of African Americans in the South. The show was based on the Jena Six.

Royal Freeman Nash was an American civil rights activist. He was the secretary-treasurer of the NAACP from February 15, 1916, to September 1, 1917.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynching of Jake Davis</span>

Jake "Shake" Davis was a 62-year-old African-American man who was lynched in Miller County, Georgia by a white mob on July 14, 1922. According to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary it was the 38th of 61 lynchings during 1922 in the United States.

The 1987Forsyth County protests were a series of civil rights demonstrations held in Forsyth County, Georgia, in the United States. The protests consisted of two marches, held one week apart from each other on January 17 and January 24, 1987. The marches and accompanying counterdemonstrations by white supremacists drew national attention to the county. The second march was attended by many prominent civil rights activists and politicians, including both of Georgia's U.S. senators, and attracted about 20,000 marchers, making it one of the largest civil rights demonstrations in United States history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oscarville, Georgia</span> Ghost town in the U.S. state of Georgia

Oscarville is a ghost town in Forsyth County, Georgia. Oscarville, a majority-Black town, is most famous for being a central location in a series of violent crimes and racially motivated riots that happened in 1912, driving away most of the Black residents in Forsyth County. In 1950, the remnants of the town were flooded during the construction of Lake Lanier. The site of Oscarville was located in northeastern Forsyth County, close to the border with Hall County.

References

  1. 1 2 Fresh Air transcript (September 15, 2016). "The 'Racial Cleansing' That Drove 1,100 Black Residents Out Of Forsyth County, Ga". npr.org. NPR.
  2. Phillips, Patrick (August 26, 2016). "Blood at the Root (book excerpt)". MyAJC . Retrieved 2018-09-16.
  3. "Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2018-09-16.
  4. 1 2 3 Anderson, Carol (September 28, 2016). "American Apartheid: A Georgia County Drove Out All Its Black Citizens in 1912". The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved December 8, 2017.

Further reading