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4.32 AVERAGE
4.32 AVERAGE
This is an eye opening and disturbing account of the racial cleansing of Forsyth County in GA from 1912 up to present day times. After two crimes on white women where young black men were rounded up as the guilty party, without any real evidence, the whites of the county systematically threatened and forced the removal of all blacks from the county. This on it's own is incredible, but the fact that this policy of no black in their county went into the 1980's and beyond is the really harrowing part of the story. Most African American's knew well to avoid the county, but from time to time one would simply drive across the county line unknowingly and be threatened or shot at. Overall this is a very eye opening account of racial cleansing and white supremacy. While I realize that even today, there are pockets of vehement racism in our country, I just couldn't imagine the level that Forsyth County was on even to the late 1980s and 1990s.
this is a really difficult book, and how can a book on this topic *not* be. It's written by a historian who grew up in an all white county north of atlanta where black people had been chased out of town following a 1912 crime that was falsely attributed to two black teens. this county managed to stay all white until the late 1980s and has a deep history to recover from.
the writing is not that engaging, it reads like a lengthy honors term paper, but the horrific racist story holds up as important reading.
the writing is not that engaging, it reads like a lengthy honors term paper, but the horrific racist story holds up as important reading.
I was lucky enough to hear the author speak about the process of researching this book and I'm so glad I had that opportunity. The author's note at the end includes some of what he talked about, most importantly his motivations for writing about race as a white man. While I continue to prefer supporting black authors on racial history, there's enough work to be done for all of us, and it's unfair to shy away from these topics because we're white. As this author's friend asked him, "Why do I, as a black woman, write about blackness...but you, as a black man, never write about whiteness?" It's a challenge for all of us, but one I take seriously as a journalist.
Unlike other books about historical racism, this one focuses on a single county in Georgia. That microscopic level of detail is something I haven't come across in my own reading lists, and it is powerful. (The exception is Let The People See, about Emmett Till's lynching murder. But I find this book significant because it focuses on events much less part of public awareness.) Yet the author also includes necessary context from the rest of the country, including several events I'd never heard of before.
Throughout, the author is descriptive and engaging in a way that never, ever had me questioning the authenticity of what he writes. I've read "nonfiction" that is so jazzed up that I can't take it seriously. This book takes stale information like census data and makes them remarkably human.
I highly recommend this book. What a good way to start off 2020.
Unlike other books about historical racism, this one focuses on a single county in Georgia. That microscopic level of detail is something I haven't come across in my own reading lists, and it is powerful. (The exception is Let The People See, about Emmett Till's lynching murder. But I find this book significant because it focuses on events much less part of public awareness.) Yet the author also includes necessary context from the rest of the country, including several events I'd never heard of before.
Throughout, the author is descriptive and engaging in a way that never, ever had me questioning the authenticity of what he writes. I've read "nonfiction" that is so jazzed up that I can't take it seriously. This book takes stale information like census data and makes them remarkably human.
I highly recommend this book. What a good way to start off 2020.
Even in the 90s, Forsyth County had a reputation as an unsafe place for black people. This book was eye opening for me. Phillips presents a thoroughly researched and detailed account of the history of Forsyth while making it clear that the racial hatred found there was not limited to one county or to the South. Phillips manages to add context without excuses. This was a challenging and at times very painful but ultimately worthwhile read.
This book is a hard read; it's heartbreaking and infuriating, but it's also an incredibly important read, and we need to learn from our mistakes and the dark points in our past lest we allow history to repeat itself. For being such a tough subject it is written very well and was a quick read; I'd definitely recommend.
Tamla Horsford's tragic story made me pick this book up, and I have always struggled with choosing to read more about U.S. history for that very reason. Peel back enough layers, and there is always a cruel history that informs what is happening today. I never knew that it was common knowledge (for Black people in Georgia, at least) to avoid living, stopping, or even just lingering in Forsyth.
I thought Phillips did an excellent job setting the scene for what life was like for freed Black Americans in Forsyth and just *how* the formation of sundown towns, white-only towns, and the complete dehumanization continued long after Black people were allowed to start making a way for themselves. It's heartbreaking, but necessary reading-and at no point in time does he make this kind of racism and targeted killing seem like it was only occurring in the south, or even just in Georgia. I appreciate the diligence that comes with researching and taking the time to write with care about just what was, and in new ways, continues to happen in our country's history.
I thought Phillips did an excellent job setting the scene for what life was like for freed Black Americans in Forsyth and just *how* the formation of sundown towns, white-only towns, and the complete dehumanization continued long after Black people were allowed to start making a way for themselves. It's heartbreaking, but necessary reading-and at no point in time does he make this kind of racism and targeted killing seem like it was only occurring in the south, or even just in Georgia. I appreciate the diligence that comes with researching and taking the time to write with care about just what was, and in new ways, continues to happen in our country's history.
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Police brutality, Murder
Wow, wow. I really appreciated the in-depth look this book took at one county in Georgia and the recent history of black people (or the lack of black people) there. It's hard for me to imagine people treating other people like this, and especially the more recent part in chapter 16 and on (1980s) where the citizens of Forsyth County still wanted to maintain the white-only population and took pleasure in almost killing a man because he dared to have fun in "their" town. This book really depicted and reiterated that changing the law is not enough to really change how things are. The more current white people of Forsyth county had no reason to keep the area segregated other than "this is all we know", which is just ridiculous and definitely is not a valid reason to keep the status quo. And really, the pushing out of the black population didn't have a valid reason for happening either, it seemed to just be mob mentality. I just can't understand how people can so violently hate another group of people just based on their skin colour, but I feel like this book accurately showed that deep seated hate that has lasted for centuries. A great, but infuriating, read!
Every thought that I have post my reading of this book is incendiary.
This book was difficult. It wasn’t a difficult read as the author did well at his craft. It was difficult because of the subject. I think many people fail to recognize that this racial divide is so fresh. Furthermore, I don’t think it is OK for an entire county to purge not only its Native American population in the 1800’s then knowing that they could do it to African Americans in the 1900’s and there was no remorse from the people of the county. When forced to stop their running off of anyone who wasn’t white, they stuck up their noses and pretended that they had never been arguably the biggest hotbed of white supremacists in the south as the entire county seemed to either be culpable or turned their backs when the culprits were beating and killing anyone not white. I think this book should be read by everyone. We fail to recognize that this county was still barring anyone not white in 1987. This is MY life time. This is NOW. This is REAL. And this is why we need to recognize that BLACKLIVESMATTER. Because an entire county let alone other cities around the US harbored this deep rooted racism that doesn’t just disappear overnight.
“The further one gets from 1912, the more frequently whites have tried to deflect attention away from the county's long history of bigotry by pointing to a specific group: the Ku Klux Klan. It's easy to understand the appeal of such an argument, since it exonerates the ordinary 'people of the county' from wrongdoing during the expulsions and implies that they themselves were the victims of an invasion by hooded, cross-burning white supremacists. The only trouble is that in the America of 1912, there was no such thing as the KKK.”
“The further one gets from 1912, the more frequently whites have tried to deflect attention away from the county's long history of bigotry by pointing to a specific group: the Ku Klux Klan. It's easy to understand the appeal of such an argument, since it exonerates the ordinary 'people of the county' from wrongdoing during the expulsions and implies that they themselves were the victims of an invasion by hooded, cross-burning white supremacists. The only trouble is that in the America of 1912, there was no such thing as the KKK.”