A review by ashlightgrayson
Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America by Patrick Phillips

challenging dark informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

This book explores the history behind racial lynching in Forsyth County, Georgia that led to its largely white populace today. We follow the county's history with slavery and focus on the lynchings in 1912 with thorough explanations of the news coverage of the events at that time. The description of these historical events captures the horror and pain of the victims and the level of hate and racism that led to those events. This is not a light read in subject matter, but is incredibly informative and easy to follow. Definitely recommend if you want to capture a glimpse of racial history in the South. The author ends on a hopeful note which helps balance out the narrative of the events by the end.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Hate crime, Murder, and Slavery

I will note that the author does quote many sources that include racial slurs, but he only uses them to illustrate important points in the text when he does. I mention this since the author is white and that may be something that some people may take into consideration when deciding if this book is for them or not.