Just in: Blood at the Root

Forsyth County, Georgia, was home to a large African-American community. Then came the race-based terrorism.

In September of 1912, three black laborers were accused of raping and murdering a white girl. One man was dragged from a jail cell and lynched on the town square and two teenagers were hanged after a one-day trial. Next the real campaign of terrorism began, eventually driving all 1,098 black citizens out of the county. The charred ruins of homes and churches disappeared into the weeds, and history—but not forever.

National Book Award finalist Patrick Phillips tells Forsyth’s story of “homegrown terror” a hundred years ago and the violent means by which locals kept Forsyth “all white” until the 1990s.