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

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



                In September of 1912 two white women were attacked in Forsyth County. Ellie Grice claimed to have been raped by a black man. Mae Crow was beaten and left for dead. The events that directly followed these two incidents were the lynchings of five black men accused of the crimes and the exodus of the almost 1100 black residents of the county. The white residents of the town threatened, attacked and stalked the black members of the community until they feared for the life and fled into neighboring counties. Those residents who sought to protect the black workers that worked for them would be threatened until they conceded. Forsyth County, Georgia would then be known as a “white county” something the residents relished with pride. For the next 75 years this county would hold its racial line, defending it with threats to any African American that dared to cross it. In 1987 the Civil Rights movement would finally break through the barriers and drag the county into the national spotlight where their views would finally be challenged and eventually overcome.
                Patrick Phillips and his family were residents of Forsyth County in the 1970s and 1980s. They would march in the Brotherhood Marches led by Civil Rights leaders. His writing and testimony lends such a terrifying credibility to this story that’s hard to deny and honestly extremely disturbing. This isn’t a story to be taken lightly and Phillips did an amazing job in his research and in the way he conveys the county’s history. Every rock has been overturned in an attempt to honestly convey the tone of those who prided themselves on living in a town which such a disgusting history.

                Why do we read books like this? Because it’s important to understand the history of racism, how it is conveyed, how it is inherited and how it is a result of an irrational fear. There was absolutely no evidence that the attacks that took place were at the hands of black men. But the fear that lived throughout the town was so prevalent and all-consuming that one man was lynched the day Mae Crow was found, without a trial or any evidence pointing to his involvement in the crime. It’s beyond disgusting but so very evident of the problem with racism in this country. This book is a glaring spotlight on the racism still prevalent in the U.S., and how it’s managed to rear its ugly head time and time again. I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. I am shaken and angry after finishing but grateful that this story has been told. 

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