Trey Lopez

March 14, 2004

Forsyth County:  September – October, 1912

An Exodus

Today, Forsyth County in northeast Georgia is considered to be an all-white county.  Did you know that in the year 2000 Forsyth County had 98,407 residents; and of these residents only 684 were black?  This means that blacks make-up merely 0.7 percent of the total population of Forsyth County, meanwhile about twenty-nine percent of Georgia’s total population was black.  These figures continue to be very similar to this day.  Why are blacks so hard to find in this Georgia County?  The answer dates back to events that occurred over a two-month span.  In the fall of 1912, a series of crimes and events sent the county into turmoil and nearly created a war between races.  By the end of October, 1912, Forsyth County’s black population was almost non-existent.[1] 

           

It all started in September of 1912 in a small community in Forsyth County.  On Friday, September 6th, rumors began to spread through the county that a white girl had been beaten and raped by a young black man.  Some reports said that the black man and his friend had snuck into the woman’s bed, but when she was awoken her screaming scared the two men away.  Others said that she was beaten and raped.  Policemen and white citizens searched for a guilty party until two young black men were arrested and taken to the local jail. The previous week a black man had attempted to rape a white woman; with the addition of this new crime the white population in Forsyth County was in an uproar.[2]

           

Shortly after the black men had been arrested a local black preacher questioned the arrest as well as the character of the white woman.  An article in the Atlanta Journal described the scene after his remarks, “No sooner had the insulting words fallen from his lips than a mob of infuriated white men were upon him.”  Reports said that hundreds of white men took part in the beating and that he was beat by whips until he was nearly dead.  Police officers were able to stop the beating and locked him in the court vault for his own safety.  People said that if he had not been saved by the officers he would have been “burned at the stake”.[3]

           

News of the preacher’s whipping quickly reached most of the local black population.  Many of the county’s blacks were attending a barbeque on the outskirts of the town when they heard the news, and rumors flew through the county that the black population was planning to dynamite the town.  A rush of fear flew through the veins of every white resident in Forsyth County.  To add to the hysteria, the news of the assaulted white woman’s condition was reported.  She had been severely beaten and raped, and was found in a pool of blood.  Three more blacks were arrested and placed in the local jail along with the other two.  Many of the white people began to threaten “a wholesale lynching”.  The governor of Georgia, Governor Brown, quickly ordered troops from Gainesville and Marietta to rush to Forsyth County and restore order.  He also ordered the troops to take the prisoners and quickly bring them to a safer location in Marietta to prevent the threats of lynching from actually occurring. The Atlanta Journal reported the scene:  “The darkies were huddled in the bottom of the cars and with soldiers surrounding them were speeded out of town.”  No attempt was made to stop the cars from taking the prisoners, but “jeers, mutterings, swearing, and hissing were heard.” The little town in Forsyth County was experiencing severe racial tension.[4]

           

White men began to prepare for the race war that seemed to be inevitable.  The Atlanta Journal wrote:

Residents of the city, farmers from this county and men from adjoining towns thronged here ready to fight as soon as it was noised that the Negroes had plotted to dynamite the town.  No rifles or shotguns were in evidence but the protruding coat above the hip told that they were prepared for war.  Many did not take the precaution to wear coats and young artilleries could be seen scattered throughout the crowd.

 

Local police and the military troops that were rushed to the small town were able to prevent any violence between the blacks and whites, at least for the time being.  Restrictions were put on the local black population.  All blacks were ordered to remain in their homes until dawn on Sunday so that no possible clash was possible. All roads and incoming people were closely watched. No further events took place that day and most of the troops that were sent by Governor Brown returned on Sunday morning.  But as the day wore on armed white men continued to pour into the town.[5] 

           

Fear ran through the veins of the black residents for that whole weekend, and as a result the exodus of blacks from Forsyth County began that very next day.  Many of the blacks began to pack all of their belongings and move to nearby communities where they did not feel a threat to their lives.  The prisoners in Marietta also asked to be kept in jail in Marietta due to the threat of being lynched if they returned to the Forsyth County jail.[6]

           

Monday night the young white woman died of injuries.  Ernest Knox, one of the men that were arrested, confessed to committing the crime.  For the fear of the safety of Knox, he was transported from the Marietta jail to a more secure jail in Atlanta.  A large crowd surrounded the Marietta jail until they knew that Knox was not in the Marietta prison.  On Tuesday four more blacks were arrested in connection with the crime and were placed in the Forsyth County jail.  They had to be brought to jail by two automobiles in order to get through the mob of 2,000 people that surrounded the jail...  But minutes later, an enraged mob broke into the jail, shot one of the prisoners, Ed Collins, and proceeded to beat his head with crowbars; the mob dragged his body to the public square and hung his body from a telephone pole and was viewed by 4,000 surrounding people.  The other prisoners were slipped out of jail and immediately rushed to the Atlanta prison for safe keeping.  It was said that if the other prisoners were not hidden from the mob and immediately taken from the scene, all of them would have been lynched as well.  A sense of hate and fear could be felt between blacks and whites.[7] 

           

The prisoners were to remain in the Atlanta prison until the night before their trial on Thursday, October 3^rd.  They would be taken to the Cumming jail escorted by over 150 men to guarantee the safety of the prisoners and their right to a trial.  Martial law was enforced on the day of the trial to protect the prisoners, and the court was under military supervision.  All men that entered the courthouse were searched for weapons before permitted to enter the courthouse.  When the prisoners arrived in Cumming on Wednesday night, a large but quiet crowd was there to greet the prisoners.  The militiamen formed a large ring spanning 250 yards around the prisoners so that the prisoners could speak with their lawyers.  After their meeting they were escorted to the county jail for the trial the following morning.[8]

           

Around one thousand people gathered around the courthouse for the trial Thursday morning.  There was some fear that trouble may start outside the courthouse and an attempt to rush into the courthouse would be made, but the courthouse was protected by militia who were authorized to kill by martial law.  The judge says that he will try to complete the trial of the six blacks all in one day to try to prevent any trouble and to satisfy the demands of the Forsyth County people.  Fear that the prisoners would be lynched was felt by many as reported in the Atlanta Journal:

Whether the Negroes are all convicted or acquitted, they will be removed from Cumming for safe-keeping.  If any on of the six was to fall into the hands of the crowd gathered here, it is admitted by every one acquainted with conditions that he would be lynched immediately.  Civil and military officials are afraid that if all of the six Negroes are convicted and sentenced to hang the crowd will be inflamed to a dangerous point.

 

Five of the six blacks were on trial for the assault and murder of the young white woman, and the sixth black is on trial for a separate case of assault on another white woman.[9]

 

The trial was very quick like the judge had said.  Two of the black men were convicted for the rape and murder of the woman. The other case of assault was postponed to a regular court session.  The remaining three blacks were said to be witnesses and were not tried in the case.  The two men convicted were sentenced to hang as soon as possible; law permitted them to be hung twenty days after conviction, and they were sentenced to hang 21 days later on October 25^th.[10]

           

For the day of the hanging a large fence was placed around the site where the men were to be hung to prevent the crowds from witnessing the hanging.  But the night before the fence was burned and all were free to view the hanging.  A reported eight thousand people gathered to witness the executions; men, women, and children were present to view the hanging.  Cheers roared through the crowd once the two men had been hung.[11]

           

The hate between the races that was felt during this month long event could be felt when reading the articles in the local newspapers.  Even the prejudices of the writers of the articles could be felt in their writings; their reports seemed to fuel the hatred for blacks even more so.  Reports of the nature of the crime were twisted from day to day and a negative light was shed on the nature of the blacks who were convicted.  The Atlanta Constitution described Knox as “the low-browed gorilla type of negro, and his attitude was absolutely brutish throughout the trial today.”  The other black man was described as “a shade more human-looking, but he, also, belongs to the barefooted, fiendish-looking type.” [12] 

 

The crime that was reported in the paper was not true to the facts.  In the papers it was reported that the woman was surprised by the assailant (Knox) and was wrestled into the woods.  She put up a struggle and then was hit over the head with a rock.  She then was dragged into the woods where Knox sexually assaulted her.  It was reported that Knox then proceeded to bring back his friends later that evening and the “negroes then satisfied their lustful passions on the insensible body of the victim”. The girl’s testimony stated differently.  She actually knew Knox and began to question why he was in the area he was; he eventually attacked the young woman.  She reported that she was raped by Knox, and later by Ed Collins and Oscar Daniel, the other convicted black man.  A black woman was said to have aided them in their crime.  The papers changed the nature of the crime to make the crime appear even more gruesome and brutal.[13]

 

Although the newspapers did report the lynching of Ed Collins, general accounts say that the newspapers failed to mention the incident that happened to the black woman allegedly involved in the crime.  She was said to have been taken from her home, without a struggle, to an isolated area; she was “tied and staked to the ground, while several white men delivered speeches about ‘God’s will’”.  A stick of dynamite was then placed between the woman’s legs and lit.  The papers did not report the atrocities committed by white residents of Forsyth County.[14]

 

The great race war that occurred in Forsyth County during these two months was downplayed in the newspapers.  The war can be more accurately described as a forced and violent removal of all blacks from Forsyth County.  Blacks did not fight back, but fled in fear from the militant whites.  The Dahlonega Nugget reported that once all the white men began to take up arms “the negroes have left the county for fear of getting into trouble.”  Fear was a constant feeling of all blacks in the surrounding areas.  The Nugget went further in reporting that “the conduct of those Negroes in Forsyth County has caused the organization of the White Caps, who have notified the blacks to move out, and where they acted slow about it their homes were destroyed or damaged.  A Negro church was burned to the ground.”  Many white men used violence to scare off the remaining black population in Forsyth County, such as shooting houses with hundreds of bullets.  One white man’s property was destroyed because he did not immediately force all of his black renters to leave his property at once.  The exodus could not be stopped.  On October 18^th one man from Forsyth County reported that “every Negro who lived in it [Forsyth County] was gone, not a single one left to tell the tale.”  The forced removal of all blacks was successful.[15]

 

The results of the censuses from1910 and 1920 show the extent of success of the forced removal of blacks from Forsyth County.  The 1910 census reported that Forsyth County had a total population of 10,839 residents; and of these residents 1,098 were black, accounting for nearly ten percent of the county’s population.  In the 1920 census, a total of 30 blacks were reported to reside in Forsyth County.  That accounted for less than .3 percent of the total population.  The effects of September and October in 1912 were evident; a black face was hard to find in Forsyth County after the events of these months.[16]

 

Even more disturbing is the fact that these population numbers continue even to the present day.  In 1940, 0.4 percent of the population was black; 1950, 0.4 percent; 1960, 0.0 percent; 1970, 0.1 percent; 1980, 0.0 percent.  In 1990, Forsyth County reported a total population of 44,083; of that total population, only 14 were black.  The population has nearly quadrupled since 1920, yet the black population has decreased by half.  In the present day Forsyth County, the population is only made up of about 0.7 percent blacks.  African-Americans continue to feel unwelcome in the county and feel a sense of racial prejudice and hate.  The events that occurred over eighty years ago still echo through the hills of Forsyth County.[17]

 

At one point a sign at the entrance of the county could be found saying, “NIGGER DON’T LET THE SUN SET ON YOU IN FORSYTH COUNTY.”  Although this sign does not exist today, the message it sends can felt throughout many parts of the county.  Blacks that accidentally enter into Forsyth County are greeted by militant whites and are often harassed or threatened.  Sometimes they are reportedly beaten, or even shot.

Most people would think that with time all wounds would heal.  But many blacks still fear Forsyth County and its white population.  Hatred for blacks still resides in whites in the county today.  One woman recently expressed her views on blacks in Forsyth County:

My daddy said, many times before he did, “I have never been sorry that our people ran the niggers out of the county.  I believe we could have run them all the way back to Africa.  This is the only thing that I’m sorry of, not completing the job.  Sooner or later, they are going to be the downfall of this country.” We must be willing to stand for what we believe to be right and never be ashamed.  He believed he had to do what he did.  I believe he was absolutely right.

 

The county has small organizations such as “The Forsyth County Anti-Black Committee of Seventeen” and the “Committee to Keep Forsyth and Dawson Counties White” to prevent any influx of blacks into the county.  Evidence of extreme hate for blacks is still present in Forsyth County today.[18]

           

In 1987 a Civil Rights march was held in Forsyth County, and it was met with much resistance.  Thousands of marchers marched into the county and were met by at last a 1,000 racists and the Ku Klux Klan.  Many of these were young white boys, and they constantly chanted “nigger go home, nigger go home.”  Writer James D. Williams described the entrance of the marcher into the county:

Walking into Forsyth County was returning to the dark past – to a time older people thought was behind them and younger people had never known.  Hate was in their [white racists] voices, in their eyes ad in the way their faces knotted up at the sight of the crowd.  It was hard to judge who they hated the most – blacks or the white who walked at their side.  

 

Just a week earlier before this march, a group tried to have a “Brotherhood March” in memory of Martin Luther King, Jr.  But the group was hit with stones and other debris, and the marchers were forced to leave the town.  After eighty years, hatred still runs through the veins of white Forsyth County residents.[19] 

           

 And the fear?  The fear of Forsyth County by blacks still exists today.  It is not only evident due to the lack of blacks in the county, but the thoughts of Forsyth County as well.  A white businessman that resides in Forsyth County is afraid to invite black co-workers to his house in Forsyth County.  A woman that held her wedding in Forsyth County was unable to convince her black friends to attend the wedding; her friends were scared of what might happen if they entered into the county.  A sense of fear, a fear of the hatred that exists in Forsyth County for blacks, continues to exist and fulfill the wishes of white racists:  no blacks in Forsyth County.  Two months in history resulted in the creation of a nearly all-white county, and the effects of these events are still seen today.[20]