Blood at the Root

A Racial Cleansing in America

De: Patrick Phillips

Narrado por: Patrick Phillips

A gripping tale of racial cleansing in Forsyth County, Georgia, and a harrowing testament to the deep roots of racial violence in America.

Forsyth County, Georgia, at the turn of the twentieth century was home to a large African American community that included ministers and teachers, farmers and field hands, tradesmen, servants, and children. Many black residents were poor sharecroppers, but others owned their own farms and the land on which they’d founded the county’s thriving black churches.

But then in September of 1912, three young 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, two teenagers were hung after a one-day trial, and soon bands of white “night riders” launched a coordinated campaign of arson and terror, driving all 1,098 black citizens out of the county. In the wake of the expulsions, whites harvested the crops and took over the livestock of their former neighbors, and quietly laid claim to “abandoned” land. The charred ruins of homes and churches disappeared into the weeds, until the people and places of black Forsyth were forgotten.

National Book Award finalist Patrick Phillips tells Forsyth’s tragic story in vivid detail and traces its long history of racial violence all the way back to antebellum Georgia. Recalling his own childhood in the 1970s and ’80s, Phillips sheds light on the communal crimes of his hometown and the violent means by which locals kept Forsyth “all white” well into the 1990s.

Blood at the Root is a sweeping American tale that spans the Cherokee removals of the 1830s, the hope and promise of Reconstruction, and the crushing injustice of Forsyth’s racial cleansing. With bold storytelling and lyrical prose, Phillips breaks a century-long silence and uncovers a history of racial terrorism that continues to shape America in the twenty-first century.

Reseñas de la Crítica

[M]eticulously and elegantly reveals the power of white supremacy…to distort and destroy, not only lives and accomplishments, but historical memory, the law, and basic human civility.—Carol Anderson, The New York Times

[H]umanizes its subjects and brims with detail….[G]raphic, unflinching, important.—Jennifer Senior, The New York Times

Deeply researched and crisply written, “Blood at the Root’’ is an impressive and timely case study of the racial violence and historical amnesia that characterize much of American history. Phillips…is a gifted storyteller.—Matthew Delmont, The Boston Globe

Phillips' book feels timely, unapologetically discussing the way fear, panic, ignorance, and timing may have kept Forsyth County trapped in the past.—William Lee, The Chicago Tribune

There are places the civil rights movement literally passed by, and for decades Forsyth County was one of those pockets. Blood at the Root is a vital investigation of Forsyth’s history, and of the process by which racial injustice is perpetuated in America. —U.S. Congressman John Lewis, author of March

Nothing undermines social justice more than our collective ignorance about the racial terrorism that haunts too many places in America. Blood at the Root is a must-read, thorough, detailed, and powerful. It’s a story we need to know and never forget. —Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy

Some would say that Patrick Phillips should leave well enough alone and keep quiet… But [his] voice is too honest, too brave, and too brilliant to be silenced. With a poet’s gift for music, and with a detective’s dedication to the facts, Blood at the Root faces the specter of a bloody history without turning its back on the hope that the present has brought us. If the truth sets us free, this book will give you wings. —Tayari Jones, author of Silver Sparrow

The burden of southern history lies not in what we know about the past but what we do not know. Patrick Phillips uncovers an important untold piece of history… What he reveals in this important book does not make this chilling piece of the past any easier to bear, but he brings it into sharper focus, which is long overdue.—W. Ralph Eubanks, author of Ever is a Long Time: A Journey in Mississippi’s Dark Past

Phillips brings a journalist’s crisp perspective to this precise and disquieting account of a reprehensible and underreported chapter in America’s racial history.—Booklist, Starred review

Factual information and history

I recommend this book to all people, African American and European Americans. To come to grips with the past so we can heal the wrongs and move forward as a nation. You can’t stay silent to this injustice, in the end of this book we see the progress of change.

Timely in 2023.

This book should make you think about your own hometowns history, Why does it look the way it does? Who were the founders? What happened here during slavery, the turn of the 1900's, the civil rights movement? What happened here?

incredibly sad documentation of horrible racism

this book documents horrible racism that eas allowed up fester in America for over 80 years finally in 1987, the effort was made to drive it out. people wonder why black people feel there is still racism, why they don't trust the law, don't trust whites why "after 100 years" they can't move on... maybe this will help people understand...

Amazingly Detailed, Thorough and Intriguing

I was very happy to get this detailed accounting of what happened in Forsyth county to my (Kellogg) family ancestors. I learned of these happenings over the years through elders in our family, however, I had never heard the stories as thoroughly and painfully laid out in this book. Thank you. This book is now a family heirloom.

Sad, but true

This was a tough book to listen to (although I finished it in 3 days) as the reality of the horrific events I've always heard about were described in such details. I just cannot fathom how people could be so cruel.