Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America

In 1912, a young girls murder rocked the rural community of Forsyth County, Georgia and led a mob of whites to lynch a black man on the town square. Later, bands of night-riders declared Forsyth whites-only and sent 1,100 citizens running for their lives, slowly erasing all evidence of their crime.

Blood at the Root is a sweeping American tale, spanning the Cherokee removals of the 1830s, the promise of Reconstruction and the crushing injustice of Forsyths racial cleansing. The story continues, including a violent attack on civil rights activists in 1987 as residents fought to Keep Forsyth White, well into the 1990s. Patrick Phillips breaks the century-long silence of his hometown and uncovers a history of racial terrorism that shapes America in the twenty-first century.