49 pages • 1 hour read
Patrick PhillipsBlood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 14-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 14 Summary: “Exile, 1915-1920”
The exile of black residents from Forsyth County was complete. In the years that followed, from time to time, an outsider would cross the county line and break this code, causing reactions that varied from mild to severe. For example, when a wealthy doctor came to do business at the courthouse and brought two black servants along, a crowd of “several hundred gathered around…threatening them” (174). Similarly, when a group of tourists came to visit Forsyth, despite Charlie Harris greeting them with a smile, locals pelted the motorcade with rocks because the chauffeurs were black.
These kinds of events were a tough blow to Forsyth’s potential railroad plans; by 1919, it was clear that the county would not host the railroad, and Mayor Harris moved away. This was the “beginning of the end of resistance to the purge, as moderate figures left one by one” (181). After both Harris and Deputy Lummus left, “the last open opposition to the racial cleansing fell silent” (182). What followed next was a slow, quiet erasure of the events of 1912.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Erasure, 1920-1970”
Chapter 15 begins by describe the work of journalist Elliot Jaspin, who documented the land sales of Forsyth’s black population in 1912. Though some of these sales were made at “something close to a fair market value” (183), the majority were “sold at artificially low prices” (183) or abandoned. Georgia law allows someone to seize land and obtain the title after seven years if the previous owner has not returned; this meant that the white community was able to very quickly absorb property previously held by black residents.
Within only a few years, “the elementary schools of Cumming were filled with a generation of white children who had no memory of…black people” (185) living in Forsyth. As the signs of black residents continued to fade, so did white violence—in contrast with the persistence of nightriders in many other Georgia counties.
Around the same time, in 1930, Jane Daniel and her family left the south all together, fleeing north to Detroit. Yet upon their arrival, they found racial tensions that were as extreme as those in Forsyth were.
As Jane struggled to build a new life in Detroit, “Forsyth was deep in its sleep of forgetfulness” (193). The county was able to keep itself all white with only minimal encounters when a black person might end up across the county line for business. So it was that “Forsyth’s old, unspoken rules remained, and each new generation of enforcers clung to the code their parents and grandparents had handed down” (196).
Chapter 16 Summary: “The Attempted Murder of Miguel Marcelli”
By the 1970s, Forsyth had become an attractive suburb of Atlanta, and despite the “rumors that Forsyth was home to plenty of racists and Klansmen, the same could be said of almost any rural county in Georgia in the 1970s” (198). Phillips describes his own childhood when his family moved to Forsyth in 1977. He had only the “vaguest sense” (199) that something had happened in Forsyth; though Klansmen publicly walked the streets in parades, Phillips mainly thought of Forsyth as “normal” (199).
Everything changed in 1980, when there was an attack against a black man, Miguel Marcelli and his girlfriend, Shirley Webb, at a company picnic in Forsyth. Mae Crow's relative, Melvin Crowe, upset by the presence of these black people, picked up his friend Bob Davis, drove to find the couple and shot Marcelli in his car. Webb sought aid from Crowe's aunt Ethel, who refused to help her. Marcelli recovered and was able to testify so that both Crowe and Davis were found “guilty on two counts of aggravated assault” (205). Though this event rather quickly died down, it brought a new level of national attention to Forsyth.
Chapters 14-16 Analysis
Forsyth County’s transition from explosive violence to quiet hatred happened slowly; Phillips articulates some of the events illustrating this shift without focusing too much on individual years or decades. Within a few short chapters, Phillips moves the timeline rapidly to the 1970s, exploring an important question: How did Forsyth become a popular Atlanta suburb when it had such a horrifying history? As white moderates moved out in the late 1910s and 1920s, Forsyth County remained in the hands of its mainly white supremacist citizenry. As a result, the generations that followed were able to maintain their bigotry without contest—there was no one to resist their beliefs. Importantly, when an outsider did threaten the “racial purity” (206) of Forsyth, white citizens responded immediately and with violence. Yet even after a particularly egregious act of terror—the shooting of Miguel Marcelli—Forsyth returned to its quiet insistence that racism was a thing of the past and had been resolved. This is a crucial part of Phillips’ narrative—without understanding how Forsyth was able to actively create a more positive public image, it would be impossible to believe the events of 1912 had actually happened there.
Phillips begins introducing his own childhood in Chapter 16; this is a marked shift in a predominantly historical text. By sharing his perceptions of life in Forsyth as a young person, Phillips draws in readers who might share his experience of living somewhere that socially upheld white supremacy in invisible manners. Further, Phillips illustrates the pervasive ways that white people in Forsyth were able to continue to act in racist ways without catching attention outside of the county. As a young white child in Forsyth, Phillips did not have to understand everything about the legacy of 1912, he only needed to go along with the status quo.
Though the shooting of Miguel Marcelli takes place at a markedly different time than 1912, Phillips connects this event to the legacy of the violence surrounding Mae Crow’s murder. Melvin Crowe is a direct descendent, of the Crow family; the “e” was added onto the name during the 20th century. It is symbolic and important that a second bout of publicized racial tension in Forsyth resulted because of a member of the Crow(e) family tree; the greater irony, however, lies in the actions of Crowe's aunt Ethel, who turns a blind eye to Shirley Webb's desperate need of help after the shooting. Ethel Crowe chooses to do nothing, reflecting the larger patterns of ignorance and bigotry plaguing Forsyth for generations: Not only have white people spread racialized terror, they have also pretended not to see the actions of their friends, family members, and neighbors. Phillips illustrates this deadly combination through the story of the shooting of Miguel Marcelli in order to make clear how dangerous white complicity and silence can be.
