Hmmmmm, this week's topic finally gave me an excuse to find something out that I have wondered about for the last three years, and please excuse the lack of organization and research paper guidelines...my college days are SO done.
First, a little background: As I was driving in the realtor's car in Cumming, Georgia, having just one weekend to find a home on my first trip to this state, I made a comment to the realtor: "I'm really excited to experience the world. I have lived in Utah my entire life. Nearly every person I've met and known has not only been Mormon, but has also been white. I can't wait for my kids to grow up with some diversity...ya know, the 'real world'."
He paused for a moment and replied, "Um, normally I wouldn't say this, but you have just asked me to drive to a house (that I had found over the internet knowing NOTHING about the area) that is in Forsyth County. You'll definitely find diversity in religion, but not in race. Oprah even did some kind of show from there on racism."
I wasn't sure what he meant....after all, this is Atlanta, Georgia...or a suburb at least...there has to be more people of color than in Utah. I found the house of my dreams, in the neighborhood of my dreams, and we moved our little family across the country...to Forsyth County, Georgia.
So, after three years here I've learned that the realtor was right. I experienced more race diversity teaching at Farmington Junior High (which was 99% Mormon and 97% white among 1,200 kids) than I have here. So, what was that "Oprah Show?" What went on in this county? This is what I learned:
A reputation for racial intolerance plagued Forsyth County during the twentieth century. In 1912 the rape of a young white woman by three African American males sparked a campaign among the white population to rid Forsyth County of all African Americans. For almost a month, gangs of night riders harassed and intimidated the black population into moving out of the county.
While it is unknown how many African Americans moved as a direct result of the purge, by 1930 only 17 blacks resided in Forsyth County compared with almost 1,100 in 1910. In 1987 (1987...I didn't even realize how RECENT it all was) racial tensions again erupted in Forsyth County. In January a small march in Cumming to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday met with resistance from local members of the KKK, who threw stones and glass bottles at the demonstrators. The event received national attention, and on January 24, 20,000 marchers from around the country converged on Forsyth County. Led by numerous civil rights leaders, the marchers encountered 1,000 to 2,000 counterdemonstrators, but the presence of large numbers of police and National Guard troops most likely kept the event from turning violent. The event was one of the largest civil rights demonstrations since the 1960s and generated so much national attention that talk-show host Oprah Winfrey taped a show the following month in Cumming about the events.
In 1987, Oprah packed up the show and headed south to Forsyth County, Georgia, a place where not one black person had lived in 75 years. The Forsyth County Defense League was a white supremacist group established in 1987 (1987...really?????) in Cumming, Georgia, to counter efforts by Atlanta City Councilperson Hosea Williams, to integrate all-white Forsyth County. The group and its successor Nationalist Movement have won some prominent court battles on behalf of members' rights to support discrimination against non-whites, to march and to meet in public buildings. During the show, an explosion of racism ensued with the "n" word used over and over again to Winfrey.
Forsyth County, I learned is the second-fastest growing county in the nation in the 1990s. Forsyth in the 2000 census is still 92 percent white and its growth is mostly explained by the droves of white people moving in. For every single black person and every 10 Hispanics new to Forsyth in the 1990s, there were 100 new white residents.
The completion of Georgia Highway 400 (which I live right off, almost into Dawson County) in the 1980s turned Forsyth County into a suburb of Atlanta, further encouraging population growth. According to the 2000 U.S. census, the county's population was 98,407 (95 percent white, 0.7 percent black, and 5.6 percent Hispanic), an increase of 123.2 percent from the 1990 census. The county remains one of the most racially homogenous in the state.
So, this answered a lot of questions that I've had. I really wanted to know the history of this city and county. It's crazy to be in a place that you didn't grow up learning about. When I'm in Salt Lake going down Bangerter Highway, I can tell you exactly who that road is named after, but I moved to a strange place, and I knew nothing about it. I love it here, but I do hate that it has an ugly past (and present). I have even blogged about my racist neighbors before. My husband works much closer to Atlanta and has the opportunity to meet fabulous people of every color. Last year I had his co-worker's daughter come and spend her Spring Break with me and the girls. I wondered why my neighbors weren't so nice. I wondered why we got strange looks at the neighborhood family go-cart place...and guess what? I love it that I ruffled some feathers! I will teach my children tolerance. Good people are good and bad people are bad, and skin color means NOTHING....even in Forsyth County, Georgia.
