Episode 16: Oscarville, Georgia

This is a tragic case of deja vu.... 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everybody, I'm Shannon, and welcome to the They Hid What Podcast. On this podcast, I explore parts of history that have been kept hidden or swept under the rug. In this week's episode, I will be discussing Oscarville, Georgia. Let's get into it. The answer's two-prong. Yes, you have heard this story before, but no, you have not heard about Oscarville. I began research for this episode thinking I was digging into the story of a creepy lake with a town underneath it. Yet I found an entire community was forced out of their homes and taken away from their town. I also discovered numerous other towns with the same story. This episode is the next installment in the unfortunate series of erased black communities. So let's talk about Oscarville, Georgia. Oscarville, Georgia was formed in the late 1800s and was mostly agricultural. This small black community was made up of residents that used to be slaves who were freed after the Civil War. By 1911, Oscarville had about 1,100 residents, 58 of which owned farmland, and 109 residents rented farms. Many of these people were craftsmen or cotton hands, and some were poultry farmers. As we've seen many times already in this podcast, racial tension was running rampant in the early 1900s. Between September 24th and 26th, 1906, the Atlanta race massacre took place. It all began with a false story reported in Atlanta newspapers of four white women being assaulted. Thousands of white men formed a mob and began marching down the business district and attacking hundreds of black residents, destroying their businesses along the way. The riot only came to an end because city officials and clergy asked for the violence to stop because it was giving Atlanta a bad image. The black community agreed to stand down merely because they didn't want continued violence and they decided to distance themselves from the white residents. Sound familiar? On September 5, 1912, Ellen Griss, a 22-year-old white woman, alleged that two black men tried to rape her. Ellen claimed that she woke up to find a black man beside her in bed. Five black men were arrested in connection with this assault. 22-year-old Tony Howell, 35-year-old Isaiah Perkle, 24-year-old Joe Rogers, Fate Chester, and Johnny Bates. All five men were taken to the jail in Cumming, Georgia. Reverend Grant Smith appealed to the sheriff of Oscarville to let the five men go due to lack of evidence. He also claimed that Ellen may have been in a relationship with one of the suspects, and she had claimed rape when she was caught with him. This was called the threadbear lie by Ida B. Wells. Smith's claims enraged the white community, and a mob soon surrounded him on the courthouse steps. Smith was beaten and horse whipped, and though he sustained life-threatening injuries, he survived. Members of Cummings' black community were having a barbecue at the Colored Methodist campground when they heard of Tony Howell's arrest and the attack of Reverend Smith. Men from the barbecue started to make their way to the downtown area, and rumors erupted that they were marching with explosives to blow up the town. It was like a gross game of telephone. This brought even more white men out, most of them armed with guns. The mayor of Cumming, Charlie Harris, couldn't get the mob to disperse, so he contacted the governor, Joseph Brown, and asked if Governor Brown could send in the National Guard. The National Guard traveled from Marietta to Cumming, and only then did the mob go home. Then there was the discovery of May Crow on September 9, 1912. May was an 18 or 19-year-old white resident of Oscarville who went missing after visiting her aunt. A search party was formed, and May was found injured and unresponsive in the woods outside Oscarville. May had been raped and bludgeoned in the head with a rock, resulting in a fractured skull. She was found half dressed and hidden under a pile of leaves. May's unconscious body was moved to her parents' home while a crowd gathered around the woods to see what was going on. One of the members of this crowd was 16-year-old Ernest Knox. He had only recently moved to the area and was living with his aunt and her family. There were no witnesses to May's assault or the dumping of her body. There was no evidence to link May to her attacker. However, a small mirror was found near the scene, yet it was never reported how near. This mirror was to believe to be owned by Ernest Knox. He was approached and asked if the mirror belonged to him. He said it did, and Ernest was arrested and detained with a confession forced out of him. Once again, news spread of the arrest and a mob formed outside of the jail. Ernest was transported out of the back of the jail and detained in Atlanta, quote, to keep him alive until trial. Edwards is the husband of Ernest Knox's cousin, Jane Daniels. Rob Edwards was transported to the coming jail, and news soon spread of his arrest. Soon, a 2,000-person mob had formed outside of the jail. The county sheriff, Sheriff Reed, went home early and claimed he had no knowledge of a mob. The deputy on duty tried to prevent the mob from entering the building, but he was one man against an angry army of 2,000. The mob stormed the building and went to Rob Edward's cell. The mob beat Rob with crowbars, put a noose around his neck, shot him, drug his body from the jail to the town square, where they hung him on a pole, and members of the crowd shot his dead body. After this incident, Sheriff Reed arrested three more people in connection with May's attack. Ernest Knox's cousin, 18-year-old Oscar Daniel, Oscar Daniels' sister, 22-year-old Jane Daniel, and their neighbor, 27-year-old Ed Collins. On September 23, 1912, May Crow died from her injuries, and now the charges against Ernest Knox, Jane Daniels, Oscar Daniels, and Ed Collins are sexual assault and murder. The group leaves the jail in Atlanta on October 2nd, 1912, and takes a train to Beauford, Georgia. Since there were no trains to Cumming where the trial was to be held, the prisoners had to walk the rest of the way under escort from the National Guard. On October 3rd, the trial began under Judge Newt Morris. Ernest Knox and Oscar Daniel had separate trials that took place on the same day. They each had all white juries and were found guilty of the rape and murder of Mae Crow. Knox and Daniel were sentenced to death by hanging, but this was illegal under state law, and public executions were illegal in Forsyth County. Judge Morris ordered the hangings take place behind a blind, but the night before the execution, arsonists burned down the blind and left the gallows exposed. On October 24, 1912, 5,000 to 8,000 people watched Ernest Knox and Oscar Daniel hang for crimes they didn't commit. A piece of rope was even kept for the Minute Book of the Court. This piece of rope mysteriously went missing, though, in 1987 after these events got attention from civil rights protesters. Jane Daniel, who was accused of holding a lantern she borrowed from Ed Collins during the attack, was acquitted. Soon after the trial, a group of white people calling themselves Night Riders formed. They would ride on horseback at night through black communities and cause property damage. They would break windows and set fires to any structures they felt like. The most prominent structure they set fire to was the Oscarville Church, which was the hub of the entire community. These raids lasted for months, killing many black residents. The Night Riders soon forced the black residents towards the Chattahoochee River. Once they met the river, their only options were to swim or drown. Most didn't make it. Many of the remaining black residents decided to leave Forsythe County due to the ongoing attacks of the Knight Riders. 98% of the black residents of Oscarville had either left or been killed when they refused to leave. This was known as the Great Migration. Before leaving, these residents tried to sell their land, but they either sold it at a loss or had to abandon it altogether. Since most of the black residents had left Oscarville, the white residents took their land, homes, farms, and businesses. Those that fled settled mostly in Gainesville, Georgia, in Hall County. With this new influx of poultry farmers in the area, Gainesville became known as the poultry capital of the world. Over time, land that made up Oscarville was being sold to the government. Since this was still mostly farmland and the capital city of Atlanta was growing, the demand for water supply was high, and the local government made plans to make a man-made reservoir. Plans for Buford Dam were approved in 1947, and regulated flooding from the Chattahoochee River created Lake Lanier. What was left of Oscarville was flooded in 1950 and completed flooding in 1956. Oscarville is one of many places called drowned towns. Many of the structures weren't removed prior to the flooding. Some were demolished, but the foundations were left intact. Cemeteries were left untouched, the Gainesville Speedway was left there, and there are sixty-foot trees that were never cut down. When we hear about Lake Lanier now, all anyone wants to talk about is how it might be haunted or the over 700 drownings that have happened there since its creation. Lake Lanier wasn't created over an abandoned town. It was created due to racism and the forced displacement of all 1,100 black residents. We cannot forget about the black communities that are trying to be erased from America's history. This will not be the last story of its kind told here. As I said, this is just the second episode in a series of forgotten black communities. That's all for this story. Come back next week to learn what else has been hidden.