Before Lake Lanier was created in the 1950s, Forsyth County, Georgia, was home to over 1,000 Black residents, many of whom lived in Oscarville. While much of online discourse has distorted the truth, it doesn’t change the fact that the ruins of that town are now at the bottom of the lake.
When a white woman was sexually assaulted and left for dead in the woods in 1912, unfounded accusations were flung at three Black residents of Oscarville. The allegations led to the lynching of 24-year-old Rob Edwards and the hanging of 16-year-old Ernest Knox and 17-year-old Oscar Daniel.
Black churches and businesses were burned next. It took just a few months for Black folks to be driven not just out of Oscarville but out of Forsyth County.
But what goes around comes around. Many of those same people who forced Black families from their communities saw their own homes demolished when the Army Corps of Engineers created Lake Lanier.
Some wonder if all of the mysterious accidents and deaths are the work of the vengeful spirits of the Black folks who had been forced from their homes. Could it be karma?