Her skull had been bludgeoned with a stone, but she was alive and barely breathing. The next morning Crow’s body was found half-naked, bloody, and hidden under a pile of leaves. Many whites were outraged by Smith’s allegations and an angry mob beat and horse-whipped the preacher on the steps of the courthouse, almost taking his life.Ī week later, on September 12th, 1912, an 18-year-old white woman named Mae Crow was raped and beaten in the Big Creek community of Forsyth County Georgia. He claimed there wasn’t much evidence to hold all five men accountable for assault, and also suggested that one of the men could have already been in a consensual relationship with Grice.

A vocal black preacher, named Grant Smith, appealed to the Sheriff to release the men. News of the attack and arrests caused quite a stir in the surrounding black communities. The Forsyth County Sheriff arrested five black men for the alleged assault. On September 5th, 1912, a 22-year-old white woman named Ellen Grice claimed two black men tried to rape her, but were unsuccessful because they were scared away by her mother. For the small town of Oscarville, that fear would turn into brutal reality. It was clear that in the early 1900s, blacks in Atlanta lived in constant fear of violence. Read all of W.E.B Du Bois’ A Litany of Atlanta “Bewildered we are, and passion-tossed, mad with the madness of a mobbed and mocked and murdered people straining at the arm posts of Thy Throne, we raise our shackled hands and charge Thee, God, by the bones of our stolen fathers, by the tears of our dead mothers, by the very blood of Thy crucified Christ: What meaneth this? Tell us the Plan give us the Sign!” “Forgive us, good Lord we know not what we say!” Black-American sociologist and author, W.E.B Du Bois, penned an emotional essay, called A Litany of Atlanta which was printed in local newspapers and captured the shared pain, fear, and terror black people felt in the south during that time. Still, on edge from the Atlanta race riots of 1906, many locals feared more violence could erupt at any time. They managed to make a decent living for themselves, creating a healthy community with churches, schools, and small businesses.

Many worked as hands in the cotton fields or performed odd jobs for white residents in the surrounding neighborhoods. Settled along the Chattahoochee waters, Oscarville was home to roughly 1,100 black folks, most of whom were freed after fighting in the American Civil War. However, to get a clearer picture of how and why this behemoth of a lake exists, we’ll need to go back 45 years before its creation - to 1912, in the small African-American town of Oscarvllle. To this day, it helps control flooding along the Chattahoochee River, as well as provide water and power to residents near Atlanta. Lake Lanier is a massive 57.92 square-mile reservoir that was established in 1956 with the completion of the Buford Dam. But, one thing’s for certain, its horrifying past adds a much-needed perspective to understanding its haunting present. Whether the lake is cursed or not is entirely up to you. There have been well over 500 deaths since the lake’s inception and more than 200 since 1994. Many folks who live close by will tell you straight up, “Don’t go to Lake Lanier.” And its death toll certainly validates their point. Every so often, someone loses their life at the lake and leaves behind stories of good swimmers being snatched under the water, unexplainable boating accidents, or vehicles crashing into the lake without cause. There are the eerie accounts of fishermen seeing ghostly kayaks floating on the water, or women with no hands roaming the Jerry D. If you spend any time in or around Atlanta, you’ve heard tales of Lake Lanier.

Lake lanier lady in blue dress