Oscarville, Georgia

We had the Black Wall Street.

We had the Oscarville building.

Georgia at one time, and that was flooded.

Black Wall Street was lit on fire by haters.

We're going to talk about water, man.

Being in Georgia, you often hear the stories of Oscarville, which is now underneath Lake Lanier.

Yeah.

But...

Throughout history...

Black communities in America have built thriving towns, only have them stolen, destroyed, and erased.

In five such cases, Oscarville, Ferguson, South Carolina, Little Egypt, North Carolina, Vanport, Oregon, or Kawagula.

Is that it? Is that what it is? I think it's Kawaluga.

They always in their feelings about something that we're doing.

And then we have Oscarville, Georgia, 1912.

Now under Lake Lanier, yes.

That lake y'all go jet skiing on.

Y'all go jet skiing on.

Oscarville had over 1,100 black residents who owned farmland.

And again, white mobs night rode, lynched, and burned churches until they drove every black person out of Forsyth County.

They stole the land.

You see remnants of it when you see ruins underwater.

You're talking about Oscarville? I'm just wondering.

I looked it up.

It lies beneath Lake Lanier.

And we're finding out more and more about other places, other black communities that were destroyed or people who were killed or murdered because of comments that they made about voting, because they stood up for voting rights, because they stood up for human rights, and they were killed because of it.

It was the post reconstruction violence that started after after the Civil War and continued on through the 19 all the way through the 1950s because there were all types of attacks on black communities that were doing relatively well and very well.

But Oscarville is an interesting case.

It was a. forced displacement that went on after all of that.

And when they did it, they flooded towns.

Oscarville, which was a predominantly African-American community, they flooded cemeteries, they flooded roads, they flooded a racetrack.

And underneath that, there are all these undetermined spirits that are still floating around and waiting for people.

And that's why You know, we have so many drownings on the lake.