1987 Forsyth County protests

Map of Georgia with Forsyth County in red

Forsyth County is a county located in north Georgia, about 30 miles (48 km) northeast of the state capital of Atlanta,[1] with its county seat being the city of Cumming.[2][3] For much of the 20th century, the primarily rural county had a long history of poor race relations and a reputation as a hostile place for African Americans.[1] In 1912, an African American man was lynched by white Americans in the county due to allegations regarding the murder and rape of a white woman there.[4] In the aftermath of this event, some white people known as "night riders" waged a months-long terror campaign of whitecapping that resulted in the expulsion of almost all African Americans from the county.[5][note 1] Prior to this, approximately 1,000 African Americans had been living there,[8] with the county's total population being around 11,000.[9]

Following the expulsion, Forsyth developed a reputation as a sundown county, where African Americans were not allowed to be in the county after nightfall.[10] In the 1960s, signs were posted around the county reading, "Nigger–Don't Let the Sun Set on You in Forsyth County",[11] including one on the lawn of the county courthouse.[9][12][13] Also during this time, as Lake Lanier (which constituted the eastern border of the county) developed into a popular recreational destination, African American vacationers faced discrimination and threats from locals.[11] In 1968, ten African American boys and their camp counselors were told by local residents to leave the county or they would be forcibly removed, and in 1976 there was a cross burning after an African American man rented a slipway at a nearby marina for his boat.[11] Black truck drivers who traveled to the Tyson Foods chicken processing plant were often escorted by members of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI),[11][9] while the early 1980s saw many black people shot in encounters with white people at the lake.[11][2][12] Despite a steady growth in population through the 1970s and 1980s,[10] the county was home to almost no African Americans, with the United States Census Bureau reporting that, of the county's 1980 population of 27,958 people, only one was black.[14][note 2] By comparison, censuses taken in 1920 and 1960 had shown a black population of 30 and four, respectively.[11] 1980 also saw the expansion of U.S. Route 19 in the county into a four-lane toll road, significantly decreasing the travel time between Cumming and Atlanta and causing the county to begin to develop into an exurban bedroom community for upper middle class white people who worked in Atlanta.[15]

Civil rights activist Hosea Williams (c. 1960s) was involved in organizing the January 17 march.[12][1]

By 1987, the county had a population of around 38,000,[16][17][11] of which about 99 percent was white,[1] leading several media publications to refer to the county during this time as "all-white".[18][2][19] That year, Charles A. Blackburn, a white resident of Cumming announced plans for a civil rights march to draw attention to the county's racial problems.[12][20] Blackburn backed out of the idea after receiving numerous death threats.[21] Dean and Tammy Carter, two residents of Gainesville, Georgia,[11] revived the idea and invited Hosea Williams,[12] a civil rights activist and member of the Atlanta City Council, proposing a "March against Fear and Intimidation" in the county on January 17.[1][note 3] The purpose of the march was to draw attention to the history and lasting legacy of the racial events in the county,[1] including highlighting the fact that the county was still all-white.[16] It was scheduled to take place the weekend before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which had been established as a federal holiday only four years earlier, in 1983, and had quickly become, according to human rights activist and academic Leonard Zeskind, "a flashpoint for white supremacists".[15]

In the weeks leading up to the march, Ku Klux Klan (KKK) groups and white supremacists in north Georgia began to coordinate plans to disrupt the event, which they said was being organized by "outside agitators and communist racemixers".[22] The planned march was to occur against the backdrop of several high-profile racial incidents across the country,[13] including an attack on three black people in Howard Beach, Queens, and a hazing incident at a military college in South Carolina wherein a black student was harassed by white students who had dressed as Klansmen.[12] Regarding the racial climate at the time, activist and pastor Cecil Williams of the Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in San Francisco said, "Just when we thought we had swept the whirlwind of racism into the corners of society, now we see it is blowing back into the center of the floor".[12] On January 17, the same day that the march in Forsyth County was scheduled, white supremacist groups had held a parade in Pulaski, Tennessee, the birthplace of the KKK, led by white supremacists Robert E. Miles and Thomas Robb.[23]

Multiple news sources, such as the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, and academics have made note of the size of the January 24 march, with many sources referring to it as one of the largest civil rights demonstrations in the history of the Southern United States.[50] According to journalists David Treadwell and Barry Bearak, some activists from the civil rights movement of the 1960s viewed the march as the start of a possible resurrection of the movement, with Williams saying, "The civil rights family has not been together like this since we buried Martin Luther King".[2] Civil rights activist Ozell Sutton, who was a regional director of the United States Department of Justice's office of community relations at that time, also spoke positively about the march, saying, "This outpouring of black and white and all racial groups is an indication of a deep and abiding concern [for civil rights]".[2] Martin Luther King III, the eldest son of Martin Luther King Jr., stated that his father would have seen the march as "a great demonstration of brotherhood and love".[2] Following the protests, Governor Harris organized an investigation into the protests.[51] According to historian Wendy Hamand Venet, his committee finding that the state's flag, which prominently featured a Confederate battle flag as part of its design, "was a factor inciting racism and violence and recommended its removal".[51] The protests ultimately led to a revival over the issue of the state flag, with many prominent politicians and activists calling for the removal of the Confederate symbol from the flag.[51][52] Following the white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 that resulted in the death of a counter-protestor in a terrorist attack, several publications made comparisons between the violence there and that witnessed in Forsyth County in 1987.[53][29]

Following the marches, local leaders in Forsyth County publicly deplored the actions of the Klansmen and offered apologies to the marchers.[16] Additionally, on February 9,[17] they announced the creation of a biracial human relations committee to help address racial issues in the county.[16][18] The committee included six white county leaders and six African-Americans, with three of the latter being appointed by the six white members and another two being appointed by Williams and his colleagues.[17] Forsyth County's population continued to grow over the next several decades,[10] with the 1990 United States census reporting a total population of 49,000.[54] By 2019, this number had increased to approximately 245,000.[14] As the population grew, so too did the number of non-white residents in the county. In 1990, the county had 14 black residents,[54] but by 2019, African Americans constitute 2.6 percent of the population,[14] growing to about four percent by 2022.[9][55] Additionally, by that year, a quarter of the population was made up of either Asian Americans or Hispanic Americans.[9][55] Throughout this time, the county has played host to several other civil rights protests, including a march in August 1992 in recognition the fifth anniversary of the 1987 marches.[9][54] This march, which included about 40 people led by Williams, involved about 200 police officers and was counter-demonstrated by about 350 white supremacists, including members of the Nationalist Movement.[54] In June 2020, amidst the George Floyd protests in Georgia, about 1,000 people protested for civil rights and racial justice.[56] The protests were peaceful, and while there were rumors that counterdemonstrators from the Nationalist Movement would disrupt the event, this did not come occur.[14]

Following the protests, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a civil rights legal advocacy organization, filed a lawsuit against 11 Klansmen and two Klan organizations (the Invisible Empire and the Southern White Knights) for damages related to their attack on January 17.[57][58][59] In October 1988, a federal jury ordered the organizations and individuals to pay almost $1 million in damages to the marchers.[58][59] The Invisible Empire was ordered to pay about $800,000 of this judgement.[60] As a result of the ruling, James Farrands, the leader of the Invisible Empire, agreed to relinquish all of the organization's assets, including its name, and personally paid $37,500 to the affected marchers.[58] By the middle of 1993, due to the settlement, the organization was defunct.[58]

The total cost of the law enforcement presence for the second march was over $670,000 (equivalent to $1,600,000 in 2021).[41] Of this amount, the government of Georgia paid $579,148, other governmental agencies paid $29,759, and the county covered the remainder.[41] In light of this, on January 27, 1987,[61] the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners passed an ordinance requiring permits for rallies and demonstrations and requiring the groups holding these events to cover some of the costs associated with law enforcement protections, with a later amendment capping the cost of the daily fees at $1,000.[41][62]

David Duke (c. 1974) used the protests to help revive his political career.[63]

This came up in January 1989, when the Nationalist Movement made plans to hold a demonstration on the steps of the Forsyth County Courthouse in opposition of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.[41] Following the ordinance, the county charged the group $100 in permit fees.[41] However, rather than pay the fee, the Nationalist Movement sued the county, alleging that the fees violated their freedom of speech under the provisions of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.[1] The case made its way before the Supreme Court of the United States, with the American Civil Liberties Union writing an amicus brief in favor of the Nationalist Movement.[41] In the end, the Supreme Court decided in favor of the Nationalist Movement, ruling that the county's permit fees system was unconstitutional.[61]

According to reporter Tyler Bridges, Duke's involvement in the protests marked the beginning of his "political comeback".[24] The counterdemonstration marked his first public appearance in five years,[37] and he used the increased media attention to get interviews with many national media publications, causing his national profile to increase among white supremacist circles.[48] Following the protests, Klan and activity in north Georgia increased.[64] During this time, on February 22, 1987, Duke and Barrett held a white supremacist rally near Cumming that attracted about 125 people,[47] and during a March 7, speech before white nationalist Populist Party members, Duke stated that the Forsyth counterdemonstrations marked "the genesis of an entirely new movement" for white nationalism.[65] That year, Duke announced his presidential campaign for the 1988 election, with Bridges stating that, "Forsyth County had reminded leaders of the white supremacist movement that Duke was their best spokesman".[66] Duke held his campaign kickoff event in nearby Marietta, Georgia, and officially announced his candidacy on the steps of the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta, with the locations chosen at least in part due to their proximity to Forsyth County.[67]