The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • 19

WHnwdiy.Ftbrwrrg5.l9g7 THE ATLANTA CONSTITUTION 5' 1 Ciao la flr Forsyth OS iftlfffilil if i 1 I 1 Li 1 llllllililpi From Page 4B think there are a lot of people here ho are afraid to speak up." Many Forsyth County residents who would welcome integration decline to say $0 publicly. "It's not the blacks we're scared of," said a 37-year-old storeowner. '(It's the white people." An official with Tyson Foods asked rjjt to be identified when asked about the number of blacks working at the plant 'tWe have to exist within the community," site said. "Everybody is not sure what their neighbor thinks now." Since the first march, the Sheriffs Department has received reports of more than 200 threatening phone calls being made in the county. The recipients range from restaurants to the authors of letters to the editor.

"A few people out there get their kicks out of being tough on the said Walraven. "If they know they put you in fear, they can control you." closed society Intimidation has long been a staple of Forsyth County segregation: In 1968, 10 black boys and their counselors on a camping trip from Atlanta to Lake Lanier were told to leave the county or be carried out "feet first" They left. In 1976, a cross was burned at Bald Ridge Marina after a black man was rented a slip for his boat lln 1980, a black Atlanta firefighter, Miguel Marcelli, 28, was shot and wound ed as he and his black date left an Atlanta computer firm's employee picnic at Athens Park on Lake Lanier, about two miles fsom where Mae Crowe was One of ttte two Forsyth County men convicted In the shooting was Melvin Crowe, who claimed to be related to Mae Crowe. When first questioned by an investigator, hfc said, "Somebody has got to keep the niggers out of Forsyth County. I'm glad it happened.

I'm not going to tell who did it 4ause I'll get burned out." (Arrested quickly, Crowe was given a 10-year sentence by an all-white Forsyth County Jvy.) I Forsyth County had 1,098 black residents in 1910 before the murder of Mae Crowe. Only 30 remained in 1920, and that njBmber shrunk lo four by 1960. The 1980 census reported one black living in the county, but most leaders feel that was an error or, at least, that the black no longer lives there. Antebellum Forsyth County had few plantations and only 898 slaves, according te the 1860 census, which listed 6,851 whites. "This county was settled by yeoman farmers," said Mashburn, whose In 1912 after three black men were accused of the rape and brutal murder of a 19 the people, Just because you have a few loudmouths." The loudmouths have left the "good people" of Forsyth County who claim they are the majority fearing their cars will be vandalized if they venture into Atlanta with "Forsyth" on their license plates.

They are frustrated, said Baggs, feeling helpless to remove the blot now on their county's name. Even President Reagan has cited events in Forsyth County as evidence that racism still exists in America. "It's been 20 years since Selma," said Baggs. "But I still think there's' nobody who doesn't think of race problems when they hear the word The media is universally blamed, for the county's sudden shame. "That first day Jan.

17," said Parker, "we should have busted every camera down there and kicked every reporter's ass." Parker, like others, is also angry at the county leadership. "I didn't think I would ever see the day In this county that a white man protected a black man from another white man," he said. "I don't think any official should stand up and call us white trash." (Cumming Mayor Ford Gravitt called the counterdemonstrators of Jan. 17 "white "I've heard people say, They government officials might as well pack up. They're serving only one Parker said.

"And I've heard people who never thought about joining the Klan talking about it Churchgoing people." Walraven fears his county could become a racial battleground unless a white backlash Is averted. "We are having a much more visible display of racial hatred now," said Walraven, 41. "The only time this will be over is when the vast citizenry of this county rises up and says constantly that this violence will not be tolerate! pers may return to their cars to find white-supremacist fliers on their windshields, such as the one that billed the "White Power Rally" of Jan. 17. Residents and civic leaders believe racial progress has been retarded by the events of the past six weeks.

They said they feel the county had been evolving toward integration before Jan. 17: Blacks were eating at Forsyth County restaurants. Black performers were appearing at Lanierland Music Park without incident Integrated athletic teams had been Staying Forsyth County High School teams or years. tournaments with integrated 'teams were held at both the high school and at a junior high school Jan. 17.) The county had successfully been the host of the "Up With People" singing group for five days last spring.

Cast members, including 20 blacks, stayed in residents' homes. "We had more people call and request black kids to stay with them than we had black kids to go around," said Chamber of Commerce President Roger Crow. Blacks came into the county regularly on construction and road crews, a black from Hall County worked at mart and blacks had been working at Tyson Foods for five years. Mary "Tiny" Byrd, 49, is in quality control at Tyson. She and the other six black employees live in neighboring Cher-okee County and work the second shift, so they travel In and out of the county in carpools, and they are occasionally the recipients of racial obscenities.

She remembers a man this summer yelling: "Nigger, get your ass out of Cumming." She said she also hears the word "nigger" inside the but "it's nothing to get in a fight about" Sue McMickens, another black employee, said, "They white employees don't say nothing to me. They just look at me like I'm not human." An uncertain future Forsyth County is torn now, between those who would wash away the past and those who would return to it The reaction received by Curtis Cease, a black Georgia Power Co. employee who was restringing lines in Cumming this month, is indicative: "A lot of people have gone out of their way to wave. A couple have stopped and rolled down windows and said, 'Welcome to Forsyth said Cease, 37, who works out of Forest Park. But there have also been hostile greetings.

"One guy drove by and said, 'Get out of town, I guess the group who is causing trouble felt something was being forced on them. I don't think it's indicative of all TTTT" ill mm JOHNSPINKSMtf year old white woman. Once this middle ground says we wont tolerate violence, the problem will be over. Heretofore, the middle ground has been back home asleep." Mashburn, the gray-haired, blue-eyed physician, was on the courthouse square the last week in January, while Hosea Williams was meeting with officials about blacks attending local churches that Suhr day. Mashburn said he saw a girl in.

a parked car spot Williams, lean out the window and yell: "Go home, nigger." He figured she was 12. That same week, two more serious outbursts of racism were reported to the Forsyth County Sheriffs Department: On Jan. 28, a red pickup truck carrying three white men drove by a construction crew that was mostly black. A shotgun was fired out the window, away from the workers. The following day, Marshall Mobley, a black truck driver for an Atlanta cabinet company, had just exited from Georgia 400 and was headed east on Highway 306 when a blue Chevette pulled alongside of him.

One of the four young white males In the car yelled, "Hey, nigger." Seeing the man was pointing a pistol at him, Mobley ducked. Two shots were fired. Neither-struck the truck. Another shot was fired as Mobley pulled off 306 onto Parks Road. It, too, missed.

"1 think they shot up in the air, so I guess they were Just trying to scare me. they had meant to do any damage, they could have," said Mobley, 31, a northwest' Atlanta resident and father of three children. He had been driving the route for1 more than a year. "There are some real nice people up there, and then you have some kind of crazy people, he said. "I guess I ran into some of those who don't want us up were penoa.

0 7 feiHir Blacks were chased out of Forsyth County School near Georgia Tech. A 29-year-old sign painter, he has lived in Cumming about three years, in the basement of Beverly and Mark Watts' home. The Wattses, who formed the Forsyth County Defense League this month, moved to Cumming from Warner Robins, Ga. "I didn't want my children to go to school with blacks. I don't want them to go through what I went through.

My life was being threatened constantly," said Mrs. Watts, 24, the mother of two children. She said she dropped out of Southwest High School in Macon because of threats from blacks. "There are black beauty pageants and black colleges. Why can't we have an all-white town? I feel safe going shopping at 9 o'clock at night here and don't have to worry about being raped by a black.

If I lived In Atlanta, I couldn't do that. They've got downtown Atlanta; we ought to have the right- to choose to live in an all-white community." Many resident: fear the city that enters their home, every day on the evening news. "People around here have been taught to fear the black 'cause they're jailing each other every day in Atlanta," said Parker. "My son loves Braves baseball, and he's begged me to take him to a game, but I hear people get mugged down there. He wanted to go to the circus, but I'm scared to take him." Booming community Whether Forsyth County residents like it or not, Atlanta is closing in on them.

When Lake Lanier was created In the late 1950s, the county's shore became a summer refuge for Atlantans, many of whom built cabins on the lake. (Often, a note on their door would warn them to leave their maid at home on their next visit.) Then, a decade later, Georgia Highway 400 was completed, opening up Atlanta to the Forsyth County work force and opening up the county as a for Atlanta workers. The county line is now IS miles north of Interstate 28J via Georgia -400 a short haul compared to the 90 minutes it used to take Forsyth residents to get into the city. Sixty-three percent of the county's labor force worked outside the county in 1980,, the majority In metro Atlanta. About half the 1980 labor force were skilled blue-collar or clerical workers.

The 1980 census reported that 49.2 percent of the adult population over 25 had not graduated from high school The county's population has Jumped from 16,928 in 1970 to a 1985 'estimate of 25,600. The 1980-85 growth rate of 27 per, cent made Forsyth the sixth fastest growing county in Georgia. Its 1984 per capita Income of (12,358 ranked sixth In the state, and retail sales Jumped 36 percent in just two years, from 1150.6 million in 1983 to $204.8 million in 1985. Real-estate speculation is booming as good Forsyth County land has tripled or Suadrupled In price In the past decade. In-ustrlal parks and upscale subdivisions are springing up all over the county's south end, often creating a land of Juxtaposition: The Polo Fields a "polo and golf community" being marketed by Atlanta's Northside Realty, with homes starting in the is adjacent to two old chicken houses.

The Atlanta Steeplechase, one of the area's gala social events, is held off Bethelview Road, the same road where the bottle and rock attack occurred Jan. 17. Had been making progress On the square in Cumming, some stores still close on Wednesday afternoons, yet traffic crawls at rush hour. (Pickups still abound, but BMWs are gaining.) The strip just south of the city limits has become a patchwork of fast-food restaurants and shopping centers with 24-hour grocery stores. But even there, the old and new Forsyth County can clash crazily.

Shop 111 i a grandfather was a leading early merchant. cotton torsytn county's principal but, when the boll weevil struck, destitution set in. The county's savior was ratal electrification in the late 1930s, which allowed farmers to pump water to chicken houses. Farmers turned to chickens under the leadership of county patriarch Roy P. Otwell, then publisher of the Forsyth County News.

Otwell now 92 and in failing health was the president of the Bank of Cum-ming, mayor for 30 years and a state legislator. He not only owned the paper but also the Chevrolet and Ford dealerships and scads of property, from the buildings around the courthouse to the rentals on "The Ridge." "Whatever he wanted, happened," said a current business leader. In such a closed society, racism flourished. While growing up, Mashburn remembers, he would hear men brag: "Be careful of me. I helped run the niggers out" "If you ever saw a black said Rickett, "he was with a white person." Black truck drivers making deliveries to the local chicken plant had to be escorted by a GBI agent as late as the 19708 Haven of Svhite flight' Residents of the community of Oscar ville In northeast Forsyth County where Mae Crowe lived can still show visitors the stone supposedly used to kill; her.

The story of the rape and murder has been passed from generation to generation. Children have grown up rarely, if ever, seeing a black person. "The only thing they know about race Is what they've heard," said Walraven. "How do they know any better when they haven't seen anything?" With the civil rights movement of the 1960s, Forsyth County's all-white reputation made it a haven of "white flight," which has continued through the 70s and into the '80s. "We have some people who have moved in here," said Mashburn, "who will tell you they moved in because it was all white.

And they have not helped the matter any. They were not the ones throwing the bottles, but they call the high school when a black speaker comes in." Estilene Stanford, 60, city clerk of Cumming, said, "We have a few people who moved here when they started having trouble with the schools in Atlanta." Trucker Burt believes the "troublemakers" are primarily newcomers. "We live here because we was born here. The biggest majority of the people who moved here from Atlanta did it because there are no blacks," he said. "If everything was OK in Atlanta, they wouldn't be leaving." Frank Shirley the head of the Committee to Keep Forsyth and Dawson Counties White who was repeatedly shouted down by other local residents on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," telecast from a Cumming restaurant Feb.

9 grew up in Atlanta, and he attended O'Keefe High lllii mm 5 'I S5 Left, a quiet scene at the Forsyth County Courthouse. Right, Digger OdelL from his fruit stand, lets folks know how he feels: 'If people would do just as my sign says here on the truck, everything would be all right.