Educational Media Reviews Online

Racial cleansing in America seems to be unthinkable, yet Banished is the chilling story of three communities Pierce City, Missouri, Harrison, Arkansas, and Forsyth County, Georgia, where blacks were systematically intimidated and run out of town at the beginning of the twentieth century. “The pattern is eerily similar, alleged violence against a white woman, the lynching of a black man, followed by the expulsion of the black community.” Today these communities are almost entirely white. The land that had been owned by the African Americans was lost when they fled in fear and were too intimidated to ever return to either reclaim or sell their land.

The Strickland family of Georgia, after they cleaned up the rubble strewn family cemetery and searched the deeds for their family land, found that in Forsyth County the typical means of transfer to property to white owners was by means of adverse possession, a legal maneuver whereby the property is deemed to be abandoned. While legally the family has no recourse, they grieve over the loss of what was taken from them.

James and Charles Brown of Missouri discovered that their great grandfather, who had died before the Pierce City racial cleansing occurred, had been buried there. Charles became determined to have the body exhumed and buried with the rest of the family in Springfield. While he had documentation that the family had purchased the plot and the burial had indeed taken place, the bureaucracy of Pierce City was extraordinarily reluctant to grant permission and the residents of the town were quite candid in expressing their racist views. It became the family’s very personal crusade to relocate the body to a place where they could freely honor and remember.

Harrison, Arkansas, which banished its black citizens twice, appears to have made a genuine good faith attempt to heal the wounds caused by the expulsions. The town formed a Race Relations Task Force, held a Day of Prayer, and created two college scholarships that are awarded to minority students. Yet, the much of town appears to have an intransigent attitude: the Klan has a strong public presence in Harrison and holds what their leader refers to as “cross lighting,” an old Scottish tradition. The Harrison Chamber of Commerce flies a confederate flag, and a proposal to commemorate the expulsion of black citizens with a public monument met with considerable opposition.

Rich in personal family narrative, family photos, old newspaper stories, and official records, the tightly crafted, engrossing exploration exposes some very ugly episodes in American history and raises some profound questions about remorse, reconciliation and reparations. Marco Williams asks the question, “Why is it so hard to find common ground?” Many whites seem to regard reparations as a personal financial or legal threat, while African Americans see them as an acknowledgement of their sufferings and a means of rebuilding their communities. Banished serves as a superb starting point for a discussion to encourage dialog and reconciliation. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries, and a must have for all African American Studies programs.