The Oscarville Chronicles — Vol. 3

WATERS OF BETRAYAL: The Government Conspiracy That Drowned Oscarville Forever

By David G. Stone

Quick Summary

In the 1950s, four decades after the violent 1912 racial cleansing of Oscarville, federal engineers and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers authorized the damming of the Chattahoochee River to create Lake Lanier. Beneath 100 feet of water lay the remnants of farms, churches, stores,…

In the 1950s, four decades after the violent 1912 racial cleansing of Oscarville, federal engineers and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers authorized the damming of the Chattahoochee River to create Lake Lanier. Beneath 100 feet of water lay the remnants of farms, churches, stores, and graveyards that had belonged to Oscarville's Black families.

Waters of Betrayal investigates the federal land condemnation procedures, the undervaluation of stolen Black farmsteads, and the bureaucratic erasure that permanently submerged the physical evidence of Oscarville. Drawing from declassified government surveys and descendant records, this third volume in the Oscarville Chronicles exposes how infrastructure development and state power were weaponized to bury history beneath Georgia's largest reservoir.