A study in black & white

In 2005 the black population accounted for 2.2 percent of Forsyth County’s population. In comparison Georgia’s black population was 29.8 percent of the state’s total. Out of a population of 140,000, that’s nearly 3100 souls and a 22 thousand percent increase from the 14 blacks that were counted in the 1990 census.

A black family is forced from their home.

A century later, some of these towns and counties have remained all-white.

Marco William’s documentary Banished tackles this historical minefield by delving into the present of Pierce City, Missouri; Harrison, Arkansas; and Forsyth County, Georgia. Tracking the stories of the descendents of those forced to flee, as well as the descendents of the townspeople that forced the original families out, Williams personalizes this tragic period in U.S. history.

Full title Banished: How Whites Drove Blacks Out of Town in America, the film succeeds because instead of a tired recounting of events, it’s an exploration of the legacy those events bared.

For the decedents of Morgan Strickland it’s researching the paper trail to find proof that Strickland indeed sold his land—on which homes are now selling for 600 thousand dollars—before being forced out of Forsyth. In Pierce City, a descendent of James Cobb search’s for Cobb’s unmarked grave in Pierce City. And in Harrison, the white townsfolk not only acknowledge their town’s ugly past, but they actively take steps to make amends, starting with a day of prayer.

Even when sitting across from a Harrison resident that admits he moved to the town because of the lack of blacks, Williams makes no judgments. Even when Cobb’s decedent ambushes—a descriptor of my choosing— a Pierce City official with the news that he’s going to ask the town to pay for the disinterment of James Cobb, Williams leaves it up to the audience to decide who is in the right.

Banished offers no solutions, but it opens the door for an expanded conversation about reparations and how America’s racial history is as much a part of our current reality as it is our past.

http://banishedthefilm.com

Charles Judson is a local screen & comic book writer and a regular contributor and film critic for CinemATL.