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By Maya King
- Sept. 16, 2022, 7:09 p.m. ET
ATLANTA — A digital flier featuring the logo of the Republican Party of Forsyth County, Ga., and urging residents to rally against Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee for governor, has alarmed and infuriated local Democratic leaders, who said its message sounded dangerously evocative of the county’s notoriously racist past.
Using inflammatory language as if Ms. Abrams were an invading enemy, the flier issues a “call to action” encouraging “conservatives and patriots” to “save and protect our neighborhoods.” It emerged this week in response to news that Ms. Abrams would be campaigning alongside other members of the Democratic ticket in the area on Sunday.
“The moment is at hand,” the flier reads, calling Ms. Abrams and Senator Raphael Warnock, the incumbent Georgia Democrat seeking a full term, “the designers of destructive radicalism and socialism” and warning that they would be “crossing over our county border” and into the county seat, Cumming. It says they will appear at “OUR FoCal Center,” referring to a county arts building.
Mr. Warnock is not expected to appear alongside Ms. Abrams, Democratic officials said.
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Cumming, about 40 miles north of Atlanta, is more than 75 percent white. It owes its racial homogeneity in large part to a violent campaign by Forsyth County’s white residents in 1912 that pushed out thousands of Black residents.Credit…Audra Melton for The New York Times
The text of the flier surfaced on Wednesday on a local online conservative news outlet, which said it had spotted it on the Forsyth G.O.P. website, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published the flier Friday morning after county Democrats circulated it to journalists.
As of midmorning Friday, the flier did not appear on the Forsyth Republican Party’s website or Facebook page.
Reached by text message late Friday afternoon and asked four times whether the county party had produced or distributed the flier, Jerry Marinich, the group’s chairman, did not answer. He said only that the party “does not plan on participating in any rally on Sunday.”
Ms. Abrams’s campaign declined to comment except to confirm that she would be attending the Forsyth event, though it was not listed on her weekend campaign schedule.
Cumming, about 40 miles north of Atlanta, is more than 75 percent white, as is Forsyth as a whole. It owes its racial homogeneity in large part to a violent campaign by Forsyth County’s white residents in 1912 that pushed out thousands of Black residents through intimidation and deadly force. The legacy of that campaign and the racist thinking that gave rise to it persisted as late as 1987, when a group of civil rights activists were attacked while trying to mark the 75th anniversary of Black residents’ initial expulsion from the county.
“We strongly condemn the dangerous and embarrassing rhetoric of the Forsyth County, Georgia, Republican Party,” said Melissa Clink, chair of the county’s Democratic Party, in a statement on Friday. “Forsyth County’s history of racial cleansing and being a documented sundown town make this line especially incendiary, disgusting and shameful,” she said, using a term for places that discriminate, often severely, against nonwhite residents.
The Republican Women of Forsyth County, seeking to avoid condemnation by association, issued a statement Friday underlining its status as a private club independent of the party organization.
“We do not condone nor engage in tactics that are intended to intimidate, harass or silence people who hold different political views,” the group said, adding that conservative ideals “are best exemplified when we engage in civil discourse, allowing all sides to be heard.”
Source: nytimes.com
