The Town Under Water: The Untold Story of Oscarville, Georgia
There’s a chapter in The History of Us that refuses to let go once you’ve read it. It’s about Oscarville, Georgia, a once-thriving Black community that now sleeps silently beneath the waters of Lake Lanier.
Before the flood, Oscarville was alive with hope. Families owned land, ran their own farms, taught their children in one-room schools, and worshiped in churches they built with their hands. It was more than a town; it was a symbol of what freedom was supposed to look like after slavery. For the Black residents of early 1900s Georgia, Oscarville was proof that progress was possible.
But in 1912, everything changed. A false accusation, one of the cruelest and most common tools of racial terror, lit the spark that destroyed an entire community. White mobs flooded into Oscarville, driven by anger, lies, and fear of Black success. Homes were torched, churches were destroyed, and families were chased away at gunpoint. Within weeks, hundreds of men, women, and children were forced to flee, leaving behind their homes, their crops, their savings, and their dreams.
The land they left behind was stolen, divided, and later sold off. Then, in the 1950s, the government flooded the area to create Lake Lanier. Today, visitors enjoy boating and swimming on a lake that hides an unspeakable truth beneath its waves. The echoes of Oscarville remain: foundations of homes, fragments of churches, and the unmarked graves of those who built a life that was taken from them.
This isn’t folklore or conspiracy. It’s documented African American history, a story that was deliberately buried under water and silence. The flooding of Oscarville represents more than just a lost town; it symbolizes a pattern repeated across the South, where thriving Black communities were destroyed, displaced, or erased when they became too successful.
When I began writing about Oscarville for The History of Us, I wanted to do more than tell a tragic story. I wanted to tell the truth. Because truth is the only thing powerful enough to pull history back from the depths. As I researched, I saw the same pattern in places like Tulsa’s Greenwood District (known as Black Wall Street), Rosewood, Florida, and Seneca Village in New York. Entire Black towns were wiped away, their stories dismissed as myths until the evidence could no longer be ignored.
Oscarville’s story is not only about loss; it is about survival. The descendants of those families went on to rebuild their lives, carrying with them the same determination that built the town in the first place. That spirit lives on today in every Black entrepreneur, every family reclaiming their history, and every person who refuses to let the past stay buried.
Reading the Oscarville chapter in The History of Us feels like standing at the edge of Lake Lanier and realizing that the water isn’t calm; it’s heavy with history. Every ripple tells a story of faith, courage, and the price of silence. It reminds us that forgetting is easy, but remembering is an act of resistance.
Oscarville may be underwater, but its story is rising.
That’s why I wrote The History of Us. Because the truth about Black towns destroyed by racial violence should not be left to sink beneath the surface. These stories belong in classrooms, in living rooms, and in our hearts. They are the missing pages of American history, and the time has come to read them aloud.
If this story reached you, know that there are fourteen more waiting inside The History of Us, each one revealing another piece of our shared past: stories of hidden heroes, lost communities, and legacies of strength that continue to shape who we are today.
Order your copy of The History of Us at THOU Books and join a growing movement to reclaim the history that was buried. Because our story deserves to be told, fully, truthfully, and forever.
Kenneth Young
Author, Mentor, Poet, Builder of Futures
Founder of THOU Books, where fathers teach history and families learn together.