Kit Roberts
A lake in the U.S. has become one of the deadliest in the country due to a horrific incident in its past.
The history of the U.S. is checkered with many horrific events. Unfortunately, there is a common factor between many of the events which have become stains on its history.
Lake Lanier is sadly a part of that grim past after a crime in a nearby town led to a sadly all too predictable response.
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Beneath the waters of the lake is the remains of a drowned town called Oscarville. In 1912, Oscarville was home to a thriving black community. At that point in US history, between the abolition of slavery and the Jim Crow Laws, black communities were beginning to build lives for themselves.
Unfortunately, this was a problem for white supremacists in the U.S, who frequently acted violently against black communities, including massacres such as the infamous incident at Tulsa in 1921.
Tulsa was not the first instance of this, and often white supremacists would look for any excuse to turn on black communities. In Oscarville, this came when the body of a white woman was found, believed to have been sexually assaulted before she died.
A gang called the Night Riders responded by expelling black residents from their property using violence and intimidation.
George Rucker, who is descended from Oscarville residents, told local media outlets how his great-grandfather had had to flee his home.
He said: "Night riders came through - they had to leave everything, the main thing they left was property and my grandfather had 100 acres."
He described how the people were forced to a bridge over the river.
He said: "They were told they either had to swim or drown. Most of them didn't make it. My grandfather, one of them that did make it, he lost some brothers and sisters."
White communities subsequently moved into the property which had been stolen from its previous residents.
Later, Oscarville was flooded to form Lake Lanier, and became a popular spot for swimmers and water sports.
However, the sunken buildings and trees prove extremely hazardous to swimmers in the water. Underwater hazards can be deadly when swimming, and some 700 people have died in the lake since it was created.
Divers have even recalled coming across the limbs of deceased bathers while exploring the lake's depths.
Among the buildings that were removed prior to the lake's creation were a number of cemeteries. While marked graves were exhumed and relocated, it's likely that a number of unmarked graves were left undisturbed and are still there beneath the lake.
If that's not enough to put you off swimming there, I really don't know what will.