Black Exodus from Gwynn's Island

In 1910, Gwynn’s Island was home to 135 Black residents (17 % of the population), many of them landowners. This community, which likely originated in the 1600s, had its own church and school—yet by 1921, all Black citizens had departed. Some may have left for economic reasons, but the primary cause of the exodus was racial tension that followed a Dec. 1915 fight among Black and White men. Subsequent threats against Black residents led them to fear for their safety. They left, selling their property under pressure and losing their community and the institutions they had built. During the Jim Crow era, threats and violence drove many Black families from localities across the U.S.