Today on Athens News Matters, a Nashville and New Orleans-based band discusses the town below the surface of Lake Lanier that inspired their single, Oscarville.
Lake Lanier is well-known as the site of mysterious deaths. A less well-known history is that of Oscarville, an abandoned town lying under the lake’s surface. In the early 20th century, the town was at the center of an outbreak of racial violence that resulted in most Black residents of Forsyth County fleeing for their lives.
Over the past several years, Oscarville has inspired several works of art. WUGA’s Emma Auer sat down with Allen Spain and Sean Arrillaga, two members of the Nashville and New Orleans-based band Slow Motion Riders, to discuss their 2023 single “Oscarville,” based on the town’s tragic history.
They were joined by Joshua Byrd, a professor of criminal justice and Atlanta native who consulted for a 2022 miniseries about the town entitled “Oscarville: Below the Surface.”
There’s an interesting phenomenon that happens in Athens. If you’ve lived here for a while, you might have noticed it. We’ll be looking at the weather radar, see a big storm west of us, moving through Atlanta, and then when it gets close to Athens … nothing. The storm skirts around us somehow.
So is this a thing? Turns out, it is. Here to explain is Dr. John Knox, a professor of geography at the University of Georgia who studies atmospheric dynamics.
