Gone, but Not Forgotten: Incident at Bugtussel

Humble Contributions to the Peoples' History

Gone, but Not Forgotten: Incident at Bugtussel

12 08 14

I studied the ground before me and was startled at what I saw . . . for over forty years, the land had held the memory of the little house that once stood there.

As I first glanced over the landscape, I didn’t see anything of exceptional beauty or unique character. What I missed the earth had preserved: the outline of a home that once occupied this space. In an upcoming blog post, Racial Incident at Bugtussel, I retell the story of an incident in my hometown in southeast Pennsylvania in the early 1970s.

Authorities lured an African-American man from his home. When he returned to his house, he found it bulldozed into a pile of rubble, all his worldly possessions ruined and buried, including a single photograph of his mother. His cats lay crushed under the torn up boards and shingles.