Southern Rites

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Broadcast nationally on HBO, SOUTHERN RITES is a powerful portrayal of how perceptions and politics have divided two towns in southeast Georgia along racial lines for years. In 2009, The New York Times Magazine published filmmaker and acclaimed photographer Gillian Laub’s controversial images of Montgomery County High School’s racially segregated proms. A media furor ensued and under extreme pressure, the Georgian town was forced to finally integrate the proms in 2010. Laub returned camera in hand to document the changes, only to stumble upon a series of events far more indicative of race relations in the Deep South: old wounds are reopened following the murder of an unarmed young black man by an elderly white town patriarch. Against the backdrop of an historic campaign to elect its first African-American sheriff, the case divides locals along well-worn racial lines and threatens to drag the town back to darker days.

SOUTHERN RITES documents one town's painful struggle to progress while confronting longstanding issues of race, equality and justice. Through her hauntingly intimate portrait, Laub reveals the horror and humanity of these complex, intertwined narratives, a chronicle of their courage in the face of injustice. Laub’s film captures a world caught between eras and values with extraordinary candor and immediacy— and ultimately asks whether a new generation can make a different future for itself from a difficult past.

"Riveting...In a calm, understated tone, Southern Rites digs deep to expose the roots that have made segregated proms and other affronts possible. [The film] is a portrait of the inequities that lead to disaster on the streets of cities like Baltimore and Ferguson, Mo."
The New York Times

"This excellent documentary puts a small Southern county beset by racial tensions under the microscope."
The Hollywood Reporter

"It's a whirlwind of intimate drama and thought-provoking questions, about racial politics, human compassion, and confusing injustices."
Tribeca Film Festival

"A timely and meaningful film."
The Daily Beast

"This documentary is at similar times heartbreaking, but incredibly affecting."
Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

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Main credits

Alexander, Josh (film producer)
Alexander, Josh (screenwriter)
Laub, Gillian (film director)
Laub, Gillian (film producer)

Other credits

Editing, Nancy Novack, Joel Plotch; director of photographer, Gillian Laub; music, Joel Goodman.

MARC Record See Worldcat record

Keywords

Georgia,Murder,Racism,Segregation,Prom,Montgomery County High School; "Southern Rites"; Women Make Movies

WEBVTT

00:32.966 --> 00:36.303
(somber music playing)

00:49.116 --> 00:51.685
- The day you met me
when you asked me,

00:51.685 --> 00:53.654
\"Did I go to school?
Was I in high school?

00:53.654 --> 00:54.621
Was the prom\'s together?\"

00:54.621 --> 00:55.789
I knew what it was about.

00:55.789 --> 00:58.792
And yes, I was excited,
because finally

00:58.792 --> 01:01.728
story\'s getting out and
hoping for a change.

01:02.829 --> 01:03.830
I was really excited.

01:03.830 --> 01:05.265
And my Daddy was really excited.

01:05.265 --> 01:06.667
We was all just excited.

01:07.901 --> 01:10.203
We really wanted
you to see our side.

01:12.172 --> 01:15.609
(somber music continues)

01:48.909 --> 01:51.778
- I got in a lot of trouble
with some of the students

01:51.778 --> 01:53.046
for trying to integrate it.

01:53.046 --> 01:54.114
They told me, \"What
are you doing?

01:54.114 --> 01:55.782
It\'s not the parents. It is us.

01:55.782 --> 01:57.084
We don\'t want it together.

01:57.084 --> 01:58.118
And you need to stop
trying to do this.\"

01:58.118 --> 01:59.353
I got cussed out.

01:59.353 --> 02:00.253
I talked to my
boyfriend and I said,

02:00.253 --> 02:01.788
\"Let\'s just go to both.\"

02:01.788 --> 02:03.557
But when I went to buy the
tickets to the white prom,

02:03.557 --> 02:04.725
I was not allowed.

02:06.126 --> 02:07.861
I was told that if my date
was going to be black,

02:07.861 --> 02:09.429
he wouldn\'t be let in.

02:09.429 --> 02:11.231
We just went to the black prom.

02:11.231 --> 02:13.066
- I feel like the rest of the
world will look at us like,

02:13.066 --> 02:15.869
\"What in the hell? They
go to school together.

02:15.869 --> 02:17.337
They play basketball together.

02:17.337 --> 02:20.173
They cheerlead together.
They\'re best friends.\"

02:20.173 --> 02:21.408
It\'s happening everywhere.

02:21.408 --> 02:23.977
Why can\'t it happen in
a small town like this?

02:23.977 --> 02:26.146
- [Southern Woman] This
community and this school system

02:26.146 --> 02:28.615
is fine like it is.

02:28.615 --> 02:30.150
We don\'t want to change it.

02:30.150 --> 02:32.819
We want to live the way
our grandparents lived

02:32.819 --> 02:35.455
and the way our
great-grandparents lived.

02:35.455 --> 02:39.359
Why change something that has
worked? Just leave it alone.

02:39.359 --> 02:41.828
- And then even with the little
kids in elementary school.

02:41.828 --> 02:43.530
They pick black elementary girl

02:43.530 --> 02:45.032
and a white elementary girl.

02:45.032 --> 02:46.933
They even let the little
kids be segregated.

02:46.933 --> 02:48.468
It\'s so sad. I didn\'t
even notice it.

02:48.468 --> 02:50.003
The little kids don\'t even know,

02:50.003 --> 02:53.073
but they\'re making them
learn that you are black.

02:53.073 --> 02:54.641
You are white.

02:54.641 --> 02:57.010
It\'s sad. I didn\'t
even notice that.

02:57.010 --> 02:58.311
- [Interviewer] Until just now?

02:58.311 --> 03:00.280
- Yeah, I guess I didn\'t
recognize it until now.

03:00.280 --> 03:04.384
That they are actually
teaching kids to be segregated.

03:05.819 --> 03:07.020
Be black, be white.

03:07.020 --> 03:08.588
No, be a color
instead of a person.

03:08.588 --> 03:11.658
Be your color. Act your
color. Know your place.

03:12.793 --> 03:14.227
- [Southern Man]
My grandma told me,

03:14.227 --> 03:15.929
\"Red birds and blue birds
don\'t nest together.

03:17.064 --> 03:19.466
They come out with a
red head and blue ass.\"

03:19.466 --> 03:21.902
I just don\'t feel
like it\'s right.

03:21.902 --> 03:23.804
That\'s what my grandma told me.

03:23.804 --> 03:25.205
And I believe she was right.

03:28.141 --> 03:31.645
(sorrowful music playing)

04:07.380 --> 04:08.982
- Do not put that in my face.

04:08.982 --> 04:10.650
And the problem is
you are not supposed

04:10.650 --> 04:13.587
to be on school property
unless you are signed in.

04:13.587 --> 04:14.754
- [Driver] Oh, okay.

04:14.754 --> 04:16.156
- Hey, what newspaper
are you with?

04:16.156 --> 04:17.891
- [Driver] What?

04:17.891 --> 04:19.526
- What newspaper are you with?

04:19.526 --> 04:22.295
(driver screams)

04:25.332 --> 04:27.134
- [Unseen male] This
is our property.

04:27.134 --> 04:28.335
(multiple people
speaking loudly)

04:28.335 --> 04:30.203
- [Clarence] You
got problems, honey.

04:38.311 --> 04:41.014
(upbeat music playing)

04:41.014 --> 04:43.750
(girl screaming)

04:48.989 --> 04:51.925
(car horn honking)

05:04.971 --> 05:06.673
- This is South Georgia.

05:06.673 --> 05:09.609
The further you
go north, Atlanta,

05:09.609 --> 05:11.211
everything\'s pretty well normal.

05:11.211 --> 05:13.180
The further you go south, Miami,

05:13.180 --> 05:14.814
everything\'s pretty well normal.

05:14.814 --> 05:17.384
There\'s this Middle Georgia,
Mount Vernon, Georgia.

05:19.119 --> 05:21.288
Thing\'s going to
stay the way it is.

05:21.288 --> 05:23.957
- It\'s our heritage
is what it is.

05:23.957 --> 05:28.228
And it\'s not racist. It\'s
just the southern way.

05:28.228 --> 05:32.332
So we start our babies out
hunting and wearing camouflage.

05:32.332 --> 05:34.201
- All these people that
run around screaming,

05:34.201 --> 05:35.835
\"The Confederate
flag is racist.\"

05:35.835 --> 05:38.471
In my opinion, they\'re not
stupid, they\'re ignorant.

05:38.471 --> 05:39.739
Because ignorance is

05:39.739 --> 05:42.042
the absence of really
knowing what happened.

05:42.042 --> 05:44.177
I\'m not going to
hide it for nobody.

05:44.177 --> 05:46.012
If I wanted to show the
Rebel Flag, I\'m going to,

05:46.012 --> 05:47.247
because that\'s my heritage.

05:47.247 --> 05:51.952
- Peoples in Michigan,
New York, Virginia.

05:51.952 --> 05:54.120
They ain\'t got a clue
what we talking about.

05:54.120 --> 05:56.423
You got to come here
and live in the state.

06:03.096 --> 06:04.731
- The whole society\'s
getting worse,

06:04.731 --> 06:06.533
it ain\'t going to get no better.

06:06.533 --> 06:08.235
The problem has
been too far gone.

06:09.369 --> 06:12.305
If you got to... That
tree right there,

06:13.440 --> 06:15.609
if you don\'t like that tree,

06:15.609 --> 06:18.044
you can go take a limb off
of that tree, cut it off.

06:18.044 --> 06:20.046
That tree ain\'t going to die.

06:20.046 --> 06:20.981
It\'ll keep growing.

06:22.148 --> 06:24.017
But if you get down
there to the root,

06:24.017 --> 06:25.485
and cut that root, it\'ll die.

06:27.187 --> 06:28.388
And that\'s what\'s going on.

06:28.388 --> 06:30.523
People ain\'t going
to the major problem.

06:30.523 --> 06:33.193
They\'re just messing
with the little branches.

06:33.193 --> 06:37.831
Get to the root of the problem,
and then you can fix it.

06:46.706 --> 06:48.441
- [911 Operator] 911.

06:52.245 --> 06:54.748
- [911 Operator] What\'s wrong?

07:02.856 --> 07:05.692
- [911 Operator] You
and your daughter?

07:05.692 --> 07:07.360
- [911 Operator] No?

07:08.395 --> 07:10.230
- [911 Operator] Okay.

07:11.665 --> 07:14.301
- [911 Operator] All right.
Well, that\'s good to hear.

07:26.012 --> 07:27.547
- [911 Operator] You
think you shot him?

07:29.115 --> 07:31.518
- [911 Operator] You don\'t
know who it was, Mr. Norman?

07:33.520 --> 07:34.888
- [911 Operator]
It was a black boy?

07:36.056 --> 07:37.157
- [911 Operator]
Is he still there?

07:38.491 --> 07:39.559
- [911 Operator]
He hit the woods?

07:45.265 --> 07:47.901
- [911 Operator] Just talk
to me, Mr. Norman, okay?

07:49.336 --> 07:50.737
- [911 Operator] Did you
shoot him in the residence

07:50.737 --> 07:52.472
or outside the residence?

07:53.506 --> 07:55.709
- [911 Operator] In the house?

07:55.709 --> 07:57.877
Do you need an
ambulance, Mr. Norman?

08:00.747 --> 08:01.815
- [911 Operator] Okay.

08:03.917 --> 08:06.152
What kind of gun did
you shoot him with?

08:07.253 --> 08:08.621
- [911 Operator] A .22?

08:10.924 --> 08:13.059
- [911 Operator] A
.22 pistol, right?

08:13.059 --> 08:14.327
- [Norman] Yeah.

08:14.327 --> 08:15.762
- [911 Operator] Shot
him with a .22 pistol?

08:17.197 --> 08:18.665
- [911 Operator] I\'m going
to let you know when...

08:18.665 --> 08:19.933
Yeah, a black male.

08:19.933 --> 08:21.534
Do you know what he
had on, Mr. Norman?

08:28.675 --> 08:30.643
- [911 Operator] A dark jacket?

08:32.379 --> 08:33.346
- [911 Operator]
And baggy britches.

08:36.983 --> 08:38.718
- [911 Operator] Okay
Mr. Norman, listen to me.

08:38.718 --> 08:40.320
I want you to walk away
from the gun, okay?

08:40.320 --> 08:41.788
Because the deputy\'s there.

08:41.788 --> 08:44.157
I want you to go meet
him at the door, okay?

08:44.157 --> 08:45.492
- [Norman] I will. Oh, I will.

08:52.632 --> 08:55.435
- My first love was
Justin Patterson.

09:01.641 --> 09:02.475
I was 14.

09:04.277 --> 09:06.079
He was my 9th grade
homecoming date.

09:07.747 --> 09:09.549
For the very first year
we was going together,

09:09.549 --> 09:11.484
we did not speak at all.

09:12.352 --> 09:14.587
He was so shy, and I was shy.

09:14.587 --> 09:16.222
We never talked.

09:16.222 --> 09:18.858
So it took a whole year
before we even did anything,

09:18.858 --> 09:22.295
kissed, hugged, said,
\"I love you,\" anything.

09:24.464 --> 09:26.833
We dated straight
on for two years.

09:26.833 --> 09:29.269
And then on and off my
whole high school career,

09:29.269 --> 09:30.203
until 12th grade.

09:31.504 --> 09:33.540
Justin Patterson was
my first everything.

09:34.774 --> 09:35.608
Everything.

09:43.016 --> 09:45.785
- My best friend was
Justin Patterson.

09:45.785 --> 09:48.087
But we all called him \"Pat.\"

09:48.087 --> 09:49.556
There\'s Justin. It\'s just me.

09:50.990 --> 09:53.026
We started in
kindergarten together.

09:54.194 --> 09:56.463
We grew up, did a lot
of things together.

09:56.463 --> 09:59.999
Met a lot of different
people, played basketball.

10:03.369 --> 10:06.339
When he died, it just
changed everything.

10:09.776 --> 10:13.012
At the top, it says, \"RIP Pat.\"

10:13.012 --> 10:16.816
And it has his name,
Justin Patterson.

10:16.816 --> 10:20.553
His birthday,
January 23rd, 1989.

10:20.553 --> 10:24.691
The day he died,
January 29, 2011.

10:24.691 --> 10:28.895
And then got his last
Facebook status: \"Why me?\"

10:30.263 --> 10:31.097
\"Why me?\"

10:41.508 --> 10:42.475
- [Interviewer] What
happened the day

10:42.475 --> 10:44.010
that you found out that he died?

10:44.010 --> 10:48.982
- My Mom woke me up
maybe around 6:00,

10:49.883 --> 10:51.784
and told me, \"Justin got shot\"

10:51.784 --> 10:52.952
And then like, \"Okay. He okay?\"

10:52.952 --> 10:53.920
She was like, \"No.\"

10:54.821 --> 10:56.389
What you mean, \"No?\"

10:56.389 --> 10:58.725
And she was like, \"He died
about 3:00 that morning.\"

10:58.725 --> 11:02.028
And I just... in shock,
I couldn\'t really get up.

11:02.028 --> 11:03.796
I just stayed in bed for hours.

11:21.714 --> 11:25.718
(blues acoustic guitar playing)

11:54.080 --> 11:56.516
- I ain\'t never been scared.

11:56.516 --> 11:58.051
I ain\'t bragging or nothing,

11:58.051 --> 12:00.553
but the person I\'m scared
of ain\'t been born yet.

12:00.553 --> 12:03.089
I ain\'t never been
scared of nobody.

12:03.089 --> 12:04.357
You know, really scared,

12:06.292 --> 12:09.195
because if you had a
problem with somebody,

12:10.330 --> 12:13.299
you could walk up to
them and talk about it.

12:13.299 --> 12:15.034
But see, but now
you can\'t do that.

12:16.002 --> 12:18.438
You can\'t talk a problem out

12:18.438 --> 12:20.073
if you and somebody
has a disagreement,

12:20.073 --> 12:21.307
you can\'t do it no more.

12:21.307 --> 12:22.809
That\'s what I\'m
telling you about

12:22.809 --> 12:25.612
the way this country is getting
and people in this country.

12:29.115 --> 12:32.352
I remember when a handshake
was a man\'s bond, that was it.

12:33.519 --> 12:35.855
A handshake was
the best guarantee

12:35.855 --> 12:37.523
about anybody you
could ever get.

12:38.691 --> 12:40.994
If that man shook your
hand, that was it.

12:40.994 --> 12:42.595
That was the deal that was done.

12:54.273 --> 12:56.042
This is an old, old
book right here.

12:57.276 --> 12:59.145
Sucker\'s old as the hills.

13:00.546 --> 13:01.948
That\'s one of the
best men that\'s ever

13:01.948 --> 13:02.782
on the face of this Earth.

13:05.018 --> 13:08.287
My Daddy, you didn\'t
play with him.

13:15.728 --> 13:18.464
That\'s the craziest girl
in the world, right there.

13:20.900 --> 13:21.734
Miss Danielle.

13:26.439 --> 13:30.943
I raised Danielle knowing
she was black when I got her.

13:30.943 --> 13:32.812
It didn\'t matter to
me. I raised her.

13:34.580 --> 13:37.150
I lost people I thought was
my friends because of that,

13:37.150 --> 13:38.951
because she was
black, I was white.

13:40.853 --> 13:43.389
We\'d go uptown and sit.
People would talk about me.

13:45.758 --> 13:47.493
This is the way
it would be said:

13:47.493 --> 13:49.796
\"There\'s that white man
with that black girl.\"

13:52.398 --> 13:53.766
But it didn\'t matter to me.

13:55.234 --> 13:56.436
After two or three months,
I loved this little girl

13:56.436 --> 13:58.304
just like she was mine.

13:58.304 --> 14:00.907
Just like if I was her
birth parent, and I wasn\'t.

14:01.774 --> 14:03.810
- [Unseen Woman] Danielle. Hey.

14:03.810 --> 14:05.211
(Danielle responds positively)

14:05.211 --> 14:06.446
- [Norman] She\'s our baby.

14:07.346 --> 14:08.281
- [Unseen Woman] Whoa.

14:08.281 --> 14:09.782
- [Norman] She\'s our baby.

14:09.782 --> 14:12.585
- [Interviewer] And how is
she exactly related to you?

14:12.585 --> 14:14.787
- My niece is her Mama.

14:16.489 --> 14:18.257
I never was around
her Mama much.

14:19.525 --> 14:21.527
My wife didn\'t
even know my niece.

14:23.730 --> 14:26.099
And she left Danielle, this big.

14:27.266 --> 14:29.469
A dirty diaper and a
tore up little T-shirt

14:29.469 --> 14:31.137
on that little baby, this big.

14:32.538 --> 14:33.973
I was working at night
when I came home, I said,

14:33.973 --> 14:35.341
\"Who\'s the little baby?\"

14:35.341 --> 14:37.110
And she said, \"Your
niece brought her.\"

14:37.110 --> 14:38.845
And I said, \"Who?\"

14:38.845 --> 14:41.080
So I had to think a
while to figure it out.

14:41.080 --> 14:43.349
I said, \"But what did she say?\"

14:43.349 --> 14:45.718
She was in a mess. She
lived in Atlanta then.

14:47.120 --> 14:48.855
And she wanted to leave the baby

14:48.855 --> 14:50.423
until she got straightened out.

14:51.858 --> 14:53.192
That was 21 years ago, she
never got straightened out,

14:53.192 --> 14:54.026
I don\'t reckon.

14:55.461 --> 14:58.664
The last time I seen her Mama
was 1996 when my Daddy died.

15:01.567 --> 15:02.935
And I love her to this day.

15:04.070 --> 15:06.806
No matter what she\'s
done, I still love her.

15:09.242 --> 15:12.712
If she calls on us,
I still love her.

15:14.781 --> 15:16.082
I raised her as my child.

15:17.583 --> 15:19.719
I can\'t turn my back all
the way on her, not 100%,

15:19.719 --> 15:21.387
I can\'t do it.

15:21.387 --> 15:22.889
- [Interviewer] If
you were to meet

15:22.889 --> 15:25.391
the Patterson family now,
what would you say to them?

15:26.959 --> 15:30.463
- Right now, I don\'t know.

15:31.430 --> 15:32.265
I don\'t know.

15:42.008 --> 15:43.876
I can\'t answer
that. I don\'t know.

15:48.314 --> 15:51.184
- I have, or I had two sons,

15:51.184 --> 15:56.189
Justin, which was the oldest,
and Shavon being the youngest.

15:57.623 --> 16:00.359
This is really one of my
favorite pictures of them.

16:00.359 --> 16:05.298
I think Justin may have
been probably about four,

16:06.165 --> 16:08.201
and Shavon was one month old.

16:10.503 --> 16:15.441
Justin was a basketball
player, and he played,

16:15.441 --> 16:18.711
I mean, he started,
I think in 3rd grade.

16:18.711 --> 16:22.181
And he played all the way
through his senior year,

16:22.181 --> 16:25.451
and he did not get
a chance to play

16:25.451 --> 16:29.155
his college years
because he passed away.

16:31.224 --> 16:33.426
- [Interviewer] Tell me
what happened to Justin.

16:37.897 --> 16:41.133
(somber piano playing)

16:52.545 --> 16:54.180
- You didn\'t go
to people\'s house

16:54.180 --> 16:55.615
unless they knew you was there.

16:55.615 --> 16:57.316
You didn\'t go up to
nobody\'s house and walk in

16:57.316 --> 16:59.051
if the door was open.

16:59.051 --> 17:00.653
You got permission to do that.

17:02.121 --> 17:03.656
That\'s something you didn\'t do.

17:05.691 --> 17:08.961
That\'s where respect and
the disrespect comes from.

17:08.961 --> 17:13.566
Just like these two boys that
was in this house right here.

17:13.566 --> 17:14.400
No respect.

17:15.801 --> 17:20.406
- Justin had just met this
girl two days ago on Facebook.

17:24.310 --> 17:29.315
Shavon was sharing with
me that that night,

17:30.750 --> 17:34.487
the girls called him, and
wanted Justin to come over.

17:36.322 --> 17:39.959
- The girls was giving them
the directions to the house.

17:39.959 --> 17:42.228
It was on a cell phone
talking with them.

17:43.329 --> 17:46.565
And once they got to the house,

17:46.565 --> 17:50.136
the girls told them
to park across road.

17:50.136 --> 17:52.338
To a shed, like an onion farm.

17:53.539 --> 17:54.774
- They knew it was wrong.

17:54.774 --> 17:55.708
If they didn\'t
know it was wrong,

17:55.708 --> 17:56.909
why would they park over there

17:56.909 --> 17:58.678
and hide the car
and walk over here?

17:58.678 --> 18:00.746
- The two girls came
out and met them.

18:02.214 --> 18:06.986
They talk and whatever, and
was invited into the house.

18:07.853 --> 18:09.455
- They know what they was doing.

18:09.455 --> 18:12.258
I don\'t believe it\'s their
first time they ever done it.

18:13.559 --> 18:15.494
But I think they\'ve
done this stuff.

18:15.494 --> 18:18.197
This wasn\'t the first
time they\'ve done it.

18:18.197 --> 18:19.398
Not to this house.

18:19.398 --> 18:20.633
Like going in people\'s
houses and stuff.

18:20.633 --> 18:22.301
This ain\'t the first
time they done it.

18:22.301 --> 18:23.936
I know it ain\'t.

18:23.936 --> 18:25.738
You never get caught
the first time.

18:27.206 --> 18:29.308
You don\'t never get
caught the first time.

18:34.513 --> 18:37.783
The color has nothing
to do with it.

18:37.783 --> 18:39.585
And when people understand that,

18:39.585 --> 18:41.988
then this country will be
a whole lot better off.

18:41.988 --> 18:44.290
We ain\'t living in
the 1920s again.

18:47.326 --> 18:51.063
(somber piano music playing)

19:10.082 --> 19:12.184
- Me and my brother,
we was real close.

19:13.619 --> 19:16.756
When I was very young, I used
to always hang out with him.

19:16.756 --> 19:18.391
Ride with him
everywhere he\'d go.

19:21.093 --> 19:22.628
- [Interviewer] He was
your older brother?

19:22.628 --> 19:27.400
- Yes, ma\'am. I just always
wanted to be like him, really.

19:27.400 --> 19:28.534
I looked up to him.

19:41.113 --> 19:44.784
- Justin and the 19 year old,

19:44.784 --> 19:46.952
I think her name may
have been Danielle.

19:46.952 --> 19:49.655
They went into her bedroom,

19:49.655 --> 19:53.159
and Shavon and the other girl

19:53.159 --> 19:56.128
that was in the house
went into another bedroom.

19:56.128 --> 19:59.231
- They did not know
that the girl\'s father

19:59.231 --> 20:02.835
was in the house, asleep.

20:02.835 --> 20:07.840
- The man had a gun that he
sleeps with on his nightstand.

20:09.308 --> 20:11.710
He picked the gun up because
he heard noise in the house.

20:11.710 --> 20:13.279
- Norman woke up,
came in the room,

20:13.279 --> 20:15.948
and told us, asked us what
we was doing, or whatever.

20:15.948 --> 20:19.318
Who I was. And that\'s
when I told him.

20:19.318 --> 20:21.220
Then he told us to come
in the living room.

20:21.220 --> 20:23.255
- I had a gun, yes.

20:23.255 --> 20:27.460
But it was also two young boys,
muscled up, muscular boys.

20:28.928 --> 20:31.897
Somebody maybe he\'s disabled,
on disability and (indistinct)

20:31.897 --> 20:33.432
You can\'t fight boys like that.

20:34.567 --> 20:36.268
You\'ll lose every time.

20:36.268 --> 20:40.072
- Justin, only weighed
110 pounds, 120 pounds.

20:40.072 --> 20:42.708
He\'s a 200, almost
300 pound man.

20:44.743 --> 20:46.212
That\'s kind of hard to believe.

20:46.212 --> 20:50.883
- I guess for me, the hardest
thing about all of this

20:50.883 --> 20:55.187
is that they were
invited into the house.

20:56.422 --> 20:57.423
- I didn\'t know that.

20:59.024 --> 21:00.259
See, that\'s what they
don\'t understand.

21:00.259 --> 21:02.194
That night, I didn\'t
get no answers.

21:04.096 --> 21:07.867
That\'s why I wanted them
boys to sit down over there,

21:07.867 --> 21:09.101
and when the police gets here,

21:09.101 --> 21:11.270
you don\'t want to talk
to me? You talk to them.

21:12.404 --> 21:14.073
In the meantime, I
told the little girl,

21:14.073 --> 21:18.110
\"You call your grandparents and
tell them to come out here.\"

21:18.110 --> 21:22.414
I was going to give them
to them, and to the police.

21:22.414 --> 21:24.416
Let them do what
they want to do.

21:24.416 --> 21:26.352
I wasn\'t even
going to get in it.

21:28.220 --> 21:30.022
But see, everything backfired.

21:31.657 --> 21:34.126
Everything backfired.

21:34.126 --> 21:39.131
- [Dedee] He told Justin and
Shavon that he could kill them.

21:40.232 --> 21:41.600
- He said he can kill us both,

21:41.600 --> 21:43.235
and he wouldn\'t get in trouble.

21:44.336 --> 21:46.338
If he killed us, or whatever.

21:46.338 --> 21:50.376
- [Dedee] They got really
scared, and saw a break to run.

21:50.376 --> 21:55.014
- Shavon jumps up first,
Justin jumps up behind Shavon.

21:55.014 --> 21:59.518
- Justin saw Norman Neesmith
running behind them.

21:59.518 --> 22:04.423
So he pushed Norman
Neesmith over,

22:05.624 --> 22:08.093
because when Norman
was aiming the gun,

22:08.093 --> 22:09.828
he was aiming at it at Shavon.

22:09.828 --> 22:12.798
- He wasn\'t running away.
He was running to me.

22:12.798 --> 22:15.634
They never sat on my couch
like I asked them to.

22:15.634 --> 22:17.903
- He fired a shot at him.

22:17.903 --> 22:19.872
He missed them the first time.

22:19.872 --> 22:21.774
They was trying to
unlock the door,

22:21.774 --> 22:24.543
but they could not unlock
the door to get out.

22:24.543 --> 22:26.478
- They knocked me
over my eating table.

22:28.547 --> 22:29.481
And then he was
coming on me again.

22:29.481 --> 22:30.749
Was he coming to help me up?

22:30.749 --> 22:32.518
Was he coming to tell
when he was sorry?

22:32.518 --> 22:34.353
No, he was coming to
hurt me some more.

22:34.353 --> 22:36.655
- He fired another shot.

22:36.655 --> 22:38.390
And as they got the door open,

22:39.592 --> 22:43.829
Shavon said that Justin
said, \"I\'ve been shot.\"

22:43.829 --> 22:46.498
(gunshot fires)

22:48.367 --> 22:49.902
He started to run.

22:49.902 --> 22:52.972
- And I got out the door. My
brother, he was behind me.

22:52.972 --> 22:54.607
The man just kept firing at us.

22:58.777 --> 23:00.379
(gunshot fires)

23:00.379 --> 23:02.214
- Justin fell.

23:02.214 --> 23:05.050
And he told Shavon that he
wasn\'t going to make it.

23:06.418 --> 23:11.090
And Shavon at that point
didn\'t want to leave him there

23:12.224 --> 23:14.960
because he just didn\'t
want to leave him.

23:14.960 --> 23:16.762
He wanted to take him,

23:16.762 --> 23:21.033
but as he was trying
to get Justin up,

23:21.033 --> 23:24.737
Justin was dying right
there in his arms.

23:24.737 --> 23:27.006
- And Justin just
told him to run.

23:27.006 --> 23:28.507
He\'s going to come after you.

23:28.507 --> 23:30.743
- The boy ran off and left
his brother, they said.

23:30.743 --> 23:32.344
I guess he did.

23:32.344 --> 23:34.346
Did he call the ambulance?
Did he call the police?

23:34.346 --> 23:37.750
No. I called them.

23:37.750 --> 23:39.618
You know who he called?

23:39.618 --> 23:42.454
His Mama. Because he
knew he was in trouble.

23:42.454 --> 23:43.555
They wanted Mama then.

23:46.659 --> 23:47.860
You understand what I\'m saying?

23:47.860 --> 23:49.395
He wanted Mama now.
He\'s in trouble.

23:49.395 --> 23:50.229
I need Mama.

23:52.131 --> 23:54.566
But he didn\'t need Mama when
he was parked over there,

23:54.566 --> 23:55.768
sneaking into my house.

24:04.710 --> 24:09.615
- [Julius] He was indicted on
felony murder, malice murder,

24:11.517 --> 24:16.522
voluntary manslaughter,
two counts of kidnapping,

24:17.690 --> 24:18.357
and two counts of
aggravated assault.

24:24.430 --> 24:26.965
- [Dedee] Since Justin\'s murder,

24:26.965 --> 24:31.970
Norman Neesmith has been
walking around. Just free.

24:34.139 --> 24:39.144
I believe if there was
a black man shooting

24:40.546 --> 24:45.551
a white young kid, the black
man would be locked up.

24:48.587 --> 24:53.225
- If it was a black man
that killed a white boy,

24:55.394 --> 24:57.363
he would not see daylight.

24:57.363 --> 25:01.433
In fact, he may not even
live to get to a trial.

25:01.433 --> 25:04.002
- [Norman] I get on
that motorcycle right
now and I leave.

25:05.204 --> 25:07.773
In five minutes, my
mind just eases off.

25:07.773 --> 25:10.843
It\'s just like I\'m in
another world. Freedom.

25:10.843 --> 25:14.313
That wind hitting you and
all that, you just feel free.

25:14.313 --> 25:17.049
You feel like you ain\'t
got a worry in the world.

25:17.049 --> 25:19.885
That\'s just what it feels like.

25:19.885 --> 25:21.720
And that\'s why I ride.

25:34.066 --> 25:39.071
- That is one thing that was
instilled into me as a child,

25:40.205 --> 25:44.276
and that is that
the system considers

25:45.144 --> 25:47.112
the life of a white person

25:47.112 --> 25:50.749
more valuable than
that of a black person.

26:02.961 --> 26:05.564
- Someone spray painted
\"No nigger for sheriff\"

26:05.564 --> 26:07.566
on one of the signs in Ailey.

26:07.566 --> 26:08.801
- [Interviewer] You
weren\'t surprised?

26:08.801 --> 26:09.768
- No, we wasn\'t
surprised at all.

26:09.768 --> 26:11.703
We was actually expecting that.

26:11.703 --> 26:13.672
We didn\'t think nobody was
going to spray paint a sign,

26:13.672 --> 26:15.741
but we knew something of that
sort was going to happen.

26:15.741 --> 26:17.843
Surprised it was
only one we\'ve seen.

26:17.843 --> 26:19.111
I didn\'t really
bother us at all.

26:19.111 --> 26:20.846
I think my Daddy\'s white friends

26:20.846 --> 26:23.081
was more upset than we were.

26:23.081 --> 26:25.350
I find it kind of funny, because
they misspelled \"nigger\".

26:26.485 --> 26:27.319
Hilarious.

26:30.589 --> 26:34.092
(acoustic guitar picking)

26:47.372 --> 26:48.574
- I worked 24 years

26:48.574 --> 26:50.676
with the Montgomery
County Sheriff\'s office.

26:54.046 --> 26:56.648
Born here, raised here,
graduated from here.

26:56.648 --> 26:58.150
I got children
graduated from here.

26:58.150 --> 27:00.352
Fixing to be a Granddaddy.

27:00.352 --> 27:01.920
I got two children in college.

27:03.655 --> 27:06.158
Best place in the
world to raise a child.

27:06.158 --> 27:08.827
It ain\'t the point about
being the first black sheriff.

27:08.827 --> 27:12.631
It\'s the point about making
this community better.

27:12.631 --> 27:13.632
And I know I can.

27:14.800 --> 27:16.201
I\'ve been doing
this a long time.

27:17.469 --> 27:20.105
The sheriff now, me and
him get along great.

27:20.105 --> 27:21.874
I just think I can
do a better job.

27:21.874 --> 27:24.276
I know I can do a better job.

27:24.276 --> 27:27.513
(upbeat music playing)

27:30.549 --> 27:33.318
- My Dad is the very first
black Chief of Police

27:33.318 --> 27:34.920
in Montgomery County.

27:34.920 --> 27:37.189
And if he gets sheriff,
just like the chief,

27:37.189 --> 27:38.490
it would be really historic.

27:38.490 --> 27:40.526
It\'s never happened before.

27:40.526 --> 27:43.195
Think he got a good shot
at actually winning.

27:43.195 --> 27:44.396
I\'m not scared of anything.

27:44.396 --> 27:46.331
The only thing I\'m scared of is

27:46.331 --> 27:47.900
somebody having something
negative to say,

27:47.900 --> 27:50.068
and I have to bite my tongue.

27:50.068 --> 27:51.937
That\'s just one
thing that gets me,

27:51.937 --> 27:53.338
because I don\'t like to
bite my tongue at all.

27:53.338 --> 27:56.475
It feels kind of good
to ride and see signs

27:56.475 --> 27:58.644
in people\'s yards,
especially the big houses,

27:58.644 --> 28:01.313
because you know the big
houses are white people houses.

28:01.313 --> 28:02.781
So it\'s kind of reassuring.

28:03.749 --> 28:04.983
I don\'t have any doubts.

28:04.983 --> 28:06.385
I know I may talk
like I have doubts.

28:06.385 --> 28:08.487
I don\'t have doubts.
It\'s just real scary.

28:09.788 --> 28:11.657
Because I have to
live with that man.

28:13.792 --> 28:15.093
He\'s going to get it, though.

28:16.562 --> 28:19.565
Hey, my name is Keyke Burns
and my Daddy\'s Calvin Burns,

28:19.565 --> 28:20.766
and he\'s running for sheriff.

28:20.766 --> 28:22.000
- I know. That\'s
who I\'m voting for.

28:22.000 --> 28:23.402
- Okay, cool. So
can we put a sign

28:23.402 --> 28:25.037
in front of your
door or something?

28:25.037 --> 28:30.042
- Yeah. Right there.

28:30.976 --> 28:32.444
Y\'all ready?

28:32.444 --> 28:34.313
- [Keyke] You know my
Dad\'s running for sheriff,

28:34.313 --> 28:35.681
vote July 31st.

28:35.681 --> 28:36.882
- [Male Voter] Yeah.

28:36.882 --> 28:38.283
- [Keyke] Are you
going to vote for him?

28:38.283 --> 28:39.651
- I\'m voting for Calvin because
he\'s got more experience

28:39.651 --> 28:41.053
than anybody else running,

28:41.053 --> 28:44.089
and he\'s the current
sheriff\'s chosen successor.

28:44.089 --> 28:45.958
Not only that, I seen the
way he\'s dealt with people

28:45.958 --> 28:47.125
on both sides of the law.

28:47.125 --> 28:48.193
He treats everybody
with respect.

28:48.193 --> 28:49.628
- [Keyke] Hey. How you doing?

28:49.628 --> 28:50.329
- [Woman In Truck] Pretty
good, how about you?

28:50.329 --> 28:51.563
- I\'m fine.

28:51.563 --> 28:53.065
- [Woman In Truck]
What you all doing?

28:53.065 --> 28:54.700
- Putting up my Daddy\'s
signs. Didn\'t you get one?

28:54.700 --> 28:58.337
- Yeah, baby, I been putting
out signs for your Daddy.

28:58.337 --> 28:59.471
- Okay, well good.

28:59.471 --> 29:00.973
- [Woman In Truck] You know it.

29:00.973 --> 29:03.208
- I didn\'t see him one out
here, so I put him one out.

29:03.208 --> 29:07.279
It\'s a man named Thomas
Craft, and Danny Taylor,

29:07.279 --> 29:10.082
Ladson O\'Connor,
and Byron Braddy.

29:10.082 --> 29:12.517
I think Byron Braddy is going
to be his biggest competition

29:12.517 --> 29:13.986
because of his last name.

29:16.722 --> 29:20.692
His Daddy is the judge,
and has a lot of money.

29:22.160 --> 29:24.663
- I\'ve lived in Mount
Vernon all my life,

29:26.331 --> 29:29.034
and most of my
family are from here.

29:29.034 --> 29:32.471
It\'s a small town, but the
people that are your friends,

29:32.471 --> 29:35.240
they care about you,
and they look after you.

29:35.240 --> 29:37.943
You might go the store and
see someone that you know,

29:37.943 --> 29:40.278
that\'s a family friend,
they\'ll just check on you.

29:40.278 --> 29:43.281
\"How are you doing? What have
you been up to?\", and stuff.

29:43.281 --> 29:44.516
And it is a big name.

29:44.516 --> 29:47.119
And they, I wouldn\'t
say run the town,

29:47.119 --> 29:52.124
but they have a lot of
influence over what happens,

29:55.961 --> 29:58.463
and decisions and stuff
that are made in the town.

30:06.304 --> 30:08.040
- I mean, everybody
know their place,

30:08.040 --> 30:10.175
whether that sound bad or not,
everybody know their place,

30:10.175 --> 30:14.579
but I feel like I get treated
differently or respected more

30:14.579 --> 30:16.214
because of who my Daddy is.

30:16.214 --> 30:18.750
He really don\'t take
too much from nobody.

30:19.951 --> 30:21.553
- [Interviewer] And
why do you think he

30:22.654 --> 30:24.322
is really reluctant
to talk to me,

30:24.322 --> 30:26.925
or he doesn\'t really
want me around that much?

30:29.194 --> 30:30.128
- He don\'t want you to around

30:30.128 --> 30:32.164
because really no one likes you.

30:32.164 --> 30:33.832
I\'m not going to say
no one likes you,

30:33.832 --> 30:36.802
but a lot of whites don\'t like
you because of what you do,

30:36.802 --> 30:39.738
and all the things
that you brought out.

30:41.106 --> 30:43.008
He feel like if people
see you at his house,

30:43.008 --> 30:44.476
or see him talking to you,

30:44.476 --> 30:49.414
then he\'s a part of you trying
to bring the racism out,

30:49.414 --> 30:51.883
and they\'re not going
to vote for him.

30:51.883 --> 30:53.318
And see, he has to live here.

31:01.693 --> 31:02.728
- [Interviewer] Once
you become sheriff,

31:02.728 --> 31:03.662
you won\'t talk to me?

31:03.662 --> 31:04.896
- Oh, yeah, I\'ll talk to you.

31:04.896 --> 31:06.198
- [Interviewer] On camera?

31:06.198 --> 31:07.632
- Depends on what
we\'re talking about.

31:07.632 --> 31:08.867
- [Interviewer] What?

31:08.867 --> 31:11.636
- Depends on what
we\'re talking about.

31:29.287 --> 31:32.124
- ♪ I\'m going to let it shine.

31:32.124 --> 31:37.129
♪ I\'m going to let it shine,
let in shine, let it shine. ♪

31:40.665 --> 31:42.968
- I was born here in
Montgomery County.

31:42.968 --> 31:46.004
I\'ve been here all of my
life, which has been 55 years.

31:47.439 --> 31:52.244
And this was a town where
race was a big issue.

31:53.011 --> 31:54.713
I remember as a child,

31:54.713 --> 31:58.283
how my Mom and Dad
would get the old truck

32:00.285 --> 32:04.723
and Dad would have his shotgun
as he\'d go to the neighbors

32:04.723 --> 32:06.391
and take them to
the voting poll.

32:07.692 --> 32:11.296
because there were a
fear of retaliation

32:11.296 --> 32:14.966
if the blacks voted.

32:20.172 --> 32:22.541
- I was here during the
cotton picking days.

32:24.943 --> 32:28.713
It was totally segregated,
but as time progressed,

32:28.713 --> 32:30.882
they could attend the movies,

32:30.882 --> 32:33.151
they could attend
the restaurants.

32:34.586 --> 32:37.956
We had to go to the back
door to get our sandwich,

32:37.956 --> 32:40.826
but we was just so happy to
be able to go to Dairy Queen.

32:40.826 --> 32:43.128
We didn\'t mind going
to the back door.

32:43.128 --> 32:45.897
We didn\'t mind going in
the back of the movie,

32:45.897 --> 32:47.999
because we was just
so happy to go.

32:47.999 --> 32:49.968
We just thought that
was a way of life,

32:51.603 --> 32:53.438
and probably felt like
it would be that way

32:53.438 --> 32:56.174
the rest of our
lives, but it changed.

32:59.511 --> 33:01.479
- When the schools
was segregated,

33:01.479 --> 33:04.683
I was one of the
first three to be sent

33:04.683 --> 33:07.719
to the high school here
in Montgomery County.

33:08.820 --> 33:10.722
When I went to the white school,

33:11.857 --> 33:14.092
it was just so much
we were missing.

33:14.092 --> 33:16.661
Our books were so old.

33:16.661 --> 33:21.166
A lot of us were excited
because \"I got a new book.\"

33:24.135 --> 33:26.972
- When Dr. Martin Luther
King came through the scene,

33:26.972 --> 33:28.306
and when he marched in Albany,

33:28.306 --> 33:30.842
I was just 50 miles from there.

33:30.842 --> 33:33.144
So I felt like I
was a part of that.

33:33.144 --> 33:35.780
And it seemed like everything
started smoothing out.

33:37.449 --> 33:39.284
But then as time moved on,

33:40.485 --> 33:42.821
segregation began
to sneak back in.

33:42.821 --> 33:47.626
Very sneakily like, but
having come through it,

33:47.626 --> 33:49.127
I knew it wasn\'t gone.

33:51.029 --> 33:53.431
- It\'s not so much our young

33:53.431 --> 33:56.234
white and blacks that
are slow to change.

33:56.234 --> 34:00.705
It\'s the older set.

34:02.007 --> 34:07.012
They are afraid to integrate.

34:08.179 --> 34:11.683
- If you are invading
the white\'s privacy,

34:11.683 --> 34:13.351
as they would call it,

34:13.351 --> 34:16.721
they still feel that they
are dominant over you.

34:16.721 --> 34:19.724
So you somewhat have to
swallow your tongue a lot.

34:19.724 --> 34:22.727
And if you feel like you need
to stand up for yourself,

34:22.727 --> 34:24.229
it\'s going to be a rough time.

34:29.134 --> 34:31.970
- This is Meiah, this
is my little girl.

34:31.970 --> 34:36.508
- [Dedee] Justin has a three
year old daughter, Meiah,

34:36.508 --> 34:40.545
and I pretty much take
care of Meiah now.

34:40.545 --> 34:45.283
- Say, \"What\'s up,\"
Meiah. Say, \"What\'s up.\"

34:49.187 --> 34:52.390
Meiah, you\'re on camera.
Getting recorded.

34:54.125 --> 34:55.427
I wonder how long I\'m
going to keep this.

34:55.427 --> 34:57.128
I might keep this
for a long time.

34:58.530 --> 35:01.833
Then you\'re going to get
old and you going to see it.

35:01.833 --> 35:02.834
Signing out.

35:04.602 --> 35:07.105
- Since he\'s passed away,

35:07.105 --> 35:11.209
Meiah\'s mother
actually works a lot.

35:11.209 --> 35:14.913
And she is under a lot
of pressure right now

35:14.913 --> 35:19.918
because in her eyes, she
has to work very hard

35:21.353 --> 35:25.423
because she doesn\'t feel
that she has that support

35:26.157 --> 35:27.592
because Justin\'s gone.

35:27.592 --> 35:31.629
- I had Meiah August 8th, 2008.

35:31.629 --> 35:35.834
She wasn\'t due until September,
but I had her in August.

35:35.834 --> 35:37.469
I had just turned 18 then.

35:38.436 --> 35:39.904
(Meiah speaking indistinctly)

35:39.904 --> 35:41.840
- [Dedee] That\'s your
Daddy\'s name. Justin.

35:41.840 --> 35:43.808
- [Meiah] That\'s my name.

35:43.808 --> 35:46.111
- [Dedee] This your
name. See? Meiah.

35:46.111 --> 35:49.414
- She used to ask all the
time, \"Where\'s my Daddy?

35:49.414 --> 35:50.915
Where is he at?\"

35:50.915 --> 35:52.851
And I couldn\'t really talk
to her for a while about it,

35:52.851 --> 35:54.419
because I just cry.

35:54.419 --> 35:55.887
(Meiah speaks indistinctly)

36:09.934 --> 36:11.870
- He was a good father.

36:23.882 --> 36:25.283
- I got my arms around him.

36:28.153 --> 36:30.622
The DA, he said that

36:47.138 --> 36:50.642
it will be hard to
get a guilty verdict

36:52.644 --> 36:53.878
in Toombs County,

36:55.346 --> 37:00.085
in Toombs because of
the people that he know.

37:08.226 --> 37:10.695
- That\'s my father,
Thomas Eugene Maddox,

37:10.695 --> 37:13.298
and my brother, little
brother, Matt Maddox.

37:13.298 --> 37:14.666
He claimed at one point

37:14.666 --> 37:17.102
he was the godfather
of the Dixie Mafia.

37:17.102 --> 37:20.805
I don\'t know. That would
have been before I was born.

37:22.207 --> 37:25.977
But the stories he has to
tell, it could have happened.

37:28.913 --> 37:30.148
Oh, another thing that he said,

37:30.148 --> 37:31.983
he said he got tired
of hiring lawyers,

37:31.983 --> 37:34.385
so he decided to have him one.

37:34.385 --> 37:35.620
That\'s where they got me.

37:38.923 --> 37:40.992
Yeah, this is
Norman. He\'s in here.

37:42.026 --> 37:43.628
Norman\'s good guy.

37:43.628 --> 37:46.030
He had never been
in any trouble.

37:46.030 --> 37:48.900
He said he had a speeding
ticket in the 1960s.

37:50.268 --> 37:52.036
When he came to see
us the first time,

37:52.036 --> 37:57.041
I remember him being very upset,

37:58.143 --> 38:00.945
not because he was
facing criminal charges,

38:00.945 --> 38:04.015
but because he had
taken someone\'s life,

38:04.015 --> 38:08.353
and I don\'t believe that he
meant for that to happen.

38:08.353 --> 38:12.490
- When this all started,
everyone thought that this was

38:13.691 --> 38:16.161
an old redneck
motorcycle riding guy

38:16.161 --> 38:17.462
that had shot a black kid.

38:20.532 --> 38:25.436
And even the judge had
that impression, initially.

38:25.436 --> 38:28.406
When the facts were laid out,

38:28.406 --> 38:32.243
it opened the door
now to just talk about

38:32.243 --> 38:33.678
what actually happened,

38:33.678 --> 38:35.580
and what crime was
actually committed.

38:42.353 --> 38:45.089
- We\'re here. This
is Norman\'s driveway.

38:47.325 --> 38:50.395
- There were any number
of folks that believe

38:50.395 --> 38:53.064
that there was self-defense
involved in this.

38:53.064 --> 38:56.734
But if you look at the
technicalities of the law,

38:56.734 --> 38:59.170
self defense goes away

38:59.170 --> 39:02.473
when somebody is
attempting to escape,

39:02.473 --> 39:04.175
that they\'re no longer a threat.

39:05.543 --> 39:08.279
So, what crimes were
actually committed, then?

39:10.481 --> 39:12.850
- This is the back
door of Norman\'s house.

39:12.850 --> 39:17.855
It\'s where the boys exited
the house that night.

39:19.057 --> 39:22.360
- And so yes, there
was reckless conduct

39:22.360 --> 39:27.265
on the part of Norman because
he created a situation

39:28.800 --> 39:32.737
in which violence could ensue.

39:32.737 --> 39:36.374
- Based on what they had
indicated in their report,

39:36.374 --> 39:40.878
they had initially met
up in this bedroom,

39:40.878 --> 39:45.883
smoked a blunt, a marijuana
blunt, and then parted.

39:47.218 --> 39:50.955
It was a series of
mistakes the whole night.

39:52.423 --> 39:55.827
The first one happened when
the girls invited him over.

39:55.827 --> 39:58.896
There was a 15-year-old
who was having sex

39:58.896 --> 40:00.932
with an 18-year-old.

40:00.932 --> 40:03.835
Granted, under Georgia law,
that\'s only a misdemeanor,

40:03.835 --> 40:06.971
but they shouldn\'t
have been doing that.

40:06.971 --> 40:10.241
- There was a large part
of the community thought

40:10.241 --> 40:13.444
that Norman did what
everybody had a right to do

40:13.444 --> 40:14.612
in their own home.

40:16.047 --> 40:18.449
And then there were a lot
of people that thought

40:19.851 --> 40:24.389
that he had shot at someone
under racial motivation.

40:24.389 --> 40:27.091
- You can see that he had
to come through the kitchen,

40:29.327 --> 40:31.029
but this is his
bedroom back here.

40:32.430 --> 40:36.301
And at the time, he always
slept with a gun by his side.

40:36.301 --> 40:37.969
Oddly enough, he...

40:39.437 --> 40:41.339
Not really oddly around
here, it\'s kind of normal.

40:41.339 --> 40:43.641
I actually have a
gun at my house.

40:43.641 --> 40:46.311
It\'s really important to
know that Norman had had

40:48.613 --> 40:52.283
other young men who were
black visit his child.

40:52.283 --> 40:55.019
He let children of
all kinds come visit.

40:55.019 --> 40:57.422
They didn\'t do it at
3:00 in the morning

40:57.422 --> 40:59.290
because that\'s not
the time to visit.

40:59.290 --> 41:01.859
He had two strange
people in his house.

41:03.728 --> 41:06.130
They were athletic.

41:06.130 --> 41:09.033
Mr. Neesmith is not athletic.

41:10.501 --> 41:13.971
I hate to say feeble,
but he is disabled.

41:13.971 --> 41:16.274
The boys actually came over.

41:16.274 --> 41:17.542
They snuck in,

41:17.542 --> 41:19.143
they brought things they
shouldn\'t have brought.

41:19.143 --> 41:20.345
And they were doing things

41:20.345 --> 41:21.913
that they shouldn\'t
have been doing.

41:21.913 --> 41:24.615
It was two boys looking
for a booty call,

41:24.615 --> 41:26.050
and it all went wrong.

41:28.519 --> 41:33.491
Justin Patterson was
ultimately able to make it

41:33.491 --> 41:36.361
to right there where
those trees are.

41:37.762 --> 41:40.631
His brother ran on for help,

41:40.631 --> 41:42.834
but that is where
Justin Patterson died.

41:52.844 --> 41:56.381
For a county that, even
when I was in high school

41:56.381 --> 41:59.650
had separate proms,
which was 1998, 1997,

42:01.853 --> 42:06.858
to go from that to
investigating a case

42:08.025 --> 42:11.562
to that extent is... We
made a lot of headway.

42:21.439 --> 42:25.276
(church congregation singing)

42:26.477 --> 42:28.279
- [Church Congregation]
♪ Law is in your hands.

42:28.279 --> 42:30.948
- [Offcamera Woman] It\'s
going to be all right.

42:30.948 --> 42:35.953
- [Church Congregation]
♪ Law is in your hands.

42:37.822 --> 42:39.724
♪ Law is in your hands.

42:39.724 --> 42:42.427
- Today is one year
that I lost Justin.

42:44.095 --> 42:49.100
It\'s real hard, but
I believe in God.

42:50.301 --> 42:54.005
And I know that he
will make a way.

42:54.005 --> 42:55.473
I could have lost my mind.

42:56.841 --> 42:59.977
My Mama, he prayed
without ceasing.

43:01.012 --> 43:03.047
People just kept calling me,

43:03.047 --> 43:04.816
and when I see the love

43:06.017 --> 43:09.821
that these people bring
to my life, I thank you.

43:09.821 --> 43:11.589
All of you.

43:11.589 --> 43:14.392
So February the
20th and the 21st,

43:14.392 --> 43:17.595
this man goes on trial
for murdering my son.

43:17.595 --> 43:21.866
It\'s already done. It\'s
already done. Thank you.

43:21.866 --> 43:25.636
(church congregation cheers)

43:26.838 --> 43:30.441
(melancholy music playing)

43:32.944 --> 43:35.980
- The day that we thought
the jury would be picked,

43:37.415 --> 43:41.752
they told us that the DA and
Norman Neesmith\'s lawyers

43:41.752 --> 43:44.322
had worked out a plea bargain.

43:44.322 --> 43:46.491
- Something we didn\'t
know nothing about,

43:46.491 --> 43:47.892
wasn\'t informed about.

43:50.394 --> 43:53.764
If so, I would have
never went with that.

43:56.267 --> 43:58.035
I would have went to trial.

43:58.035 --> 44:00.404
I would have fought
for justice for my son.

44:02.406 --> 44:04.075
- We received the
offer the Friday

44:04.075 --> 44:08.312
before we were supposed to
go to the trial on Monday.

44:08.312 --> 44:11.249
At that point, we went
through the possibilities.

44:11.249 --> 44:12.950
For example, if he
had been found guilty

44:12.950 --> 44:15.052
of only an aggravated assault,

44:15.052 --> 44:17.522
he would have been
looking at 20 years.

44:17.522 --> 44:22.527
I think the judge would have
probably given him 10 to 20,

44:23.394 --> 44:24.896
just for one aggravated assault,

44:24.896 --> 44:29.100
which would have put him in
prison for the rest of his life.

44:30.301 --> 44:33.538
(piano softly playing)

44:52.990 --> 44:55.293
- I\'m very glad
that my youngest son

44:55.293 --> 44:56.994
doesn\'t have to
go through a trial

44:56.994 --> 45:00.298
because I don\'t know if he
could have made it through it.

45:00.298 --> 45:04.068
But if this man doesn\'t
get what he deserves,

45:04.068 --> 45:06.938
what kind of message
are we sending?

45:10.608 --> 45:14.545
How do I explain that
to my 19 year old son?

45:15.980 --> 45:18.516
I can\'t tell him that it\'s
okay to shoot somebody.

45:22.620 --> 45:25.356
(birds chirping)

45:33.331 --> 45:37.401
(acoustic guitar softly playing)

45:46.644 --> 45:50.615
- I had a little girl,
she\'s 17 months today

45:50.615 --> 45:52.650
and she\'s spoiled rotten.

45:52.650 --> 45:55.920
Point on your shirt.
Who\'s this? Who\'s that?

45:55.920 --> 45:57.822
Who\'s that? Papa?

45:57.822 --> 46:00.057
- [17-Month-Old Girl] Papa.

46:01.425 --> 46:02.760
- Put my hat on.

46:04.261 --> 46:05.196
- [Interviewer] So
who do you think

46:05.196 --> 46:06.664
it\'s going to be between?

46:06.664 --> 46:08.399
- I really don\'t know.
Republican, I don\'t know.

46:08.399 --> 46:10.968
I don\'t think it\'s going
to be Braddy. I don\'t know.

46:10.968 --> 46:14.138
- It\'s either going to be him
and Braddy or him and Taylor.

46:14.138 --> 46:16.073
- It\'s not going to be Braddy.

46:16.073 --> 46:17.808
- We can get Calvin voted in,

46:17.808 --> 46:20.911
This\'ll be our first
African American sheriff.

46:20.911 --> 46:25.916
Tristen. You close
that door back?

46:26.517 --> 46:27.451
- Yes, ma\'am.

46:27.451 --> 46:29.286
- [Angela] This too much?

46:29.286 --> 46:30.554
- No, it ain\'t.

46:30.554 --> 46:32.890
- Because he\'s been in
office, what? 25, 30?

46:32.890 --> 46:35.292
Ever since we got
out of high school

46:35.292 --> 46:37.895
he\'s always been involved
in law enforcement,

46:37.895 --> 46:39.363
and he\'s very well liked.

46:39.363 --> 46:42.366
He\'s the type of
person you can talk to

46:42.366 --> 46:44.635
and he\'s not going
to show favoritism.

46:44.635 --> 46:46.971
Got to have my glasses
so I can see the ballot.

46:48.439 --> 46:50.441
You ready? Come on.
Let\'s go to the car.

46:56.013 --> 46:58.349
For Calvin Burns to
be elected sheriff,

46:58.349 --> 47:00.451
it mean changes are coming

47:00.451 --> 47:03.254
the same way it did with
us having a president.

47:03.254 --> 47:04.321
- [Tristen] Hi, Calvin.

47:04.321 --> 47:05.756
- [Angela] That\'s Mr. Calvin.

47:05.756 --> 47:08.492
So for Calvin, that
would be very historical.

47:08.492 --> 47:09.794
How you doing?

47:09.794 --> 47:11.662
- [Calvin] How are
you? Where the kids at?

47:11.662 --> 47:14.699
(Angela laughs)

47:14.699 --> 47:18.602
- We voted at 7:04, and
been here ever since.

47:18.602 --> 47:22.773
Just like a work day, just
didn\'t get paid for it.

47:23.974 --> 47:25.776
I\'m tired, too.

47:25.776 --> 47:27.912
Those are the rest of the votes.

47:29.113 --> 47:31.415
When I was in Fuzzies,
ordering Talia\'s food,

47:31.415 --> 47:32.950
a lady showed me a text
message that someone sent her

47:32.950 --> 47:36.821
that said that Daddy had a
251 votes for Mount Vernon

47:36.821 --> 47:39.256
more than anybody else
that\'s running, combined.

47:39.256 --> 47:41.392
So, looking pretty good.

47:42.993 --> 47:46.497
(acoustic guitar playing)

47:54.138 --> 47:55.673
- 830-106.

47:55.673 --> 47:57.808
I found out my Dad won the
primary round 830 to 106.

47:59.009 --> 48:00.778
- And the Republican going to be

48:00.778 --> 48:03.214
Ladson and Taylor, not Braddy.

48:04.882 --> 48:06.217
- [Offcamera Woman]
Ladson and Taylor?

48:06.217 --> 48:08.719
- I can go home and rest
from round one, y\'all.

48:11.822 --> 48:13.057
- [Keyke] I just
told you, Daddy won.

48:13.057 --> 48:16.093
He will be in the
running in November.

48:16.093 --> 48:19.463
I don\'t know, his
last name is Taylor.

48:21.098 --> 48:24.602
(acoustic guitar picking)

48:39.784 --> 48:43.954
- I am very nervous about
the sentencing on April 26th,

48:43.954 --> 48:48.092
because the judge
could either honor

48:48.092 --> 48:51.829
the one year plea bargain
that the DA has made,

48:51.829 --> 48:56.567
or she could give him probation,

48:56.567 --> 49:01.071
or she could give him more time.

49:01.071 --> 49:03.507
So one of the
three could happen.

49:05.476 --> 49:06.644
- Who is that?

49:08.779 --> 49:10.748
Who is that? (indistinct)

49:10.748 --> 49:13.250
(child speaks indistinctly)

49:13.250 --> 49:15.653
- Who is that? That ain\'t me.

49:16.954 --> 49:18.289
That\'s your Dad.

49:19.757 --> 49:23.861
(acoustic guitar softly playing)

49:32.136 --> 49:34.505
- [Dedee] This thing
just keeps happening.

49:34.505 --> 49:38.909
I mean, it\'s been so far
five different murders

49:38.909 --> 49:43.647
of young black men, killed
by an older white guy.

49:45.082 --> 49:48.452
It\'s just hard to continue
to see this thing happen

49:49.620 --> 49:52.523
in this rural area.
It\'s just unfortunate.

49:55.292 --> 49:59.563
I am hoping that the judge
can be held accountable,

49:59.563 --> 50:01.632
and say, \"I can\'t
let this happen,\"

50:01.632 --> 50:04.501
and stand up for what\'s right.

50:06.637 --> 50:10.641
- This shirt right here, is
in memory of Justin Patterson.

50:12.810 --> 50:15.613
We got this to show our
support for the trial.

50:18.382 --> 50:20.885
Try to show that
we want justice.

50:22.953 --> 50:24.321
- The day it happened,

50:24.321 --> 50:27.024
I just knew that it
would find a way,

50:27.024 --> 50:30.461
that it\'ll make it okay
for him to kill him.

50:30.461 --> 50:31.562
And I just knew it.

50:31.562 --> 50:32.763
It\'s something you know.

50:32.763 --> 50:33.764
If you live here, it\'s
something you know

50:33.764 --> 50:35.032
that\'s not going to happen.

50:40.137 --> 50:43.374
(somber music playing)

51:17.274 --> 51:18.108
- Okay.

51:24.381 --> 51:25.549
Okay. Ready.

51:27.184 --> 51:30.154
- [Keyke] We not in church,
baby. We\'re in the courthouse.

51:31.422 --> 51:35.092
(courthouse crowd chatters)

51:50.407 --> 51:53.711
(gavel slams)

51:53.711 --> 51:55.646
- State of Georgia
versus Norman Neesmith,

51:55.646 --> 51:57.381
Indictment 11-CR-108.

52:00.384 --> 52:03.721
- On January the 29th, 2011,

52:03.721 --> 52:07.791
my 22 year old son
was taken from me

52:07.791 --> 52:09.994
and it has changed
my life forever.

52:11.161 --> 52:13.364
The pain that seems to
be growing more and more

52:13.364 --> 52:15.933
inside of me is
unbearable at times.

52:18.302 --> 52:22.272
This man will never know what
he has done to my family.

52:23.707 --> 52:27.845
No one would ever
get me to understand

52:27.845 --> 52:31.215
why it was necessary
to kill my son.

52:31.215 --> 52:33.083
This was a senseless
death to me,

52:33.083 --> 52:35.886
and it just didn\'t
have to happen.

52:35.886 --> 52:40.124
Now, a year later, it\'s all
been reduced to two charges,

52:40.124 --> 52:43.961
a plea bargain that
we have been told

52:43.961 --> 52:46.830
that will hold a one year
sentence in a detention center.

52:46.830 --> 52:48.866
How can my family
live with that?

52:48.866 --> 52:51.402
How can you live with
it if it was your son?

52:52.603 --> 52:55.139
That is just not what
I consider justice.

52:56.006 --> 52:57.174
A person is dead,

52:58.342 --> 53:00.577
and it may not mean
anything to some of you,

53:00.577 --> 53:02.780
but it was my son.

53:02.780 --> 53:04.948
And it means everything to me.

53:05.849 --> 53:07.384
Justin was in college.

53:07.384 --> 53:09.053
He had a three-year-old daughter

53:10.554 --> 53:12.156
that is left without a father.

53:12.156 --> 53:15.726
He had a mother, a
brother, and a father,

53:15.726 --> 53:18.095
and even more family
than he could count.

53:18.095 --> 53:19.363
The truth of the matter is:

53:19.363 --> 53:22.533
my son was held hostage
and then murdered.

53:22.533 --> 53:26.870
And now, a year later, this
man could go free, it\'s unfair.

53:30.107 --> 53:33.277
Me and my family will have
to visit my son\'s grave

53:34.678 --> 53:37.247
the rest of our
lives. Thank you.

55:11.441 --> 55:12.609
- Yes, ma\'am.

55:21.151 --> 55:22.219
- Yes, ma\'am.

56:43.233 --> 56:46.737
(piano ominously playing)

57:16.867 --> 57:20.971
(two women murmuring in embrace)

57:23.540 --> 57:24.374
- I know.

57:29.112 --> 57:30.380
- Please, Lord.

57:31.548 --> 57:34.051
(Dedee cries)

57:42.426 --> 57:43.527
Oh, Lord Jesus

57:46.096 --> 57:48.598
(Dedee cries)

58:02.879 --> 58:05.382
- It\'s not... my baby is gone.

58:11.655 --> 58:15.158
(piano ominously playing)

58:28.805 --> 58:33.477
- In court, the DA
never mentioned anything

58:33.477 --> 58:36.813
that Norman Neesmith
done to our boys.

58:38.181 --> 58:43.186
Everything was about our
boys, Justin and Shavon.

58:44.354 --> 58:46.123
Like he was trying
to convict them.

58:46.123 --> 58:48.225
Justin is gone. You
cannot convict Justin.

58:49.693 --> 58:52.129
So a bunch of stuff he said
about Justin was irrelevant.

58:52.129 --> 58:53.630
You could have left that alone.

58:54.564 --> 58:56.032
He could have left that alone.

58:57.167 --> 58:58.602
He didn\'t have to
bring up none of that.

58:58.602 --> 58:59.836
Well, maybe, I don\'t know.

58:59.836 --> 59:01.271
But it was irrelevant.

59:02.806 --> 59:04.775
Not one time did he say

59:04.775 --> 59:06.576
how long he kept our
boys in the house.

59:06.576 --> 59:08.378
How many times he shot at them.

59:09.946 --> 59:13.083
That he shouldn\'t
have shot at him.

59:13.083 --> 59:14.751
He should have
called the police.

59:16.520 --> 59:18.789
He didn\'t say none
of that stuff.

59:22.759 --> 59:27.197
It was like everybody made
a bad decision at night.

59:27.197 --> 59:29.933
Well, they was kids being kids.

59:34.805 --> 59:37.874
(train horn blowing)

59:44.748 --> 59:48.418
(soft blues guitar playing)

01:00:18.014 --> 01:00:21.017
(fireworks popping)

01:00:26.690 --> 01:00:29.426
(crowd cheering)

01:00:33.930 --> 01:00:35.832
- Donna, do you have
the Neesmith file?

01:00:35.832 --> 01:00:39.302
(Donna speaking
indistinctly on phone)

01:00:39.302 --> 01:00:41.938
Yes ma\'am. Okay. Thank you. Bye.

01:00:51.948 --> 01:00:53.583
- [Interviewer] Can
you explain to me

01:00:53.583 --> 01:00:57.921
why the facts showed that
that was a fair plea bargain?

01:00:59.155 --> 01:01:01.124
- I think it\'s a just
punishment for crime.

01:01:01.124 --> 01:01:03.426
There\'s a difference
between, because again,

01:01:03.426 --> 01:01:05.962
I can never replace
a life that was lost.

01:01:08.665 --> 01:01:09.499
You can\'t do that.

01:01:09.499 --> 01:01:10.834
Is the a fair? No.

01:01:10.834 --> 01:01:13.336
Is it a just crime? Is
it a just punishment?

01:01:13.336 --> 01:01:14.671
Yes. I think it\'s
a just punishment,

01:01:14.671 --> 01:01:17.374
because of the
circumstances of the case.

01:01:17.374 --> 01:01:18.642
He was being punished.

01:01:20.110 --> 01:01:22.712
He is been punished based
on the facts of the case.

01:01:22.712 --> 01:01:24.447
I\'ll never be able to replace

01:01:24.447 --> 01:01:28.852
what happened to the
Pattersons. Never.

01:01:28.852 --> 01:01:31.454
And it\'s a tragedy
event for them,

01:01:31.454 --> 01:01:32.923
and as the court stated

01:01:32.923 --> 01:01:34.357
on the record there
at the sentencing,

01:01:34.357 --> 01:01:35.592
it\'s a tragic event

01:01:35.592 --> 01:01:37.661
all the way across the
board for everybody.

01:01:38.862 --> 01:01:41.464
The other son has to
live with the fact

01:01:41.464 --> 01:01:45.569
that he was the one who
wanted to go over there.

01:01:46.803 --> 01:01:48.438
The girls have to
live with the fact

01:01:48.438 --> 01:01:51.641
they\'re the ones who
participated inviting
them over there.

01:01:51.641 --> 01:01:52.609
How did it all happen?

01:01:52.609 --> 01:01:53.877
They all have to live with

01:01:53.877 --> 01:01:56.980
the circumstances of
what they brought on.

01:01:58.448 --> 01:01:59.983
There\'s no other
way to describe it,

01:01:59.983 --> 01:02:02.152
other than just the tragedy
for all parties involved.

01:02:04.354 --> 01:02:06.156
- [Interviewer] We\'ve all
been teenagers before,

01:02:06.156 --> 01:02:07.924
and we\'ve all snuck around,

01:02:07.924 --> 01:02:10.460
and we\'ve all gone into
houses late at night

01:02:10.460 --> 01:02:12.295
when we weren\'t supposed to.

01:02:12.295 --> 01:02:13.396
- Actually I have not.

01:02:14.531 --> 01:02:15.732
- [Interviewer] All
right, well I certainly

01:02:15.732 --> 01:02:18.168
have done my share.
Or did my share.

01:02:19.803 --> 01:02:22.072
So you don\'t think race
had anything to do,

01:02:22.072 --> 01:02:23.707
played any part in this case?

01:02:28.144 --> 01:02:30.113
- You can never say that
race doesn\'t play a part

01:02:30.113 --> 01:02:32.315
in any case. Okay?

01:02:34.017 --> 01:02:35.652
That\'s just a fact that
you have to deal with.

01:02:35.652 --> 01:02:36.987
You asked me earlier, I think,

01:02:36.987 --> 01:02:38.922
if the boys had been
of a different race,

01:02:38.922 --> 01:02:40.557
whether or not the facts
would have changed.

01:02:40.557 --> 01:02:42.892
Under the circumstances
that happened that night,

01:02:42.892 --> 01:02:46.096
I don\'t think the outcome
would have been different,

01:02:46.096 --> 01:02:47.464
no matter what.

01:02:47.464 --> 01:02:48.298
It happened.

01:02:49.466 --> 01:02:51.034
I just don\'t think
it would have been.

01:02:51.034 --> 01:02:53.870
- Whatever that child did,
he didn\'t deserve to die.

01:02:55.305 --> 01:02:59.576
And in the end, that\'s
what this sentence shows.

01:03:01.411 --> 01:03:05.215
And it shows everyone here
came to that conclusion.

01:03:05.215 --> 01:03:06.616
It\'s the right conclusion.

01:03:11.655 --> 01:03:13.323
That\'s all I have to say.

01:03:13.323 --> 01:03:14.524
- [Interviewer] Why do
you think that the DA

01:03:14.524 --> 01:03:17.427
was willing to reduce
all those charges?

01:03:17.427 --> 01:03:21.364
- In my opinion, it was done
for a couple of reasons.

01:03:21.364 --> 01:03:23.767
It was one done to save face,

01:03:23.767 --> 01:03:27.037
because Norman had
a lot of supporters.

01:03:28.405 --> 01:03:29.639
- [Interviewer] And when
you say \"save face,\"

01:03:29.639 --> 01:03:31.107
what does that mean, exactly?

01:03:33.743 --> 01:03:38.181
- Well, because of the
support that Norman had,

01:03:41.384 --> 01:03:44.187
the district attorney\'s
position is elected,

01:03:44.187 --> 01:03:49.192
and you want everybody to think
you\'re doing the right thing

01:03:51.061 --> 01:03:53.163
so that you can get the votes.

01:03:56.433 --> 01:03:57.534
And that\'s my thought.

01:04:01.037 --> 01:04:04.374
(ambient music playing)

01:04:27.664 --> 01:04:29.566
- I shouldn\'t have
never went nowhere.

01:04:32.402 --> 01:04:33.770
That\'s my belief.

01:04:33.770 --> 01:04:35.805
Because I was defending myself.

01:04:35.805 --> 01:04:38.608
When is it you can\'t
defend yourself?

01:04:40.944 --> 01:04:42.378
But me trying to do right

01:04:42.378 --> 01:04:44.347
and try to live the
right kind of life,

01:04:46.216 --> 01:04:48.518
and what I thought going
by the laws and stuff

01:04:48.518 --> 01:04:51.755
look what it got me,
if any stripped me.

01:04:51.755 --> 01:04:53.423
Look what it got me.

01:04:54.591 --> 01:04:56.860
Just trying to be, and
do the right thing.

01:05:08.772 --> 01:05:11.641
This mess has cost me
two years of my life.

01:05:11.641 --> 01:05:13.610
And that boy\'s Daddy set
up there in that courtroom

01:05:13.610 --> 01:05:16.679
and how bad they hate to go
to the cemetery and all that.

01:05:16.679 --> 01:05:20.383
Did that man over there just
murdered his son and all that?

01:05:20.383 --> 01:05:21.818
What the hell they
think it done to me,

01:05:21.818 --> 01:05:23.219
like I told them in
courtroom that day?

01:05:23.219 --> 01:05:24.954
And you probably
remember, I said,

01:05:24.954 --> 01:05:26.089
\"You keep talking about

01:05:27.357 --> 01:05:29.125
the loss you got for
your son and stuff.\"

01:05:29.125 --> 01:05:31.227
I said, \"When your
son died that night,

01:05:31.227 --> 01:05:32.662
a big part of me died too.\"

01:05:34.297 --> 01:05:35.532
And I didn\'t say no more.

01:05:37.133 --> 01:05:38.501
But they never said
nothing about me.

01:05:38.501 --> 01:05:39.736
If their kids was so good,

01:05:39.736 --> 01:05:41.337
why wasn\'t they
home in their bed?

01:05:41.337 --> 01:05:42.605
Why wasn\'t they
home in their bed?

01:05:42.605 --> 01:05:44.808
Why are they at my
house, in my bed?

01:05:44.808 --> 01:05:46.009
One of them said they had kids,

01:05:46.009 --> 01:05:47.177
why wouldn\'t he home
looking after his kids?

01:05:47.177 --> 01:05:49.779
Why he over here trying
to get some more?

01:05:49.779 --> 01:05:50.947
He should have been home,

01:05:50.947 --> 01:05:52.315
looking after his kids

01:05:52.315 --> 01:05:54.584
if he was a nice, respectable
boy like they said.

01:05:55.752 --> 01:05:58.087
Why wasn\'t he home at
3:00 in the morning?

01:05:58.087 --> 01:06:00.557
Why was he at my house
doped up and drinking?

01:06:04.160 --> 01:06:05.862
And he said they was polite.

01:06:05.862 --> 01:06:06.896
It was \"yes\" and \"no\'s,\" and

01:06:06.896 --> 01:06:08.131
\"Yes, ma\'am\" and \"No, ma\'am.\"

01:06:08.131 --> 01:06:09.599
And he said, and I
won\'t never forget,

01:06:09.599 --> 01:06:10.834
\"I bet that\'s the way he
was talking to Mr. Neesmith

01:06:10.834 --> 01:06:12.769
that night he shot
him and killed him.

01:06:12.769 --> 01:06:14.170
The boy never said a
word. He wouldn\'t talk.

01:06:14.170 --> 01:06:17.674
The only thing he
said that I heard,

01:06:17.674 --> 01:06:20.643
but I was laying on the
floor when this happened.

01:06:20.643 --> 01:06:21.978
He said the MF shot me.

01:06:23.913 --> 01:06:24.848
He used the word.

01:06:26.349 --> 01:06:27.584
- [Interviewer] I\'m
sorry, what did he say?

01:06:27.584 --> 01:06:28.885
- Well, when it all
happened, he said,

01:06:28.885 --> 01:06:30.386
\"The mother fucker shot me.\"

01:06:30.386 --> 01:06:31.487
After all he\'d done,

01:06:31.487 --> 01:06:32.722
now he\'d done come in my house,

01:06:32.722 --> 01:06:34.924
he done brought
dope in my house.

01:06:34.924 --> 01:06:36.993
We found dope all in there
they brought in there.

01:06:36.993 --> 01:06:38.728
And still I\'m the mother fucker.

01:06:38.728 --> 01:06:41.531
What is he? Tell me
what he would have been.

01:06:45.401 --> 01:06:47.237
You see what I\'m saying?

01:06:47.237 --> 01:06:48.705
I was still the bad guy.

01:06:58.281 --> 01:07:00.950
I just want this
mess to be over.

01:07:02.719 --> 01:07:04.153
And it\'s going to be over.

01:07:04.153 --> 01:07:05.221
This is the last day I
ever talk about this stuff.

01:07:05.221 --> 01:07:06.723
It\'s going to be over.

01:07:06.723 --> 01:07:08.458
But what I told
y\'all is exactly,

01:07:08.458 --> 01:07:10.960
just exactly what happened
at my house that night.

01:07:14.197 --> 01:07:17.867
- Nobody\'d been better off
if they\'re accusing me.

01:07:17.867 --> 01:07:19.135
I believe that.

01:07:22.605 --> 01:07:24.374
I still pray for that
boy\'s Mama and Daddy

01:07:24.374 --> 01:07:25.808
just about every night.

01:07:34.550 --> 01:07:37.887
I bet they haven\'t
said a word about me.

01:07:46.829 --> 01:07:48.698
- I know they say
you got to forgive

01:07:51.501 --> 01:07:52.702
so that you can move on,

01:07:54.570 --> 01:07:57.774
but to this day, I
haven\'t forgave him yet.

01:08:00.143 --> 01:08:01.644
I\'m not the same anymore.

01:08:01.644 --> 01:08:04.247
I\'m not the Julius
that I used to be.

01:08:05.949 --> 01:08:07.951
I look back at it and...

01:08:21.164 --> 01:08:22.298
He text me three times.

01:08:36.145 --> 01:08:39.082
That was the last
I heard from him.

01:08:46.489 --> 01:08:49.759
(piano softly playing)

01:08:54.897 --> 01:08:58.735
- [Interviewer] So I want to
just go back to that night.

01:09:01.637 --> 01:09:02.538
I know it\'s hard.

01:09:05.141 --> 01:09:07.877
Can you tell me
how you met Justin?

01:09:07.877 --> 01:09:11.914
- I\'d known Justin for
about two years at the time.

01:09:11.914 --> 01:09:16.919
I had lost his number, we had
lost contact some kind of way.

01:09:17.787 --> 01:09:19.022
I don\'t know how it happened.

01:09:19.022 --> 01:09:20.423
All of a sudden it\'s just like,

01:09:20.423 --> 01:09:22.859
\"Bam. We have contact again.\"

01:09:24.460 --> 01:09:25.895
- [Interviewer] How did
you have contact with him?

01:09:25.895 --> 01:09:27.230
- Well, I was on Facebook,

01:09:27.230 --> 01:09:28.431
and all of a sudden I
had a friend request,

01:09:28.431 --> 01:09:29.999
and it said, \"Justin
Burr-Patterson.\"

01:09:29.999 --> 01:09:31.567
I was like, \"Wait a minute.

01:09:31.567 --> 01:09:32.769
That can\'t be who
I think it is.\"

01:09:32.769 --> 01:09:33.703
So I went ahead and I opened it.

01:09:33.703 --> 01:09:35.972
I was like, \"Oh my God, it is.\"

01:09:35.972 --> 01:09:38.741
So it was like, \"bam,\"
automatic connection again.

01:09:38.741 --> 01:09:42.378
I was like, \"yes,\"
so we kind of started

01:09:42.378 --> 01:09:43.946
communicating and all again,

01:09:44.881 --> 01:09:46.382
and everything was going good.

01:09:48.251 --> 01:09:49.485
Actually, the next day

01:09:49.485 --> 01:09:51.487
he was supposed to be
coming to the house,

01:09:51.487 --> 01:09:53.523
to hang out and everything.

01:09:53.523 --> 01:09:58.528
But things didn\'t exactly
turn out that way.

01:10:06.135 --> 01:10:08.404
It bothers me. I
still have nightmares.

01:10:12.108 --> 01:10:13.743
I mean, I\'ll wake up in
the middle of the night,

01:10:13.743 --> 01:10:15.912
just sitting there
shivering and shaking.

01:10:15.912 --> 01:10:17.847
My boyfriend\'s like, wakes up
like \"What\'s wrong with you?\"

01:10:17.847 --> 01:10:19.015
I\'m like, \"Nothing. I\'m just
having nightmares again.

01:10:19.015 --> 01:10:20.850
Just go back to sleep.\"

01:10:20.850 --> 01:10:21.818
And he\'ll be like, \"All right.\"

01:10:21.818 --> 01:10:23.086
He said, \"Well just accept it,

01:10:23.086 --> 01:10:24.687
and maybe you won\'t have
the nightmares anymore.\"

01:10:24.687 --> 01:10:26.656
I said, \"It\'s kind
of hard to accept it

01:10:26.656 --> 01:10:28.291
after you done
accepted what happened

01:10:28.291 --> 01:10:29.592
and you\'re still
having to nightmares.\"

01:10:29.592 --> 01:10:31.094
I said, \"Whenever you
see something like that,

01:10:31.094 --> 01:10:32.328
you just can\'t forget it.

01:10:32.328 --> 01:10:33.963
It\'s going to stick
with you for a while.\"

01:10:33.963 --> 01:10:35.698
He said, \"But it\'s
been two years.\"

01:10:37.366 --> 01:10:38.468
I can\'t let it go.

01:10:39.936 --> 01:10:43.439
I can\'t. I try to let it
go, and I can\'t let it go.

01:10:43.439 --> 01:10:47.243
I mean, I\'m sorry for his
family, and I really am,

01:10:47.243 --> 01:10:48.478
but I can\'t let it go.

01:10:48.478 --> 01:10:50.146
I mean, I have a
necklace he gave me

01:10:50.146 --> 01:10:51.481
the same night that he died

01:10:51.481 --> 01:10:53.916
and I won\'t let nobody touch it.

01:11:03.593 --> 01:11:05.828
I\'ve wore it every
day for the last year.

01:11:05.828 --> 01:11:08.397
Whenever it happened,
I wore it every day.

01:11:09.866 --> 01:11:11.167
And then all of a sudden,
I just stopped wearing it,

01:11:11.167 --> 01:11:13.169
but I take it
everywhere with me.

01:11:13.169 --> 01:11:15.571
I don\'t leave it nowhere. I
don\'t go nowhere without it.

01:11:15.571 --> 01:11:17.540
Everywhere I go, I
take that necklace.

01:11:19.342 --> 01:11:21.544
It\'s like the only piece
of him that I have left.

01:11:26.382 --> 01:11:28.384
My Dad, I\'m happy he\'s home.

01:11:28.384 --> 01:11:31.187
Man, as soon as he got
home, he called me.

01:11:31.187 --> 01:11:33.389
I looked like a kid
on Christmas morning.

01:11:35.625 --> 01:11:37.560
I haven\'t talked to
him in over a year.

01:11:38.561 --> 01:11:39.796
I\'m glad he\'s home,

01:11:39.796 --> 01:11:40.997
but I wish he didn\'t
have to go through

01:11:40.997 --> 01:11:42.064
what he went through.

01:11:44.901 --> 01:11:49.405
My Dad\'s never showed any
kind of anger toward anyone.

01:11:49.405 --> 01:11:50.873
I mean, he wouldn\'t hurt a fly.

01:11:50.873 --> 01:11:52.308
He\'s just a big old teddy bear.

01:11:52.308 --> 01:11:53.576
He might look like he\'s mean,

01:11:53.576 --> 01:11:55.111
but he\'s a teddy bear.

01:11:55.111 --> 01:11:57.647
You couldn\'t meet anybody
softer than my Dad.

01:11:59.081 --> 01:12:01.884
My father was disowned
for 20 years by his family

01:12:01.884 --> 01:12:04.520
because of the fact
that I am biracial.

01:12:06.522 --> 01:12:07.757
But if he would have been black,

01:12:07.757 --> 01:12:10.026
he wouldn\'t have been
home like he is now.

01:12:10.026 --> 01:12:11.127
I really believe that.

01:12:12.628 --> 01:12:13.729
He wouldn\'t have been.

01:12:15.431 --> 01:12:17.200
- [Interviewer] Norman,
have you seen Danielle yet?

01:12:17.200 --> 01:12:19.669
- [Norman] Hmm-mm (negative)

01:12:19.669 --> 01:12:20.803
- [Interviewer] How come?

01:12:28.344 --> 01:12:30.546
That\'s something else.

01:12:30.546 --> 01:12:32.415
If you turn your
back on your kids,

01:12:34.550 --> 01:12:36.352
then I think you\'re
a pretty sorry fella.

01:12:36.352 --> 01:12:37.620
I don\'t care what they do,

01:12:37.620 --> 01:12:39.088
you got to be there for them.

01:12:41.057 --> 01:12:43.159
Because if you
ain\'t, nobody will.

01:12:43.159 --> 01:12:44.293
No matter what they do.

01:12:45.761 --> 01:12:47.997
You don\'t have to condone
them in their wrongdoings,

01:12:47.997 --> 01:12:50.499
but you got to be there for
them when they do wrong.

01:12:52.501 --> 01:12:53.736
- I can\'t stay in
that house no more.

01:12:53.736 --> 01:12:55.137
I guess it\'s because
of what happened in it,

01:12:55.137 --> 01:12:56.806
but I can\'t stay there.

01:12:56.806 --> 01:12:59.475
For the first time, I\'m glad
I can\'t go home and stay.

01:13:00.343 --> 01:13:03.946
I really am. And I love home.

01:13:03.946 --> 01:13:05.948
It\'s somewhere I\'ve always
wanted to go back to,

01:13:05.948 --> 01:13:07.917
but I\'m glad I can\'t
stay in the house.

01:13:10.152 --> 01:13:11.087
I really am.

01:13:15.625 --> 01:13:18.461
Touchy subject, touchy subject.

01:13:20.429 --> 01:13:21.264
I\'m good.

01:13:22.331 --> 01:13:23.566
I\'m so good. Hold on.

01:13:31.307 --> 01:13:34.010
The first year it was
the hardest year for me.

01:13:35.478 --> 01:13:37.913
The second year, it
was a little easier,

01:13:37.913 --> 01:13:39.448
but I made it through it.

01:13:40.650 --> 01:13:42.852
Everybody\'s making it
through it, I suppose.

01:13:44.020 --> 01:13:45.254
But that\'s all we can do.

01:13:45.254 --> 01:13:46.656
We can just live it
one day at a time

01:13:46.656 --> 01:13:51.594
and got to move on from it.

01:13:51.594 --> 01:13:53.963
It\'s just the simple fact
that somebody was taken.

01:13:53.963 --> 01:13:57.133
Somebody\'s Dad was taken.
Somebody\'s son was taken.

01:13:57.133 --> 01:13:58.434
And like everybody says,

01:13:58.434 --> 01:14:00.736
you\'re not supposed
to bury your child.

01:14:04.507 --> 01:14:06.142
That\'s one of my biggest fears.

01:14:06.142 --> 01:14:07.843
Now... Because I mean,

01:14:07.843 --> 01:14:11.080
I can only imagine how that
feeling felt for his family.

01:14:11.080 --> 01:14:13.215
Because I have a little girl.

01:14:14.617 --> 01:14:16.519
I wouldn\'t want to have to
sit there and have to bury her

01:14:16.519 --> 01:14:18.621
when she\'s only like 21, 22.

01:14:18.621 --> 01:14:20.256
I would hate to have to do that.

01:14:22.391 --> 01:14:23.893
I understand what
they feel about that,

01:14:23.893 --> 01:14:26.896
but I couldn\'t even imagine
what they was really feeling,

01:14:26.896 --> 01:14:29.532
but I understand how they felt,

01:14:29.532 --> 01:14:30.733
but it\'s something
that I wouldn\'t ever

01:14:30.733 --> 01:14:32.335
want to have to go through.

01:14:32.335 --> 01:14:33.669
And I feel bad for them.

01:14:33.669 --> 01:14:38.507
And I\'m sorry, but if it
couldn\'t ever happened,

01:14:39.809 --> 01:14:42.011
and if I could take
it all back, I would.

01:14:43.112 --> 01:14:46.582
I really would because
it was childish.

01:14:46.582 --> 01:14:48.184
It was stupid.

01:14:48.184 --> 01:14:50.319
I should have been stepped up,

01:14:51.754 --> 01:14:54.156
and stopped everything before
it even got to where it got,

01:14:54.156 --> 01:14:55.524
but I didn\'t.

01:14:55.524 --> 01:14:57.193
And the fact that I
didn\'t, like I said,

01:14:57.193 --> 01:14:59.528
that\'s what makes me feel
like all of it\'s my fault,

01:14:59.528 --> 01:15:01.197
because I didn\'t do
anything about it.

01:15:01.197 --> 01:15:02.998
I didn\'t try to stop it.

01:15:02.998 --> 01:15:04.300
I went along with it.

01:15:09.038 --> 01:15:11.440
I\'m learning to deal with it.

01:15:13.142 --> 01:15:16.412
(somber music playing)

01:15:44.540 --> 01:15:46.008
- Can\'t tell you what happened.

01:15:46.008 --> 01:15:49.678
All I can tell you, I
was winning the election.

01:15:49.678 --> 01:15:51.480
All of a sudden I
lost the election.

01:15:59.054 --> 01:16:00.890
I can\'t tell you
exactly what happened.

01:16:04.260 --> 01:16:09.265
I could tell you undoubtedly
lot of people lied to me,

01:16:11.767 --> 01:16:13.269
and that led things
didn\'t go the way

01:16:13.269 --> 01:16:14.970
I thought they would go.

01:16:16.605 --> 01:16:19.575
- After all that, he
only lost by 100 votes.

01:16:21.010 --> 01:16:23.345
And we can\'t find out where
those hundred votes come from.

01:16:23.345 --> 01:16:25.147
He can\'t find out
where it came from.

01:16:26.549 --> 01:16:28.918
Asked for a recount. They
couldn\'t give him one.

01:16:28.918 --> 01:16:30.186
They couldn\'t give him a recount

01:16:30.186 --> 01:16:33.222
because he didn\'t have
a reason for recount.

01:16:33.222 --> 01:16:34.056
That\'s reason enough.

01:16:34.056 --> 01:16:36.225
\"I think I got cheated.\"

01:16:36.225 --> 01:16:39.028
But they did something, I
just don\'t know what they did.

01:16:40.529 --> 01:16:43.833
- [Calvin] Can\'t be experience.
That\'s out the question.

01:16:43.833 --> 01:16:46.001
When I had 30 years,
this guy had had none.

01:16:46.936 --> 01:16:48.437
- Which one would you choose?

01:16:48.437 --> 01:16:51.373
Why would you want a man
that has zero experience?

01:16:51.373 --> 01:16:55.811
Has never did this before in
his life to run our county.

01:16:55.811 --> 01:16:59.315
Why? That\'s retarded.
That\'s dumb.

01:17:04.487 --> 01:17:06.856
- That broke my heart.

01:17:06.856 --> 01:17:08.891
It took me a little
while to get over it.

01:17:13.762 --> 01:17:16.298
I cried. I let my family down.

01:17:16.298 --> 01:17:18.000
I let some good citizens down.

01:17:20.135 --> 01:17:21.804
It just broke a
lot of us hearts.

01:17:21.804 --> 01:17:24.840
Like I said, it took me
a while to get over it.

01:17:25.941 --> 01:17:27.576
This is South Georgia.

01:17:28.844 --> 01:17:30.913
That\'s all I can tell
you is South Georgia.

01:17:30.913 --> 01:17:33.916
People ain\'t ready for a black
Sheriff of Montgomery County.

01:17:35.117 --> 01:17:36.785
I\'ve been told that in my face.

01:17:38.654 --> 01:17:40.723
Which, they didn\'t
used the word \"black.\"

01:17:43.259 --> 01:17:45.528
Don\'t want a nigger
for a sheriff.

01:17:45.528 --> 01:17:48.030
Ain\'t no nigger going to be a
Sheriff of Montgomery County.

01:17:49.598 --> 01:17:50.633
And it\'s been proven.

01:18:03.145 --> 01:18:04.914
- Papa, what\'s these?

01:18:06.715 --> 01:18:09.485
- It\'s more white people than
black that love my Daddy.

01:18:10.653 --> 01:18:12.254
But what white person
want a black person

01:18:12.254 --> 01:18:13.455
telling them what to do?

01:18:18.761 --> 01:18:21.564
That\'s my theory, and
I\'m sticking to it.

01:18:21.564 --> 01:18:25.167
They don\'t want a black man
to have power over them.

01:18:25.167 --> 01:18:28.003
They don\'t want a black man
to make more money than them.

01:18:30.406 --> 01:18:34.243
(child speaking indistinctly)

01:18:35.110 --> 01:18:36.612
That was the final straw.

01:18:36.612 --> 01:18:38.480
That was it. That was the
final. That was the end.

01:18:38.480 --> 01:18:41.216
I learned to bite my tongue.

01:18:41.216 --> 01:18:43.152
As a black child, you learn
to back bite your tongue.

01:18:43.152 --> 01:18:44.086
You\'re going to be called this.

01:18:44.086 --> 01:18:45.020
You\'re going to be called that.

01:18:45.020 --> 01:18:46.488
But you can\'t act on ignorance.

01:18:46.488 --> 01:18:48.857
You can\'t be ignorant
because they\'re ignorant.

01:18:48.857 --> 01:18:50.392
You can\'t be that way.

01:18:50.392 --> 01:18:51.927
But that was just it for me.

01:18:51.927 --> 01:18:55.831
Why should I be
silent of stupidity?

01:18:55.831 --> 01:18:57.967
I shouldn\'t have
to. And I\'m not.

01:18:57.967 --> 01:18:59.635
I had to do what I thought,

01:18:59.635 --> 01:19:01.170
or I think that\'s best
for me and my child,

01:19:01.170 --> 01:19:02.671
which is get away from here.

01:19:02.671 --> 01:19:05.007
I know what\'s something
better than this out there

01:19:05.007 --> 01:19:06.508
for me and my child,

01:19:06.508 --> 01:19:08.911
I don\'t want her to see
the things that I\'ve seen.

01:19:08.911 --> 01:19:10.913
And no, I haven\'t seen the
things that Mom and Daddy seen,

01:19:10.913 --> 01:19:12.214
but I\'ve seen enough.

01:19:12.214 --> 01:19:13.682
This was enough for me.

01:19:16.118 --> 01:19:17.019
I can\'t come back.

01:19:19.388 --> 01:19:23.058
Even before the
actual election date,

01:19:23.058 --> 01:19:25.294
I\'ve always said, \"If
my Daddy doesn\'t win,

01:19:25.294 --> 01:19:26.729
I can\'t live here.\"

01:19:26.729 --> 01:19:27.630
I can\'t live here.

01:19:33.902 --> 01:19:35.604
- I had some powerful
people tell me

01:19:35.604 --> 01:19:38.440
I\'m the reason why you were
down here for the prom.

01:19:38.440 --> 01:19:40.943
I had some powerful people
tell me that you the reason...

01:19:40.943 --> 01:19:43.646
I\'m the reason why you was
down here for the election.

01:19:46.315 --> 01:19:49.385
This small town of Mount
Vernon just ain\'t used to it.

01:19:49.385 --> 01:19:50.786
You scare them.

01:19:50.786 --> 01:19:53.989
Because they don\'t
want the world to know

01:19:53.989 --> 01:19:56.492
what\'s happening in
Mount Vernon, Georgia.

01:19:56.492 --> 01:19:58.360
In Montgomery County.

01:19:58.360 --> 01:20:01.864
(acoustic guitar picking)

01:20:28.924 --> 01:20:33.462
- I don\'t think anybody else
is going with mixed colors.

01:20:33.462 --> 01:20:34.296
- This is it.

01:20:36.365 --> 01:20:38.801
Me and Brooke, we\'ve
known each other forever.

01:20:38.801 --> 01:20:40.903
Since grade school.

01:20:40.903 --> 01:20:43.172
- I went to the prom
when it was whites only,

01:20:43.172 --> 01:20:46.008
but it wasn\'t really as fun
as when it was together,

01:20:46.008 --> 01:20:47.109
not to me.

01:20:47.109 --> 01:20:48.444
Everybody should be together.

01:20:48.444 --> 01:20:50.112
We all go to this
school together.

01:20:51.547 --> 01:20:52.715
We grew up together,
and doing school,

01:20:52.715 --> 01:20:54.383
so why not go to prom together?

01:20:54.383 --> 01:20:56.652
- Keep that... button in line.

01:20:56.652 --> 01:20:58.654
- Okay, okay, I could
do that for you.

01:20:58.654 --> 01:21:00.389
- Two years ago,
it was segregated.

01:21:00.389 --> 01:21:03.025
You had the white prom,
and you had a black prom.

01:21:03.025 --> 01:21:05.260
And that was that. Nobody
said anything about it.

01:21:05.260 --> 01:21:07.196
After proms, we
probably got together,

01:21:07.196 --> 01:21:08.764
but you could not have
went to a white prom

01:21:08.764 --> 01:21:10.632
if you were black,
and vice versa,

01:21:10.632 --> 01:21:12.935
if it was them, and
stuff like that.

01:21:12.935 --> 01:21:14.403
It\'s really great to finally

01:21:14.403 --> 01:21:16.338
come together as one and do it.

01:21:19.141 --> 01:21:21.543
- I\'ve heard that I was too
pretty to date black boys.

01:21:21.543 --> 01:21:23.011
I don\'t care what
they say about it.

01:21:23.011 --> 01:21:25.614
This is me. I ain\'t gonna let
nobody tell me what to do.

01:21:25.614 --> 01:21:26.949
I don\'t care what
they say about it.

01:21:26.949 --> 01:21:28.383
- The Mexicans, when
it was segregated prom,

01:21:28.383 --> 01:21:29.885
they went any way.

01:21:29.885 --> 01:21:31.353
They were lucky.

01:21:31.353 --> 01:21:33.322
They could go to the black
way or the white way.

01:21:33.322 --> 01:21:34.957
They were real cool.

01:21:34.957 --> 01:21:36.625
Because I know this one
Mexican, his name was Fabian.

01:21:36.625 --> 01:21:37.926
He used to take advantage.

01:21:39.361 --> 01:21:43.132
(Gospel style music playing)

01:21:53.408 --> 01:21:54.276
- ♪ Come on, come on.

01:21:54.276 --> 01:21:55.778
♪ I see no changes.

01:21:55.778 --> 01:21:57.112
♪ I wake up in the
morning and I ask myself ♪

01:21:57.112 --> 01:21:59.047
♪ Is life worth living,
should I blast myself? ♪

01:21:59.047 --> 01:22:01.016
♪ I\'m tired of being poor,
and even worse, I\'m black. ♪

01:22:01.016 --> 01:22:03.485
♪ My stomach hurts so I\'m
looking for a purse to snatch. ♪

01:22:03.485 --> 01:22:05.187
♪ Cops give a damn
about a Negro ♪

01:22:05.187 --> 01:22:07.489
♪ Pull the trigger, kill
a nigga, he\'s a hero. ♪

01:22:07.489 --> 01:22:09.525
♪ Giving crack to the
kids, who the hell cares? ♪

01:22:09.525 --> 01:22:11.794
♪ One less hungry
mouth on the welfare ♪

01:22:11.794 --> 01:22:14.062
♪ First ship them dope and
let them deal their brothers ♪

01:22:14.062 --> 01:22:16.131
♪ Give them guns, step back,
watch them kill each other. ♪

01:22:16.131 --> 01:22:18.400
♪ It\'s time to fight back,
that\'s what Huey said. ♪

01:22:18.400 --> 01:22:20.536
♪ Two shots in the
dark, now Huey\'s dead. ♪

01:22:20.536 --> 01:22:23.105
♪ I got love for my brother,
but we can never go nowhere, ♪

01:22:23.105 --> 01:22:24.740
♪ Unless we share
with each other. ♪

01:22:24.740 --> 01:22:26.375
♪ We got to start
making changes. ♪

01:22:26.375 --> 01:22:27.843
♪ Learn to see me as a brother

01:22:27.843 --> 01:22:29.178
♪ Instead of two
distant strangers. ♪

01:22:29.178 --> 01:22:30.712
♪ And that\'s how
it\'s supposed to be ♪

01:22:30.712 --> 01:22:33.816
♪ How can the Devil take a
brother if he\'s close to me? ♪

01:22:33.816 --> 01:22:35.584
♪ I\'d love to go back to
when we played as kids, ♪

01:22:35.584 --> 01:22:36.819
♪ But things change.

01:22:36.819 --> 01:22:38.620
♪ That\'s the way it is.

01:22:38.620 --> 01:22:40.355
♪ Come on. Come on.

01:22:40.355 --> 01:22:44.259
♪ That\'s just the way it is.

01:22:44.259 --> 01:22:48.897
♪ Things will never
be the same. ♪

01:22:48.897 --> 01:22:51.934
♪ That\'s just the way it is.

01:22:51.934 --> 01:22:56.605
♪ Aw, yeah.

01:22:56.605 --> 01:22:57.873
♪ Come on. Come on.

01:22:57.873 --> 01:23:01.443
♪ That\'s just the way it is.

01:23:01.443 --> 01:23:06.281
♪ Things will never
be the same. ♪

01:23:06.281 --> 01:23:08.951
♪ That\'s just the way it is.

01:23:08.951 --> 01:23:11.019
♪ Aw, yeah.

01:23:11.019 --> 01:23:13.722
♪ That\'s the way it is.

01:23:13.722 --> 01:23:17.793
♪ Aw, yeah.

01:23:17.793 --> 01:23:19.361
♪ You\'re my brother,
you\'re my sister. ♪

01:23:19.361 --> 01:23:23.298
♪ That\'s just the way it is.

01:23:23.298 --> 01:23:27.669
♪ Things will never
be the same. ♪

01:23:27.669 --> 01:23:30.739
♪ That\'s just the way it is.

01:23:30.739 --> 01:23:33.075
♪ Aw, yeah.

01:23:36.678 --> 01:23:40.282
(melancholy piano playing)

01:24:00.035 --> 01:24:04.940
♪ We\'re so invincible.

01:24:05.707 --> 01:24:07.009
♪ We won\'t get old,

01:24:07.009 --> 01:24:10.812
♪ Our heart\'s made of metal.

01:24:10.812 --> 01:24:15.817
♪ Our dreams are radical.

01:24:16.952 --> 01:24:21.556
♪ How dare we run
straight into trouble? ♪

01:24:22.457 --> 01:24:26.695
♪ Our touch feels magical.

01:24:27.896 --> 01:24:32.534
♪ We\'re praying that our
dust turns to gold. ♪

01:24:33.435 --> 01:24:37.539
♪ Don\'t know which way to go,

01:24:37.539 --> 01:24:39.975
♪ Oh, but I know

01:24:39.975 --> 01:24:42.577
♪ We know the past,

01:24:42.577 --> 01:24:45.180
♪ We hold the memories

01:24:45.180 --> 01:24:50.185
♪ We learn to face
impossibilities. ♪

01:24:50.953 --> 01:24:53.288
♪ We see the future.

01:24:53.288 --> 01:24:56.191
♪ We hold the key.

01:24:56.191 --> 01:25:01.129
♪ We\'re standing right where
we\'re supposed to be. ♪

01:25:01.897 --> 01:25:04.433
♪ We still believe.

01:25:04.433 --> 01:25:06.601
♪ We still believe

01:25:06.601 --> 01:25:11.606
♪ We\'re standing right where
we\'re supposed to be. ♪

01:25:12.374 --> 01:25:15.010
♪ We still believe.

01:25:15.010 --> 01:25:17.713
♪ We still believe

01:25:17.713 --> 01:25:22.718
♪ We\'re standing right where
we\'re supposed to be. ♪

01:25:23.485 --> 01:25:26.855
♪ We still believe.

01:25:26.855 --> 01:25:31.860
♪ We\'re speeding
down the road. ♪

01:25:33.028 --> 01:25:37.332
♪ Heart racing, foot
pressed to the pedal. ♪

01:25:37.332 --> 01:25:42.337
♪ To highest heights
we\'ll grow. ♪

01:25:43.605 --> 01:25:47.676
♪ Oh, keep moving, big
dreams never settle. ♪

01:25:48.944 --> 01:25:52.814
♪ Nobody showed me
the secret code. ♪

01:25:54.249 --> 01:25:58.954
♪ But I\'m ready, and I\'ll
break through the window. ♪

01:25:58.954 --> 01:26:03.892
♪ Don\'t know which way to go,

01:26:04.793 --> 01:26:09.097
♪ But I know we know the past,

01:26:09.097 --> 01:26:11.833
♪ We hold the memories,

01:26:11.833 --> 01:26:16.838
♪ We learn to face
impossibilities. ♪

01:26:17.606 --> 01:26:19.941
♪ We see the future.

01:26:19.941 --> 01:26:22.744
♪ We hold the key.

01:26:22.744 --> 01:26:27.749
♪ We\'re standing right where
we\'re supposed to be. ♪

01:26:28.517 --> 01:26:30.819
♪ We still believe.

01:26:30.819 --> 01:26:33.522
♪ We still believe

01:26:33.522 --> 01:26:38.527
♪ We\'re standing right where
we\'re supposed to be. ♪

01:26:39.294 --> 01:26:41.630
♪ We still believe.

01:26:41.630 --> 01:26:44.366
♪ We still believe

01:26:44.366 --> 01:26:49.371
♪ We\'re standing right where
we\'re supposed to be. ♪

01:26:50.138 --> 01:26:53.008
♪ We still believe.

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Southern Rites

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