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It was the first gathering of a group that aimed to protect local civil rights activists from the racial terror of local Klansmen.
“You know the risk that we finna [are going] to take, right?” James Jackson, a local barber and one of the group’s organizers, asked the room. “Get out now because once you’re in there ain’t no out, see?”
Two years later, group member Wharlest Jackson was killed by a car bomb on his drive home from work at Armstrong Tire and Rubber. Jackson worked as a chemical mixer and was the first Black man to hold that role. No one was ever found responsible for his killing.
A new documentary from PBS “Frontline” called “American Reckoning” highlights Jackson’s murder. His killing is one of more than 100 cases reopened after the 2008 passing of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, which seeks to bring justice to the unsolved murders of the civil rights era. Since starting the program, there have been three successful state prosecutions, according to a 2021 Justice Department report. However, 61 cases have been closed due to the deaths of all people involved, 38 were reviewed but not reopened due to lack of evidence, and some were not reopened because of other legal reasons such as double jeopardy. The show premieres Feb. 15 at 10 p.m. Eastern time on PBS.
About US spoke with directors of the project Brad Lichtenstein and Yoruba Richen. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
How did you become familiar the Wharlest Jackson story, and what struck you about this case?
Lichtenstein: It actually goes back to John Lewis. I had had a lifelong friendship with him that began when I worked with him when I was 15, when he was running for Congress in Atlanta where I grew up. And I had been talking with him about a possible film about forgiveness, which was sparked by a moment when a former Klan member who had beaten John Lewis during the civil rights movement had come forward and asked for forgiveness.
I was in his office talking about that with him and with his press secretary, and she shifted my focus over to the Emmett Till Act, which they had introduced and the cases, what were called the cold cases at the time. And that’s really where it started.
I got interested in the Wharlest Jackson story in particular because I discovered that there was a treasure trove of archival footage filmed by Ed Pincus back in 1965 and in 1967, right after his murder. And you know, with any historical story, you want images to be able to tell that story. So there were obviously over a 120 cases or people who were included in the Emmett Till Act. But this felt like an opportunity to really be able to tell a story and bring it to life because this footage existed.
Richen: I was really struck by the incredible archive footage. That’s really what got me and what’s so unusual about the project. And then also the fact that the film told the story of the Deacons for Defense in Natchez, Mississippi. And I had been a bit obsessed with the Deacons for a few years at that time, having just heard about them and had read the book about them. And so when I found out that this story told part of the Deacons for Defense Story, it was an immediate yes for me.
What about the Deacons really interested you?
Richen: The fact that this is a part of Black history and of the Black freedom struggle that hasn’t been told‚ that it’s really been underreported. And so uncovering that was really important and exciting to me. And the fact that these men in the South, all through the South, Louisiana and Mississippi defended their communities against white terrorism and Klan violence. And you don’t hear that part of our story.
And you mentioned the archival footage. How many hours of footage did you have and how did you find it?
Lichtenstein: Well, the finding of it was not terribly hard. Once I heard about it, there were people in the community that knew that this footage existed. But people knew about the footage because they knew the movie “Black Natchez,” and they knew it was Ed Pincus. They knew that his estate had recently donated the footage to the Amistad Research Center. But, you know, finding it was relatively easy. It was a process to get it catalogued. We started working with it before it was really fully catalogued. And there’s a lot of it. I don’t remember exactly how many hours.
In the film, you also talk with family members of some of the KKK. Were they open to participating from the beginning and if so why?
Richen: Well, I’ll just start by saying it was always important for us to find and talk to the White Klanspeople and or their descendants. That was part of our mission in telling the story because it wasn’t just the Black people who resisted or who were killed, but the White Klan people who did it. And … until as a nation we start talking to those people, and finding their stories, I don’t think we will reckon with our history of terrorism in this country.
Lichtenstein: Yeah, and I have to really give a lot of credit to our consulting producer Stanley Nelson, who is based in Ferriday, Louisiana, where he was the editor, he just retired, of the Concordia Sentinel. He’s a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist who’s been writing about these cases. He came across them really through the Emmett Till Act. So he started to get curious and started investigating. He eventually wrote a book, which is called “Devils Walking,” and a lot of our research really stands on the shoulders of Stanley’s research.
So he had already been in touch with both Debra Taylor and with Leland Boyd [descendants of two members of the Klan]. And he was instrumental in making those introductions for us. And then I spent some time on the phone with both of them. I think for Debra especially, it was hard for her to go on camera, partially just because it takes a lot out of her. It comes across a little bit in the film, and she shared this publicly. So I’m not really sharing anything new. Her father was very abusive. She had been through a lot as a girl and talking about it can be re-traumatizing in a lot of ways.
I’d say what’s interesting, just in the experience of talking to both of them, is I think there’s different kinds of White responses when you’ve inherited this legacy of terror. For Leland, we’ve noticed the way that he has kind of processed the story of his father to try to balance a kind of genuine affection he had for his dad with the horrible terroristic acts that his dad was involved with. Whereas I think with Debra, it’s a little bit different. It’s what I explain, it’s having to relive a trauma. She doesn’t have any motivation to try to explain his actions.
In terms of Wharlest Jackson’s family, how open were they to talking with you?
Lichtenstein: As a filmmaker and particularly a White filmmaker in this space, I think that it’s important to try to really figure out how to create a space for people who’ve been through such painful experiences to share on their own terms.
I think a lot of people assume that you have to tell these stories because that’s a way to try to correct the harm of the past and not repeat it again. There’s probably an element of that that’s true, but I also think that we have to be careful not to be extractive, not to take stories without full of nuanced permission. And so starting off that process where I went down to Natchez, I met Wharlest Jr. and basically said to him, this is what I would like to do. I would go to a park and just sit there, and if he was interested, please come and see me. And I did.
I went, I mean, I remember it really well because I listened to the Milwaukee Brewers baseball game to pass the time. And he eventually came over and took me on a drive. And I just asked him to show me Natchez from his point of view. And he sort of pointed out things that had to do with his dad, things that had to do with history, things that had to do with the Black community. And even then, I think that that kind of relationship ebbs and flows and depends on permission being a kind of consistently renewed relationship.
Does the family at this point still have faith that something will be done about the case?
Richen: There is not really anything that could be done in terms of solving the case. Everyone, all the suspects, are dead. I mean, I think that going back to the other question about their willingness to be interviewed, I think that’s part of something to be done. That is, telling the story of what happened, who their father was and how and why he died, why he was murdered and memorializing that.

