NARRATOR: Am I ever going to see my country again?

YANSA FATIMA: The journey of a woman from the abolition of slavery to Suriname's independence.

NARRATOR: My umbilical cord is buried here, in Surinamese soil.

FATIMA: Inspired by the life of the director's grandmother.

NARRATOR: People call me a half-blood.

But how can your blood be half, huh?

FATIMA: The personal reflection of a country's colonial past.

"Mother Suriname."

♪ - Hey!

♪ Hey!

♪ Hey!

Hey!

Hey!

(man singing Surinamese anthem in Sranantongo) NARRATOR: I haven't seen any other Surinamese people here, hm.

I am the only one.

(anthem continues) They say this is my home now.

(anthem continues) I don't know if Heaven exists, Lord.

Or did you make that up?

(anthem continues) My children bought me a TV set.

I can hardly see the images anymore.

But I can still hear them, though.

(man speaking Dutch, crowd cheering and applauding) (man exclaims indistinctly, crowd cheering) NARRATOR: I've got my own images of my country, mm-hmm.

(woman singing in Sranantongo) (wildlife chittering) NARRATOR: The trees, the rivers, the people.

(song continues) (song continues) (wind blowing) (woman singing new song in Surinamese language) (song continues) (song continues) (song continues) ♪ (dogs barking in distance) NARRATOR: This is where I grew up.

In a house full of people.

Ma Louise took me in as a foster child.

I gotta do chores for her.

People breed chickens and children, too.

(laughs) ♪ - (calling) (people calling) ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: They say my mother is a buckra woman, white, and my father Black.

A tailor, that's all I know.

He had to go, and so did I.

Out of the nest.

Forbidden.

Uh-huh.

People call me a half-blood, a bastard child.

But how can your blood be half, huh?

(church bell ringing) (bell continues) Sundays, I go to church with Ma Louise.

(congregation singing) I sit there folding my hands.

I must listen to your word.

(chuckles): I love to sing.

(congregation singing, minister speaking Dutch) "Girl, sit still!"

Ma Louise says.

I must be obedient, not stand out.

That's what she was taught by the white people.

(people talking in background) For you've made two kinds of people, Lord, us from here and those who are from there, from Holland, mm-hmm.

Us and them-- that's how it is.

At home, I sweep, I rake the yard.

I fetch water.

I work, too.

(people talking in background) "I lived during slavery," says Ma Louise.

"I know hard work, child."

But her own children get shoes.

I don't.

(bird whistling) ♪ (people laughing) ♪ ♪ (foreman speaking indistinctly) ♪ (train bell ringing) (train whistle blowing) NARRATOR: It seems like time is racing, but I'm standing still.

(people talking in background) We work and they watch.

That's how it is, ain't it?

(people talking in background) Ma Louise tells me to keep quiet.

(children calling in background) (children chanting) NARRATOR: Other children are going to school, not me.

I always have a lot of work.

Everywhere around me, there's women, girls, as if there are no men, no fathers.

Lord, are you listening?

♪ I want someone just for me.

♪ I see how they look at me, uh-huh.

(chuckles): They're calling me.

Making eyes at me.

♪ The men here work on the plantations in the woods.

They cut down trees.

They haul them.

They harvest rubber, their skins shiny with sweat.

(chuckles) They're strong men.

♪ I met someone.

His name is Prince.

He's a balata beater.

When he comes back from the woods, we'll go dancing.

♪ Ma Louise says love is full of tricks.

She's getting old.

She always has something to complain about me, always.

But is love a bad thing?

That I feel my heart soften, that the loneliness in me melts?

♪ (exhales): With Prince, I feel free.

I smell the flowers and the grass, rice, fresh harvest.

♪ (woman vocalizing) (birds cawing) (insects buzzing) In my belly, I feel new life-- mine alone.

But I'm scared to tell Ma Louise.

In church, I keep looking at my feet, not at the priest.

- (speaking Sranantongo) NARRATOR: He, too, sees my belly is growing.

"I warned you," Ma Louise says.

(rain falling, thunder rumbling) Lord, I'm praying and praying, but Ma Louise no longer talks to me.

She don't even look at me.

(drums pounding) In the dark, I hear the drums, mm-hmm.

Ma Louise asks the windy spirits for advice, even though the priest, hm, he don't approve, uh-uh.

People are shouting and singing, "Maisa, Aisa, Mama Aisa!"

(singing in Sranantongo) (song continues) (song continues) (song continues) (song continues) (song continues) (song ending) ♪ I long for Prince.

When I close my eyes, I can see him, I hear his voice.

(train whistle blows) (engine chugging) (train bell ringing) ♪ He works for Dutch people.

From the city, he goes deep into the interior.

A train!

I want to see a train sometime, too.

♪ There, they digging the earth for gold.

♪ ♪ "I'll come back for you," he says.

"Wait for me, baby."

Please, let him be on time.

I can already feel sharp pains in my back when I'm washing clothes.

I can't stop thinking about my mother.

Is she thinking about me, too?

♪ Was she alone, too?

Does she feel what I feel, huh?

(birds cawing) (woman moaning) (baby crying) NARRATOR: It's a little boy, John.

He's so beautiful.

(chuckles): My little gudu gudu.

Prince hasn't come.

"Men are like that," says Ma Louise.

(baby crying) I dried my tears real quickly.

Now I'm no longer alone.

♪ Look at Ma Louise.

(chuckles): All day she's with Johnny.

The woman thinks I can't do anything.

(sucks teeth): I'm going to take care of him, mm-hmm.

His real mother-- he has to get ahead.

That's what I ask Mama Aisa.

Mm-hmm.

(drums pounding) (people singing in Saamaka Tongo, clapping) (thunder crashing, song continues) (song fades) (insects chirping) Ma Louise is like the morning mist.

When I want to touch her, she disappears.

Thin, cold.

Ma?

Ma!

(bird screeches) (thunder crashes) Don't leave me, Ma!

Stay with me!

(group singing in Sranantongo) (song continues) (song continues) NARRATOR: Ma Louise has left.

Nothing will keep me in Nickerie now.

I'm gonna miss those rice fields, the stems blowing gently in the wind.

The smell of wet clay under the sun.

The sound of sweeping the yard every morning.

♪ I'm going to Prince, to Paramaribo, mm-hmm.

He sent for me and Johnny, oh, yeah.

(ship horn blows) (ship horn blows) (people calling) (seagulls squawking) NARRATOR: I've never traveled before.

God, I'm scared.

I feel the sloshing of the waves in my stomach.

I'm nauseous.

I'm sleepy, but I squeeze my eyes open.

I can't swim.

I'm singing softly to myself and Johnny.

(singing in Sranantongo) (song continues) Look, Johnny!

The fortress.

Big houses, boats along the waterfront.

♪ (bicycle bells ringing, vehicle horns honking) So many bicycles.

(bicycle bells ringing) Bells ringing.

(car horn honking) Cars honking.

(people talking in background, bicycle bells ringing) All these voices, my head is spinning, Lord.

(child laughing) And look at those streets.

Palm trees, tamarind trees, mahogany trees.

And when it's rained, the leaves smell fresh and sweet.

I love these trees.

♪ Through the gate-- "negre doro" they call it, hm-- you get to where we live now.

(roosters crowing, children laughing) Our houses are like boxes.

Roofs like lids, plank walls without any paint, packed in the backyard of those beautiful white houses.

(dog barking) (train whistle blows) I hurried through the gate.

Prince is waiting for me.

"He ain't here," a woman says.

"He had to go back to the woods."

My God, it's like she slapped me in the face.

I feel trapped, and everything goes black.

(train bell rings) ♪ (train whistle blows) The train passes through our street.

And every time, I look to see if Prince is on it.

He's like a shadow.

Yeah, always ahead or behind me.

(train whistle blows) (dog barking) (chickens clucking, children playing) But I got my family in the yard.

Miss Yet with the children.

She's Javanese.

During the day, she cleans people's houses.

Mr. Prim is Hindustani.

He's a barber.

Everyone looks after my children for me.

I got three kids now, John, Hugo, and Bea.

And I'm pregnant again.

If it's a girl, I'm gonna call her Esseline.

(children playing) I wash clothes for rich white people, for buckras.

And then I do my own laundry.

I hang it as far away from the john as possible, mm-hmm.

Those white sheets are like curtains, you know.

I pull them closed.

Everything ugly stays behind them, mm-hmm.

♪ (people talking in background) In the yard, we're like ants.

(chuckles): We work and work, but we still stay ants.

(chuckles) (people talking in background) (bicycle bells ring) (bird screeching) The money I make, I spend on groceries on the market.

Creoles, Mulattos, Chinese, Hindustani, Javanese.

(gasps): A white face!

Could that be my mother?

I don't know what my mother looks like.

Her hair, is it blonde?

Her face, is it, is it smooth or, or wrinkled?

Where is my mother?

She could watch her grandchildren grow up.

They're getting so big.

(chuckles) Sometimes I want to say to them, "Gudu, I love you."

But I can't.

At least I am with my children.

I know who they are.

♪ My neighbor lets him do anything.

He's good-looking.

I tell the children to call him uncle.

One of them is his.

A love child.

(chuckles) I tell nobody.

'Cause if you're itchy, you gotta scratch, right?

He says he's making a chicken coop, but he comes home with a parrot 'cause it's got nice feathers.

(sighs) But the kids are happy.

Only on Sundays I don't work.

I pay for my regular place in the cathedral.

And the kids have to come with me, their hair combed nicely, wearing their church clothes, mm-hmm.

And I'm wearing my best dress, the one with the stripes.

Lord, do you actually see that?

(chuckling): Because men are blind, you know.

(congregation singing) Sometimes when I sit there, I'm thinking, "Are you a man, Lord?

"Can you know what a woman feels when she's alone?

Even when, when life is kicking inside of her?"

(bell ringing) ♪ Where were you when that mosquito stung me, huh?

My one leg is swollen forever.

My beautiful skin is no longer soft, but rough as a buffalo's.

Well, don't think I'm gonna take it lying down, hm.

I had my striped dress made longer.

I've had all my dresses made longer.

Nobody needs to see my bimba futu, uh-uh.

I feel some kind of a change in me, like a breeze.

I want to stand in that cool wind.

(wind blowing) (softly): Mama Aisa.

(drums pounding) (drums continue, people chanting) ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: I heard there's a man coming from Holland, a Black man, someone who's gonna stand up for us.

Ma Louise always said, "If you stick your nose in a hole, you'll get bitten."

And yet I go to the square, too, although I stay in the shade of a tree.

(people talking in background) People are streaming in from everywhere.

(people chanting in background) They're angry 'cause there's not enough work.

We don't have enough to eat.

That's what's happening.

(people shouting in background) (women shushing) (clamor softens slightly) (man speaking Dutch) (speech continues) NARRATOR: Anton de Kom is talking.

But those buckras want us to be silent.

(speech continues) (speech ends, crowd cheering) (whistle blows) (guns firing) (people screaming, running) (gunfire continues) NARRATOR: They locked him up.

They're chasing him out of Suriname.

(gulls crying) ♪ (bells tolling) Dear Lord, are you Black like us?

Lord, was I a curse to my mother?

A burden?

And Lord, why don't she love me as I am?

♪ (plane passing) ♪ NARRATOR: After Papa de Kom, they send in a new boss, and he act as if nothing happened.

Puppet show-- but inside of me, I feel a flame.

♪ (people talking in background) (people talking in background) (playing lively music) NARRATOR: Queen's Day.

(band continues) I buy lemonade ice for the children.

Their tongues turned red, orange.

People spinning circles in the Ferris wheel.

Look at 'em.

(people exclaiming) We're watching the boat race, how fast they're going.

(crowd cheering) (woman singing in Surinamese language) And I enjoy the parade.

(song continues) (fires) (narrator chuckles) John is scared of the Chinese dragon.

He hides behind my skirt.

(song continues, dragon growls) Women dressed in their koto, sarong, sari.

So many different women.

(song continues) SINGER: Hooray!

(song continues) (exclaiming) Hooray!

(song continues) (vocalizing) NARRATOR: But when we get home, the yard seems even smaller and darker.

Prince sits drinking with his friends.

They're playing card games.

"We got no work," they say.

(people talking in background) ♪ (cannon fires) (firing) ♪ (soldiers yelling indistinctly) ♪ (shouting and cheering) (Queen Wilhelmina speaking Dutch) (speech continues) (crowd shouting and cheering) (drums playing) (men chanting) NARRATOR: The Netherlands and Germany are at war.

Queen Wilhelmina says we in Suriname must be one with the motherland.

And that's why our boys go fighting all the way in the Dutch East Indies.

♪ ♪ But we're not one at all.

Only death makes us equal.

Many of our boys don't come back.

(man shouts order) ♪ Thank God John and Hugo are still too small.

I want no one to touch them.

(wildlife chittering) (fire) ♪ (ship horn blaring) ♪ (jackhammer pounding) NARRATOR: Yes, the war is good for Suriname, they say, 'cause we got lots of wealth in our soil.

Bauxite to make airplanes.

American soldiers are here to guard our bauxite.

They throw their dollars around.

I've got plenty of work.

♪ (explosion roars) ♪ ♪ ♪ (ship horn blaring) (ship horn blares) NARRATOR: But our stuff is always going abroad.

♪ Yeah, that is why Princess Juliana came.

(chuckles) 'Cause all of a sudden, Suriname is great.

(sucks teeth) Not we, the people, but our soil, mm-hmm.

(people talking and cheering in background) ♪ (crowd cheering) NARRATOR: Maybe she and my mother look alike.

Smooth hair, light eyes.

More beautiful than we are, they say.

♪ And yet I go to the square, waving my flag.

Red, white, and blue is my flag, too, ain't it?

(crowd cheering) Everyone is always leaving.

I want someone to stay with me.

♪ (vehicle horns honking) ♪ (people talking in background) ♪ (people talking in background) (people talking in background) NARRATOR: The Americans are here and Prince is over there.

♪ In New York!

He's a sailor now.

(people laughing) He stayed there because America is not a colony.

That's what he writes-- he's free.

(gulls cawing) (vehicle horns honking) ♪ In his letter, he also writes about a club.

♪ They play jazz there, Black music.

(jazz band playing) Trumpet, saxophone.

(band continues) But they kicked him out.

Only buckras can enter.

(chuckles): Now, how free is that, huh?

SINGERS (harmonizing): ♪ You (holding chord) (song ending) (audience applauds) NARRATOR (chuckles): Freedom.

♪ In a box, he sends books for me and the children.

"We mustn't stay ignorant," he writes.

"We gotta stand up for ourselves."

Very true.

But tell me, can you eat books, huh?

Prince doesn't see how the children are teasing each other all day-- the girls, too.

Calling each other names like stutterer or thumb sucker, "Yo, skinny legs."

♪ Hugo likes cars.

(chuckles) ♪ Bea acts like a teacher.

Everybody listens to her.

Esje is like a little doll, so pretty.

John is the smart one.

♪ The priests have put him in a boarding school.

In their world, we are on the outside.

♪ He has a bed, a jug to drink from, a plate.

They give him clothes.

I'm so proud, mm-hmm.

He's gonna take care of me later, mm.

♪ ♪ The priest has sent me John's grades.

In the margin, the teacher wrote, "His handwriting's small and slanted.

"A very nice report.

"John did a good job.

"His work always looks neat.

His piano playing is also very decent."

Piano, my child!

Baya!

Hm?

(piano playing classical piece) ♪ ♪ (people talking in background) ♪ (car approaching) (car doors closing) NARRATOR: My God, the priest came to tell me, "Ma'am, your son John was in an accident."

My John?

What kind of accident?

The priest was gone real quickly.

♪ Look at him, so thin between the sheets.

The nurse comes and goes.

Nobody talks to me.

♪ (bell tolling) (woman singing mournfully in Sranantongo) (song continues) (song continues) (song continues) (song continues) (song ends) NARRATOR: I sent Prince a telegram.

Three words: "John is dead."

The telegram's expensive.

He sends back: "Keep courage."

(insects chirping) Well, I tore it up and I stepped on it until there was nothing left!

With my John gone, my life seems broken in two pieces-- before and after.

♪ Ma, have you forgotten me?

I am never gonna forget John.

♪ (man talking on loudspeaker in distance) ♪ (people talking in background) ♪ (people talking in background) (engine starts) (motor revving) ♪ NARRATOR: This time, I do join the procession.

Everyone can see me.

Come look at me-- mm-hmm, here I am.

Elite people, workers, women dressed in koto-- all Surinamese.

♪ We carry a banner, "Boss in our own house."

We want to be able to speak for ourselves.

Yes, we do, mm-hmm.

(band playing) (crowd cheering) (band continues) When I get back home, I feel lighter and bigger, a bit free.

(singing in Sranantongo) (singing) (song continues) (people talking on loudspeakers) (man speaking Sranantongo loudly) ♪ (people discussing in background) NARRATOR: We have elections now, and political parties.

(crowd cheering and applauding) Politics is not my thing, but I love Jopie.

(crowd cheering and applauding) - (speaking Dutch) (speech continues) NARRATOR: Finally, someone who looks like us.

(women singing in Sranantongo) (crowd cheering) ♪ NARRATOR: I voted for him for the first time.

Folding the ballot paper, putting it in the box.

(people talking in background) NARRATOR: They've built a reservoir.

Everything that was before is disappearing.

The houses, the church!

And all those wonderful people saying it's gonna be okay because of the reservoir.

Huh!

♪ (speaking Sranantongo) Mm-hmm-- today is today.

I got electricity now.

First, we had to go get water, but now it just comes out of a faucet.

(water running) ♪ (people talking in background) But why do we still live where we live?

(flies buzzing) Even Jopie can't tell me why.

- (speaking Dutch) ♪ ♪ (people talking in background) (bicycle bell ringing) - Jaribaka!

Jaribaka!

Jaribaka!

Jaribaka!

NARRATOR: Prince wasn't allowed to stay in America.

(chuckles): A stranger.

- (calling in Dutch) NARRATOR: He's come back.

But not for me.

He chose gold while he had a diamond.

- (speaking Sranantongo) ♪ My Esje wants to go to Holland to stay with an aunt.

She's sassy, painting her lips.

"Women are like that now, Ma", she says.

I really want her to stay.

(piano playing) But I have to let her go.

She's gotta take off like a kite, high in the sky, mm-hmm.

(piano continues) (people talking in background) They say Holland is paradise.

Is it?

(waves churning) My children, they're leaving, too, one by one.

(waves churning) ♪ (Henck Arron speaking Dutch) (speech continues) (speech continues) (applauding) NARRATOR: My hair has turned gray.

And sometimes my eyes get kind of foggy.

Everything is vague.

In everything I do, I think of my children.

And of my grandchildren over there.

♪ (people talking in background) Do they even know about me?

About Suriname?

The rivers, the forests?

(brakes squeaking) ♪ Are you cold there?

Do you have enough money?

Who's cooking for you, huh?

♪ (brakes squealing) Only when I'm dancing, I forget them for a moment.

(chuckles) ♪ ♪ (chuckles): I'm old, but I ain't cold yet.

(crowd cheering) I grab myself a man to dance with.

Hatsjee!

(chuckles) ♪ ♪ "Dear Mom, I miss you and Suriname.

"Everything there was about Holland.

"Here, nothing is about Suriname.

"I'm almost finished with my studies.

"Then I'll be a teacher.

"And Hugo drives a nice car.

♪ "Ma, we want you to come here, "to Holland.

"Things aren't going well in Suriname.

"We're going to be independent.

"Not everyone wants that.

"I hear people are fighting in the streets.

"We are going to take good care of you, Mom.

"A warm hug.

Kisses, also from Hugo."

♪ (cheering) (crowd shouting) (horn honking) (glass shattering, crowd yelling) (woman screams) - (yelling) NARRATOR: These kids think I'm a package, that you can just send me off.

Mm-mm.

(speaks Sranantongo) My umbilical cord is buried here, in Surinamese soil.

(baby crying) (people talking in background) ♪ (water spraying, fire roaring) ♪ ♪ Every time I think of a plane, my stomach aches.

I knocked on all the walls of my house.

I said goodbye to the people in the yard.

Am I ever going to see my country again?

- (singing, laughing) NARRATOR: But I want to be with my children, with my own blood.

My mother didn't want that.

I do.

I'm gonna be like a bird.

(birds squawking) ♪ (people talking in background) ♪ ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: In Holland, paradise is like a shadow, just in front of you or behind you, never with you.

I see our people on the streets, on the market.

To others, they just seem invisible, small.

My children work all day.

They all live in different cities, far from each other.

They ain't got much time for me.

I'm staying with one, then with the other.

Sometimes I don't even know which city I'm in.

Streets everywhere.

Houses-- everything made of stone.

I can tell you, in this country, you get lost.

Even the garbage men are white.

Where I'm from, white people were always in charge.

Bea comes home late.

"Ma, we need to talk," she says, with her eyes full of tears.

I stay strong.

What mother cries in front of a child?

♪ (people talking, laughing in background) In Holland, they put all the old people in one house, not with family, mm-mm, no.

And we all eat the same, too.

Vegetable soup, potatoes.

(chuckles): Vanilla custard.

To my girls, I say, "Don't y'all put me in this cold ground here.

"Do you hear me?

Huh?

I'm no potato."

(sucks teeth) They're laughing, but I'm dead serious.

(drum playing) - (exclaiming in Sranantongo) Hooray!

NARRATOR: Today, I went to a club, mm-hmm.

One especially for Surinamese people, mm!

I sang and I danced for hours.

(chuckling) - (singing in Sranantongo) - (singing solo) (other women singing) (song fades) ♪ ♪ (crowd cheering and applauding) (man speaking Dutch) ♪ NARRATOR: I hear this music, the fireworks.

Aye, my people, celebrating on TV.

♪ Baya!

Yes, we are independent.

♪ (crowd cheering) I feel Maisa deep inside me.

My feet come off the ground.

I feel my father, my mother, and John.

They are carrying me back home.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (insects chirping, birds tweeting) ♪ ♪ Paranoia is a very healthy thing in a town like this.

It may keep you alive.

♪ "Claude's body-- chiseled and mangled-- "hangs in an oak by a rope.

"There is nothing in this body we can desire, and we want.

"We want a body, not mangled like ours, we can love without shame."

♪ Everything changes, but nothing changes.

The years pass, people live and die, but these ideas about who's on the top and who's beneath and who should stay in their place, those things don't change.

♪ I knew that the anniversary was coming up of Claude Neal's lynching in 1934.

I wanted to do something other than just write this poem.

I wanted something to happen so that people would have to acknowledge this.

And I decided I was gonna run.

I didn't even know where they had done this, other than they had ended up at the courthouse.

I didn't know where they had dragged him.

I asked my daddy, "Where did this thing happen?"

And he told me the road.

And I said, "Okay, we're gonna start there."

And he said, "You know, that's, like, a long way."

And I'm, like, "Yeah, it was 14 miles.

"That's what it says in the book.

I'm gonna do it."

People started messaging me, "Are you crazy?

"You're gonna get hurt.

"You think it's just a little run.

"You're stirring up some crazy mess.

"Don't do this.

Don't do this."

GEORGE LITTLE: Quote, "Nobody alive did that."

(clears throat) But, uh, somebody did that.

- It was never discussed around me when I was a child.

And my parents and my grandmothers were both alive at that time.

They don't want to face it.

They, you know, they don't want it to reflect poorly on their community.

They won't own it.

And you have to to move on.

(music playing softly on radio) WILSON: In high school, I lived in the Jackson County Public Library, and they had a special section of books about Jackson County.

And then I saw this book that said, "Anatomy of a Lynching."

I started reading, and I saw "1934," and I said, "My grandmother, who was born in 1905, she would have been alive."

And as soon as I got in the car, I said, "Ma Mary, did you know Claude Neal?"

I could see her whole body sort of, like, sink in the seat.

And the only thing my grandmother said, which I put in the poem that I wrote, "I told that boy to leave that white gal alone."

That's the only thing she said.

WILSON'S MOTHER (on phone): Hello.

WILSON: Mama.

- What, dear?

- This was Miss Allie Mae's house that had that ramp, right?

- Yeah, but she's not there.

- I know.

- She don't live... - I know, Ma, they just want to see the house.

It's been a long time since I was here.

(sniffs) So...

I don't know if I would want it on camera.

I don't know, like, I just don't want, yeah, I don't know.

I mean, because the thing about it is, like, I could just see somebody coming here and doing some harm to her hou... You know what I'm saying?

I don't want to do anything to bring harm to her.

And that, that's, that's the real hard part, is that, unfortunately, this is what she's forever known for, that this thing happened to her father and happened to her.

And I think she wants so desperately not to be connected to that.

Mrs. Allie Mae Smith was the daughter of Claude Neal, the victim of the 1934 lynching.

What is so beautiful about these women and these men is that after 1934 happened, they found a way to rebuild their lives.

They found a way to love and to be happy and to raise children.

And they didn't want us to feel afraid.

They didn't want us to feel the terror that they had to unlearn over time.

♪ When I write these poems, I know that I'm reanimating that terror with intention to remind the people who don't live it.

Once you see that in a book and you read "penis cut off," "fingers cut off," "toes cut off," you start to see that in your mind's eye, and you can't unsee that.

You can't unfeel what that must feel like.

You can't unimagine it because now it's in your mind forever.

So many people don't want to go down that road.

(breathing heavily) ♪ "'Child, they came from everywhere and all you could do "'was pray you weren't the nigger they picked "for the picnic on the courthouse lawn,' "our grandmother says.

"In the picture, Claude is alone, "but as she speaks, "kids blur into the sepia background, "ape the grins on their parents' faces, await their turn to prod his charred flesh."

(insects buzzing) PAM LITTLE: My ancestors were early settlers here.

My great-great-grandfather was actually, uh, owned a plantation, a small plantation-- the name was McQuaig-- and was a slave owner.

WILSON: My family, when emancipation came, they were given land on the land that they had been enslaved.

We had this understanding that we were descendants of people who had found a way to take some ownership of what was a horrific history and to transform it into something positive that they were able to be proud of.

GEORGE LITTLE: But you've got people, you know, it matters to them that their society be structured a certain way.

Then you got other people that just, you know, want to get by.

They want their families to be okay.

There's not two boxes, racists and non-racists.

You have a continuum.

And there are some really good people, uh, that we encounter, you know, they won't talk about it one way or the other.

They won't stand up and, and challenge anybody or say anything.

And then you've got people that are, you know, just downright mean, and want to do mean things to somebody and look for a reason to do it.

For years and years and years, I've, I've heard it said that, "If we're not careful, the African Americans are gonna take over."

They wouldn't necessarily use that word, but, "If we're not careful, that's gonna happen."

And when Barack Obama got elected president, they thought that it was just about to happen.

♪ WILSON: I didn't know George until the run.

I didn't know him at all.

Um, in fact I was quite skeptical of George.

His wife, Pam, messaged me on Facebook and said, "Please add me."

You know, "I want to tag you, and I want to support the run."

- The first few pictures are before I had an opportunity to introduce myself to him.

- (laughs) Lamar was just gonna do the run by himself, solo, from Greenwood to Marianna.

That needs to be documented, you know, we just... - ...thought they needed some local support.

WILSON: He met us where we started.

And he introduced himself.

And he told me that he was a lawyer in town and asked me if it was okay if he took pictures and then some video.

And I said, "Okay"-- that's when I met him.

PAM LITTLE: Can you read his T-shirt?

GEORGE LITTLE: "A time... - "...comes when silence..." - "...comes when silence..." - "...is betrayal."

- "...is betrayal."

(breathes deeply) WILSON: "He stared at Claude, "hanging, in 'The Anatomy of a Lynching' "on that long ride home from the library, "squinting but unable to see Claude's pupils, "see if peace eclipsed terror before he died.

"News of Claude's fingers and toes "sold as souvenirs, reached stands.

'I told that boy to leave that white gal alone.'"

Claude Neal was a young man who made the mistake of getting involved with one of his childhood playmates, and she ended up dead.

And he ended up accused of killing her.

So, he was forced to confess, uh, to a murder that he may or may not have committed.

He was the man who was lynched in October 1934, which resulted in what was then one of the most publicized, infamous, and celebrated lynchings of that era.

Thousands of people came for the spectacle that was the picnic, as they called it.

♪ So imagine how angry they were to find out, when they got to the courthouse, that it had already happened.

The horror of it was that, not only did they kill him, but then they went out into the African American communities and were trying to, like, harm other people.

So much so that the governor had to call for the National Guard to come in to suppress this riot, and that's what it was called, or mob.

We think of mob and riot when we think of different communities, but these were white people, angry white men, just like we saw a few weeks ago in Charlottesville, Virginia, coming into Black communities because they didn't get to see the n-word, that nigger, lynched.

"It is almost dawn now.

"The courthouse towers there, "in the center of that town, "and that oak, mostly limbless, looms.

"Soon its flaccid branches will shade more brown boys, "guilty or not, waiting to learn what their next move will be.

"It's hard "to get anywhere without passing it, passing them, bowed, not meeting our gaze."

♪ I thought this will maybe galvanize something in this town.

This would awaken this town to think about this thing that happened 70 years ago, and to realize that at this very same courthouse, people are being lynched in other ways.

Their lives are being ruined through the injustice system that we have in place, particularly in Jackson County.

♪ GEORGE LITTLE: There was a man that wasn't directly kin to me, but somehow, through marriage.

The family kind of put up with him when he would show up.

And, uh, you know, he used to get his kicks by telling me, a little kid who didn't want to hear these things, about racial violence that he had perpetrated.

You know, he claimed he had a baseball bat in his closet, and he was gonna show it to me if I ever came by his house, and it still had the blood on it... (inhales sharply, clears throat) ...where they tied this kid to a tree and beat him to death with that baseball bat.

Uh, goes back to early childhood memories that I've been hearing about this stuff.

JOE BREWSTER: I heard there's a few fingers around town.

- (chuckles): Well, we'll talk about this later, off the record.

MICHÈLE STEPHENSON: About...?

- (coughs) Uh, the existence of, of body parts in town.

STEPHENSON: Mm-hmm.

- Preserved.

(both sigh) ♪ WILSON: They were waiting for me at the courthouse.

People were riding in cars, checking on me.

It became a huge event that first year.

The disappointing thing was that, in subsequent years, nobody has returned, and nothing has happened.

That third year, Miss Allie Mae asked my mother to tell me, "Please don't do this another year."

Because people had started to call her, "Well, you know, we don't want to have any trouble for you, now."

These little subtle things.

These little insidious threats.

And that triggers everything that she went through when she was a one-year-old girl, dragged, when these people are trying to kill her, because that's what happened in the wake of 1934.

She was literally dragged, such that she walks with a limp to this day.

I'm constantly worried that what I'm doing is gonna endanger the lives of the people that I love.

And that it may not be them hanging from a tree.

But it may be them picked up for some petty crime and hurt.

♪ (sniffs) People's lives are ruined here every day.

(sniffs) I want to be optimistic, I do.

I really do-- I used to be.

When I was 17, 18, gonna, you know, change the world and write these stories and right these wrongs.

I believed that.

But these last ten years have just, I don't know, man.

I just see these stories where people are murdered, and nobody has to pay anything for it, man.

(voice trembles): You know?

And you, I want to believe, but I don't see how it's going to change.

(voice trembling): I just don't see it happening.

GEORGE LITTLE: We may be approaching that kind of violence again.

And it's time for people to take a hard look and say, "What is it within me that may be a shared characteristic with these people who did this?"

And we've got to make the world better, because when you look at it straight on and realistically, it's pretty scary.

WILSON: Until George and all these well-meaning white people decide that, "I'm gonna use my life and my position to force people who look like me to contend with this," it's not going to change-- my doing it, all these people who are Black doing it, is not enough.

It's until people who are neighbors of these people who are putting up KKK flags or posting things on Facebook, until they say, "You can't do that, not on my watch."

Because those people are coming out of the shadows, and they're running down the streets of Charlottesville, and maybe soon Marianna, and threatening people and harming people and getting away with it.

And until people decide that's not okay, it's not gonna change.

♪ ♪