How could we still be in the dark about what happened on Moore's Ford Bridge 62 years ago? (TV documentary)
The South is the bathroom of American history. Saturating the otherwise picturesque rolling landscapes is the oppressive stench of a history of lynching, blood-curdling beatings, and African-American bodies burned and ruthlessly mutilated. This is the room that America doesn't want visitors to see. Keep this door shut because if opened, threatening so spill out is a truth cold and heartless, vicious and numbing. It is better to infuse the truth with perfumed tales than it is to air it out.
Way down those small roads, and through those tiny close-knit communities of easy chatter and lazy porch nights, way back past trees where dark bodies hung like broken branches, is a black history raw and infected, oozing with secrets at once calloused and quaking to the touch.
On Sunday, Oct. 5, TV One will air the documentary, "Murder in Black and White, Moore's Ford" narrated by Rev. Al Sharpton. The story chronicles the brutal beating and mutilation of two young couples ambushed by Ku Klux Klan members in the 1940's. The account has everything a Hollywood drama would need: vicious killings, corrupt politicians and good ole' boy southern politics. And, to date, no one saw anything. No jury has found anyone guilty of anything. All that is certain is that four young black lives were taken on a bridge in broad daylight.
The documentary opens in with Gene Talmadge setting the tone while campaigning for governor of Georgia. It was well-known that Talmadge had ties to the Klan and ran on the campaign promise that if elected, no black would vote in the state of Georgia ever again. The pledged proved persuasive enough to elect Talmadge. The story that unfolds after that is one about what happens when a Klan-connected governor turns a blind eye to racial injustice.
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Way down those small roads, and through those tiny close-knit communities of easy chatter and lazy porch nights, way back past trees where dark bodies hung like broken branches, is a black history raw and infected, oozing with secrets at once calloused and quaking to the touch.
On Sunday, Oct. 5, TV One will air the documentary, "Murder in Black and White, Moore's Ford" narrated by Rev. Al Sharpton. The story chronicles the brutal beating and mutilation of two young couples ambushed by Ku Klux Klan members in the 1940's. The account has everything a Hollywood drama would need: vicious killings, corrupt politicians and good ole' boy southern politics. And, to date, no one saw anything. No jury has found anyone guilty of anything. All that is certain is that four young black lives were taken on a bridge in broad daylight.
The documentary opens in with Gene Talmadge setting the tone while campaigning for governor of Georgia. It was well-known that Talmadge had ties to the Klan and ran on the campaign promise that if elected, no black would vote in the state of Georgia ever again. The pledged proved persuasive enough to elect Talmadge. The story that unfolds after that is one about what happens when a Klan-connected governor turns a blind eye to racial injustice.