American Reckoning

FRONTLINE: Film Audio Track | PBS

FRONTLINE

Pbs, Tv & Film, Wgbh, Documentaries, Frontline

4.8 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 22 June 2022

⏱️ 87 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Who killed Wharlest Jackson Sr.? In investigating the unsolved 1967 murder of a local NAACP leader, "American Reckoning" reveals an untold story of the civil rights movement and Black resistance. The feature-length documentary from FRONTLINE and Retro Report, with support from Chasing the Dream, draws on rarely seen footage filmed by Ed Pincus and David Neuman more than 50 years ago in Natchez, Mississippi, and made available through the Amistad Research Center. In following the Jackson family’s search for answers, "American Reckoning" also taps into the groundbreaking reporting of journalist Stanley Nelson, who investigated allegations of the involvement of a Ku Klux Klan offshoot, known as the Silver Dollar Group. From acclaimed directors, producers and journalists Brad Lichtenstein ("When Claude Got Shot," "As Goes Janesville") and Yoruba Richen ("The Killing of Breonna Taylor," "The Sit In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show"), "American Reckoning" is the latest component of FRONTLINE’s multiplatform initiative "Un(re)solved," telling the stories of more than 150 victims of civil rights era killings for whom there has been no justice.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for listening to the Frontline Audio Cast, the enhanced audio version of our documentaries.
0:06.0	We also produce a podcast, The Frontline Dispatch, including a series called Unresolved,
0:12.0	stories about unsolved murder cases during the Civil Rights era.
0:16.0	Now here is American Reckoning.
0:40.0	We have told our men that they can destroy our men but they cannot destroy this move.
0:48.0	We are more determined to have a way to re-nature of all the races and biggest, two-plus planes.
0:54.0	An extraordinary look at the Civil Rights era, through Rare Footage, filmed more than 50 years ago.
1:00.0	Living in Natchez, everything was separated. Black was on one side, white was on the other side.
1:06.0	We used to have a saying, the police and the clad go ahead and have, and that was real clear in Mississippi during that time.
1:16.0	I do. A little known Black Resistance group.
1:20.0	You began to see the Dickens out in front protecting demonstrations, protecting Black leaders, protecting the community.
1:30.0	A way of racist murders.
1:34.0	A way of saying, the Civil Rights leader, Waller, is Jackson.
1:38.0	I heard it's going to be online with what is that?
1:42.0	There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of these crimes that were never brought to justice.
1:48.0	The ongoing federal effort to resolve them.
1:52.0	The Till Ag held the promise that we might get to the bottom of some of these cases that had never been solved.
2:02.0	And a family's search for answers. My mind, even now only, sometimes I can't even think of what happened.
2:10.0	Cold cases are really, really, really hard.
2:14.0	I really leave this thing over and over again, hoping for some justice.
2:18.0	Now on Frontline, in collaboration with Retro Report, American Reconant.
2:24.0	Frontline is made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.
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