Season 5 | A Preacher, a Policeman, and a Physician | Trailer

Buried Truths

WABE

True Crime, Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2025

⏱️ 3 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Four days before Christmas in 1957, Clarence Horatious Pickett, a preacher and newspaper ad salesman in Columbus, Georgia, walked into town to pick up his paycheck. Forty-eight years old and known as “Reverend” to many, the tall, lean man with wire-rimmed glasses left his home and headed toward The Columbus World, a black newspaper where Pickett worked.

Pickett, who’d been a boy preacher, was showing signs of mental instability and had spent time in the county jail and the state mental hospital, which was notorious for employing doctors with addictions, poor training and racist beliefs. Before the day was over, Pickett would be arrested, jailed, and beaten senseless by a white police officer. An examining physician would conclude that Pickett was “putting on.” He wasn’t. His injuries would lead to his death two days later. Pickett’s killing would spur police and FBI investigations where a remarkable number of eyewitnesses would come forward to testify on what they saw. But would an all-white criminal justice system bring charges against a white cop for beating a black man?

Season 5 of Buried Truths follows the story of Pickett and the criminal justice and medical professionals who failed him. Why was he thrown in jail in the first place? Why wasn't he able to receive adequate medical care in those fragile days after his encounter with police? We'll explore Pickett’s life as a mentally disturbed Black man in the dark heart of the Deep South in the 1950s.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Hank Klobinoff, host of the podcast, Barry Truths. I'm here to thank you for being so
0:06.3	supportive of us during our first four seasons and to tell you a bit about our upcoming season five,
0:12.7	which we've titled a preacher, a policeman, and a physician. Now, I don't know. What do you think is worse?
0:22.4	Being mentally ill, black, and cornered by a white policeman in a jail cell,
0:28.1	then kicked, stomped, and beaten so badly that you're sure you're going to die.
0:33.6	Or, being seen by a white doctor whose diagnosis is that you should just go home because he thinks you're faking the pain.
0:42.5	Those were the double horrors facing Reverend Clarence Horatius Pickett, a black 48-year-old pastor in Columbus, Georgia in 1957.
0:51.7	That was when a city policeman beat and stomped him so badly that vital internal organs split open.
0:58.5	And when a medical doctor decided Reverend Pickett was just, quote, putting on.
1:03.6	Season five introduces you to a remarkable young man who from many pulpits displayed a gift for writing and preaching that seemed to come directly
1:12.5	from scripture and the Holy Spirit. His inspiration and company were sought by congregations,
1:18.6	fellow pastors, and women. He was a fine, good-looking black man. I'm telling you, he was definitely
1:25.5	good-looking and highly intelligent.
1:29.2	He was head of his time.
1:31.3	But emotional turbulence, alcohol dependency, and mental instability were weighing on him,
1:38.5	but none of those should have gotten him killed.
1:42.3	We will follow Clarence Pickett as he enters two medieval, notorious, and racist institutions
1:48.1	operating in Jim Crow, Georgia in 1957.
1:52.8	The county jail, where a white policeman beat, kicked, and stopped Clarence Pickett,
1:58.9	and the Millageville State Mental Hospital, the asylum,
2:02.9	where doctors brought to work their own drug and alcohol addictions,
2:06.8	poor training, and racist beliefs.
	...

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