The Klansman (1974) - full transcript
A small southern town has just been rocked by a tragedy: a young woman has been violently raped. The white town fathers immediately declare that the attacker had to be black, and place the blame on Garth, a young black man. Assuming that the men in white sheets aren't intent on holding a fair and impartial trial, Garth takes to the woods as the Klansmen lynching party hunts him down.
Everybody here there
Got some love to share
But when it sharin' time
We all change our minds
It's a slip of the lip,
when you say you care
I keep my love over here,
you keep yours over there
And it's all in the name
of the good Christian people
Said that it's all in the name
of the good Christian people
You wanna tell the truth
Who you gonna tell it to?
Ain't got no hiddin' place
Go on and show your face
Good Christian people
Get your heart on
Don't let your feeling's and fears
Be your downfall
All in the name of the
good Christian people
Said that it's all in the name
of good Christian people
- This property is posted,
you boys are trespassing.
- Oh sheriff, we's was
just having a little fun.
- You do this for fun, you
go to hell for pleasure.
Now get out of here, go on.
- Aw old Lightning Rod don't object.
He likes a piece of whiskers,
we's gonna give him a dollar.
Ain't no nigger girl a
mind being raped a little.
- How'd you figure
where we was anyhow?
- Well Lightning Rod's
mama saw you fetch him
and she figured what was spreding in the air.
Alright boys, party's over.
Rod, oh Rod.
Here's your dollar.
Go on, take it.
Now, you know where you live?
DO you?
Well, you go on home now.
Go on.
You too, Bobby.
- Well, you mind if I get my
wife, I mean she's got the car.
- And where she at?
- Oh, she just up the hill there, a piece.
She and Mrs. Alverson bird watching.
- I'll give you a lift.
- Ah, thank you, sheriff.
- I'm turnin' here.
- Thanks a lot sheriff,
Nancy's waiting for me already.
I'll see you.
- Hi Track.
- Could you spare me a few minutes, Breck?
- Sure, sure.
- Well, if you wanna
finish what you're doing
I might lend ya a hand.
- No, no, no, it's okay.
It's practically finished anyway.
You can go in, come inside?
Would you like a drink?
- Not just yet.
The last time I was out here you could see
27 miles across north west Alabama.
You getting tired of the view?
- No the trouble is the
birds keep on flying into the
glass, because they can't see
them and break their wings.
- Well, why don't you just throw
an old fishnet over the window?
That way you'd have your
view and your birds.
- Well, I just guessing,
calculate I never thought of it.
- You know, I swear if a fly was to
bust his leg, you'd be coming
running with a split.
Do you plan on welcoming
the strangers next week?
- You mean the black folk demonstration?
- You gonna let them
camp on your mountain?
- I hadn't intended to, why?
- Well, a lot of the good
country people asked me what
you're gonna do and I didn't
know, so I thought I'd ask you.
- It's none of their business, is it?
- Well, it's just that they
don't like a lot of strangers
coming in and telling them
how to run their county.
Maybe they got a point.
- I'm not gonna be down in the court house
square cheering the movement.
I don't like circuses.
- But you won't be cheering
against either, will you?
- Well, I'll try to maintain
a dignified neutrality.
Now, what do you want to drink?
- Well, you got anymore
of that brown whisky?
- Yeah, you know where it is.
You think you might be having
trouble with the strangers?
- No, I don't think so, no.
- No, someones coming.
Someday your father's gonna catch us.
- Ah, forget about it.
- What were you
doing all afternoon?
- Who me?
I wasn't doing nothing.
What in the world, this thing is skipping.
Anyway, we'll get a new car in the spring,
don't make no sense to fix it up now.
- You've been saying that since Christmas.
- Almighty what in the
hell is, the hell.
- I have had it with this,
I have had it with the car.
It must be the engine.
- Figured it out by yourself, did ya?
- Come on, let's go into
town and get a tow truck.
Come on.
- I'm tired.
I've been on my feet all day,
I'm not walking no four miles to town.
- You ain't?
Well, I recon you can just wait here then.
- I'm cold.
- Will you make up your
goddamn, bang tailed mind
how do you feel this morning?
And don't go messin' with
the God damn radio you hear?
'Cause I don't hold no grudge
A grudge ain't never been
strong enough to block our love
' No!
No!
No!
No!
No!
- Well, I can guaran-goddamn-tee ya one thing.
We're not gonna have no
trouble from outside agitators.
Not as long as I'm the mayor.
- What I wanna know, how we gonna stop em?
- We, you mean the Klan'?
Well, the Klan's gonna do nothing.
I spoke to the Grand Dragon in Birmingham.
He says nothing, we're gonna let them have
their sweet Jesus freedom
"we shall overcome",
get out the God damn
black vote demonstration.
- We might have some trouble
with the membership about that,
they're getting kinda antsy.
- Well, then I suggest you take 'em down to
awful Annie's and let
them get their rocks off.
I tell you what,
as the president of the
Atoka Lumber Company
I'll pick up the tab.
- Well, that's truly kind off you, Mr. Hardy
But what I was thinking that,
well, we should you know--
- The thing is when a good
old boy joins the Ku Klux,
every once in a while he wants to cluck
and I know the feeling.
- Do ya?
- You betcha I do.
- Well, let me tell you something.
I don't care if you're the
deputy sheriff and my own brother in law.
You nor nobody else get
special clucking privileges.
- The boys get tired of coming over here
to meet and talk about the Fourth of July
picnic and Christmas
turkeys for orphans
and horse shit like that.
They figure they're missing
too many good TV shows.
- As a matter of fact
the boys was planning
a little action for tonight, Hardy.
Kind of a preventive action, so to speak.
Nows the time to discourage our niggers
from attending that
demonstration next week
- We thought you'd want to know about it.
- Well, I got to know about it.
Hell, I'm the God damn exalted cyclops.
What I don't want to know
is what you're gonna do.
You see, one of these days I
might have to put my hand
on the Bible, what we oughta talk about
is what you're not gonna do.
Now, you're not gonna kill nobody.
- No, we ain't gonna do that.
- And you're not gonna maim nobody like
cutting off some niggers nuts
or slicing up his back, so I get to read
in the New York Times
what barbarians we are.
And you're not gonna dynamite no churches.
' No.
- Then I guess it's alright.
What I mean is this.
We've got fine Christian people here
both black and white, we
got great opportunity,
my only interest is the orderly
development of Atoka county.
And none of us want a
bunch of agitators, whores,
punks, scum, atheists, perverts,
all controlled by the Communists coming
in here, bothering our niggers.
The boys at state head
quarters don't mind if you
go out and burn a few crosses
every once in a while,
every once in a while take an agitator out
and touch him up a bit,
leave him feeling chastised
so he knows his
good Christian neighbors
just doing what you gotta do,
so everybody can get along.
- Sure, Hardy, sure.
- Hello.
What?
God almighty.
Nancy Poteets done been raped.
- What?
Well, thank you for calling,
Fred, I appreciate it, right.
- Nancy Poteet?
- 'Lil yellow headed gal.
- Jesus Christ.
Raped by a nigger.
- What nigger?
- Well, we don't know yet.
- I'll venture a guess.
- I guess and calculate it's
that God damn Willy Washington.
- That black son of a
bitch, get your guns.
- Now, wait a minute, just
wait a minute, God damn it.
- Aw, he's queer for married women,
always did get his enjoys out
of some other niggers wife.
- Always bragging on his
triumphs at the sawmill.
- Well, this is different if he
stuck his black peg in a white hole.
- Alright you boys
remember what I told ya,
just take it easy, you hear me?
- God damn it, you boys wait for the law.
- Come on, Vernon, do something.
- How in the hell am I
going to hold 'em now?
You got any suggestions about that, Hardy?
- Well, God damn it, you've gotta try.
- Willy.
- What it is?
- Step outside for a minute.
- You can run it down to me right here.
- Where were you between eight and nine?
- Tonight?
I was poppin'
me a piece of heaven.
- What was her name?
- Now, Sheriff, I don't go around
talkin' about my delight.
- Willy, I'm not here to pass
the God damn time of day.
I got a warrant for your arrest.
- Well, I ain't gonna be namin'
no names, 'cause that kind of
stuff'll get me in a
whole peck of trouble.
- You are in a peck of trouble.
I'm arresting you for rape.
- She said it was rape?
- Let's go, Willie.
You get in the front.
You better jump in the back, Willy.
- Thank you,
Sheriff, it sure gonna feel
a lot safer back here.
- We want him, Track.
- Sherif,f goddamn it, be reasonable.
- Don't dispute us, Mr. Bascomb,
we're just trying to save the
county the cost of a trial.
- I know what you're trying
to do. Now, if you boys'll just
back off and let me do my elected duty.
- Your goddamn duty
is to us, we elected ya,
and by God, we can unelect ya.
- Well, until that great day comes...
You take your hand off that arm.
- Son of a bitch.
- Shit, alright, get in the truck.
- Hey, hey, couple niggers.
- Well, what cha say, boys?
It's Garth, that uppity
spade, and his friend Henry.
Let's get the son of a bitch.
- Come on, Henry, come on, bank up.
- Get those bastards.
- Come on, you guys, get 'em.
Come on, come on, let's go get 'em.
Come on.
Let's go.
- Come on, man, come on.
- Garth!
Garth!
- Catch him, catch him!
- Hey, wait for me, man!
- Jessie, your skinning knife.
- Whatcha all doin' to me?
No'. No'. No!
- Let's go.
Alright now, you all know
the rules. We each gotta put a
shot in him.
- No, no, no, no, no.
- What is it?
Breck, can I ask you a
world famous question?
- What, at this time of night?
- Why won't you marry me?
I mean really?
I'd light your pipe, I'd
put out your slippers
I'd even read you the funny papers.
Well, Mayor Hardy Riddle
asked me to marry him
that's a secret.
- Well, Mayor Hardy Riddle is married.
- Of course he is, that's
why it's a secret.
- Well, you know I wouldn't turn
him down because he weighs
in at about a million dollars.
- Hm, well, he's too fat.
- What's that?
What're you saying?
- I said, if you'd marry me
I'd live in a tent and eat turnips.
- You could pester fine.
- I hear Loretta Sykes is coming back.
Is she gonna stay up here on the mountain?
- Loretta's coming back
to see her grandma.
- Are you gonna start that up again?
- Start what?
- Getting your chocolate milk from her.
- That is a disgusting expression.
- Yes I know, but are you?
- Why I never did it.
- Well I've got to believe
you although everybody says
that you used to lift her skirt up
with a certain regularity.
- Loretta's coming home to see her
grandma, because her
grandma is dying of cancer.
- That's not what they
say down at the office.
Butt Cutt said she's coming
back for the demonstration.
- What does big Track say?
- Big Track says nothing about anything.
If spoken words were a dollar
a dozen he'd be bankrupt.
- It's probably why he's the
best sheriff we've ever had.
- I don't know.
This town, it shivers me, like that
gun fire suddenly in the middle
of the night, what was it?
- Oh, it was maybe
they're out coon hunting,
or maybe it was a drunk
stumbling around in the dark.
Maybe it was a keg of dynamite.
- I feel like we're all sitting on it,
waiting for it to go off.
- That's how they found Henry, just
up the hill behind the juke
joint on the Birmingham road.
- Who'd you figure done it?
- A little something
from a national office
- You wanna know who done it?
Probably some other nigger.
- Probably so.
- Or one of them outside agitators.
Some of them's already in town,
a nigger by the name of Charlie Peck
and a mongolizing white preacher.
- Preacher?
- Well he was wearing one
of them front ass collars.
- No don't worry about it,
we had the word on that
bunch a long time ago.
- In any case we'll take
care of them bastards.
- That's right.
- For sure.
- This republic is great,
not because of our land,
our wealth, or our population.
We are great because of the genius of
pioneer white freeman who
settled this continent
dared the might of kings and made
the wilderness a home of freedom.
Our future depends on the purity
of this racial stock.
Granting the ballot to Negros
is a crime against human progress.
Trash.
- Open three.
- Hi.
- Hey, sheriff Bascomb, hey
sheriff, I wanna talk to you.
- Okay, Toddy, out.
- Thanks, sheriff.
- How you feeling?
- Holy, must have been something I ate.
- Must have been something
you washed it down with.
- I'll swear to you,
I'll never do it again.
I'll swear to you on a stack--
- Stack of six packs.
- What did I do?
- Well, you gave your wife
one hell of a nose bleed,
you wrapped a kid something
awful, you mashed the cat,
then you killed the dine.
- God almighty.
You fixed it with my wife?
- You can go home now.
- Hey, hey mister, hi, sheriff, sir.
Did old Henry rape Miss Nancy Poteet?
Well all I know is it sure
in the hell wasn't me,
why that warrant you laid on me at that
juke joint kinda, kinda
caught me by surprise.
Shit, I sure in the hell
didn't have to rape her.
- Hey Track, Track, he'd
done it to me again,
he yanked down my bulletin in front of
Hardy Riddle and everybody,
I mean don't he give a diddly damn
about preserving the purity of the race?
- He don't care about the people that do.
Why he even thinks our
great governor is a pissant.
- You know something,
he even hates the Han.
- Well, maybe he has his reasons.
- Yeah, but that happened a long time ago,
you know, in the holy here,
and now I think I might
knock Mr. High and mighty Breck
right flat on his stiff legged ass.
- Oh, no, you won't, he knows
karate from the marines,
he can ram his fist in a
barrel of rice up to his elbow.
- Hey, honey cheeks, let
me tell you something,
I got friends and we got ways.
- Sure, sure, I know you
can poison Breck's dog or
you can shoot his horse,
or maybe you could burn
down his trees, or maybe
you could shotgun him
in his pick up, sure I know.
- Well, maybe that's the way it'll end.
But as long as I'm sheriff
you ain't gonna be the one to do it.
- Well, if you say so, Track,
I mean, if that's what you want or shit.
Could be so easy, there he is now.
Right now over at the bus depot.
- Welcome home.
- Thank you, Breck.
- How's the job?
- 120 a week, it's kind
of a miracle for a,
for a handkerchief head five
years out of the corn pone belt.
- You married?
- When I left, you told me to keep my
skirt down and my legs crossed.
- Well I didn't mean it to last forever.
By this time I expected you
to have a husband, a Chevy,
and an old electric kitchen.
- Oh, the Chevy I got, you're the one that
taught me to strive, make
a run for the middle class.
But you're not much of a striver yourself.
Now are you?
- Well, you know there's
not much use striving
on a 3000 acres that grows
nothing but rocks and pines and.
- And relief hounds.
- Well, sure, they're have their shacks,
their welfare checks,
and have a TV and hope for heaven.
- They're mummified,
you think it's too late
for them to change?
- Why should they change?
It's all they've ever wanted.
- And you Breck, what do you want?
- Much the same thing,
as long as there's quiet on the mountain.
- Grandma wrote you never married.
- She wrote right, did she write you
about the demonstration next week?
- I wrote her.
- It could be dangerous.
- Danger's just another way of
thinning out talent down here.
- Well, down here, you know,
we work without nets.
- Breck, I'm not against
shaking up the mountain a bit.
But I came back because the only creature
in the world who really
ever loved me is dying.
I guess that's not the whole truth.
Guess, I also came back to
see what happened there,
well, see what happened to you.
- Who is it?
- A couple of friends.
Are you Loretta Sykes?
- Yes.
- This is Charles Peck, I am
the reverend Josh Franklin.
- So what do you want?
- We know you're with the movement.
- Chicago?
- Ya, we were hoping you'd help us here
on Stancill's mountain.
- Help you do what?
There's nobody here anymore.
Just a dozen people or so.
- They all count and they're gonna
learn where the ballot box is.
- A dozen old people waiting to die,
most of 'em can't even
read, five or six kids in a
sprinter's crouch,
waiting to take off for
Chicago or the army.
- So lay it on them why they have to vote.
- Most of them too young.
Something else to.
Both of you guys city dudes,
you don't know what a forest fires like,
you start messing with
these people up here
and they'll burn you out.
They'll be homeless, someone be dead.
Now, is that what you want to
do, set this place on fire?
- The fire's everywhere,
everybody's gotta risk getting burned.
- Well, that's big talk.
- I got you pegged baby, you ain't no
anti-Tom handkerchief head,
you're in he movement alright.
Right up to your polished finger tips
but not up to your tight little butt.
You eating high, you
got your own private can
in Chicago, so you ain't
too pained about your
poor raggady ass brothers and sisters
with nits in their hair and
grits in their over hauls.
- Charles take it easy.
Who is this Breck Stancill?
Is he a brother of the sheet?
- Not in his head, nor in his heart.
Just likes to read and
work in these woods.
- He got any bread?
We could use the donation.
- Even the relievers feel sorry for Breck,
he doesn't even have a TV set.
- He must be some kind of nut.
- Yes, a very stubborn kind of nut.
With a long memory.
See that tree?
That's the most famous,
the most infamous tree in
the history of our county.
Breck's great grandfather
opposed succession
was against slavery.
So the local red necks, they hanged
judge Stancill from this tree in 1861.
- What's he ever done about it?
- Well, there's not much he can do.
Going past this tree
everyday, it must remind him.
I guess that's what
makes him drink so much.
Maybe it's a pain in
his leg, I don't know.
- That's tough, but we've
all of us got some kind
of cross to bear, next week me and Josh
will be toting ours in
the court house square.
Eyeball to eyeball with old
big Track and old Butt Cutt
and all the other hyenas.
- I think you'll survive.
- I've been thinking
baby, maybe one night I'll
slip back to here through
the confederate lines
and you can comfort me
on the eve of Armageddon.
- I think you better stick to those long
stringy head girls with
the dirty tennis sneakers.
- Okay, baby, but if you
hear me running through
the woods with them dogs on my tail
don't harden your heart against me.
You will do me that favor.
- I'll be running right
with you steady buck,
matching your stride for stride.
- How do you figure that?
- 'Cause I'll be with ya,
in the court house sqaure.
See ya.
- Who is that?
Oh, constant denied.
Shit house mouse.
Shit house mouse.
Look at that.
Haven't worn our glory
suits for a long time.
Freeze!
- Why didn't you just kill him?
- Nigger!
- And this is Johnson's shot gun.
- Ever find the murder weapon?
- No but we think it was
an automatic or a pump,
or a five empties double out back.
- Got any idea who did it?
- Not yet.
- And you think it was a black huh?
- Jan, putting your words in
my mouth won't win you the Pulitzer prize.
- Hey, wait a minute.
- Track, I've come all the way from
Birmingham on a God damn Sunday morning
and this stud in the barn yard threads,
he's come from New York.
- You've got to give us
something, even if it's filler.
- What's the crime rate in this county?
- Nothing to write about.
- No crime or you don't
keep records of the rate?
- There are two kinds of law
open to a back county sheriff.
He can book and punish.
- That way every peckerwood in
this county would have a police record.
- Or he can cool things,
smooth them out by
bending the law a little to
keep people from breaking them.
- Sheriff, that's mighty
fine cracker barrel
talk but we've got a
job to do and it might
be best for all of us if you
were a little more cooperative.
- Well, I could be more cooperative if
I got back to work, huh?
- Isn't there anybody
around here we can talk to?
- Well, why don't you try
Trixie in the other room,
you'll find her very cooperative.
- We'll be back.
- You are always welcome.
- What I wanna know is who
the hell does he think he is?
Trixie baby.
- Hello.
- Hey Trixie, working on Sunday?
- Hi Jan.
- Hi.
- Winston, New York Times.
- Aren't you a little off your beat?
- Not if this is Ellington, Alabama,
the garden spot of the universe.
- And the news capital of the world.
- At least this week.
- Why the sudden interest
in the back woods of Alabama?
- Well, maybe it has something to do
with a rape and a couple of murders.
- And a black vote
demonstration coming up.
- Or maybe it has to do with the fact
that the human skin differs in pigment.
- Ah, sugars in homicide.
- What do you think honey?
What I mean is how did all this happen?
How did it start?
- I guess it started in 1619 where the
sea captain lying off Virginia
with the first cargo of slaves.
Sometimes I wish the son of a bitch had
been fired on and denied
permission to land.
Oh, it's a missing persons.
- Uh, sheriff, I gotta see you.
- What is it Bobby?
- Listen, I'm leaving town.
- Oh, then I guess you better give me
a forwarding address in case you.
- Oh no, no, not with Nancy,
I mean, I'm sorry, but I
cannot take it no more.
Working in the market
there cutting up pork chops
for some lady who I just know wants to
ask me how does it feel
to screw a wife that's
been screwed by a nigger.
But, but, what bothers me is
it don't bother her.
She's got no shame.
- Where will you go?
- Oh God, I don't know.
All I know is I'm going greyhound.
Just like the niggers, God damn it.
Why did this thing have to happen to me?
- You don't think that
there's anyway that you could.
- No, no, no, listen would you
give her my insurance policy?
And this 34 dollars,
now I've divided it up.
Half for her and half for grey hound.
Just tell her that.
- And because of them the
way of truth will be reviled.
Oh, Lord, give us a sign so
we may know what we must do.
And grant us the strength to do it.
Amen.
We stand alone, besieged by God's enemy's.
Our once Christian nation is
being delivered to the godless.
We are losing our young people.
Look around you.
They are not here,
they have banished themselves
from their righteous company.
Just as God's alter has been
banished from those schools.
Bearing the mark of the black beast
are being forced into the
innocent fellowship of our children.
As devoted parents and patriots
we must stand up for Jesus.
And Ella.
- I can smell nigger on her,
I can truly smell nigger on her.
- Get out, get out.
- Shame.
- Filth.
- How can you push yourself
on these good Christian folks?
After being in that niggers foul embraces?
- Please, please, please.
Will the congregate, will the
congregation, please be seated.
- Well, she don't belong here.
- I think I'm gonna faint.
- If you have any
Christian decadency in you,
you will leave.
I am waiting.
- You blame me for what happened?
As though I did something filthy?
Well, you're the filthy ones.
You lying Christian people.
- Nancy, come on now,
let's get out of here.
- I wish I could forgive you like our Lord
forgave his enemies.
- They're just trying to bother you.
- But I won't!
I can't!
And I never will!
I am not ashamed for what
happened, I did nothing!
- You know it's quiet
and peaceful up here.
It's a shame.
- What's a shame.
- I mean up here, Nancy'd be outta sight.
Outta sight, outta mind.
Nobody be calling her names
or smelling nigger on her.
- Track, I got about, I guess 200 dollars,
now you take it and ship her off,
I don't care where to the Vatican,
to the Salvation Army,
or to anyone who cares enough
about nursing her back to health.
- Oh, she's healthy enough,
that's the trouble.
She's too damn healthy.
- Why she suddenly become so healthy?
- When a yellow headed
gal gets black snaked
the good country people think
she oughta dig a hole
and stick her head in it.
If she ain't dead from rape
she oughta suicide herself.
Or at least have the decadency
to be all torn up and crying
and trembling with shame.
But hell, Nancy kept her head.
She even showed up in church
and that's when it hit the fan.
- How could I ever get rid of her?
- Beats the hell oughta me.
- I'd have to supply her with food.
- Unless you wanted her to starve.
- She'd have to move in here with me
and you go tell her it can't be done.
- Aw hell, you do that much
for a bird with a broken wing.
Okay, you tell her it can't be done.
She's out in the car.
- Come on in.
- Why the hell did you take
Nancy Poteet up to Breck's?
Ain't you got enough on your hands?
You keep riling these good country people,
come next election you're
gonna be flat out on you ass.
- So who you gonna put in, Butt Cutt?
He's already set the brother
in law business back 20 years.
- At least he don't
make so damn many waves.
Track you're the best
sheriff this county ever had,
but you don't know anymore
about business than
a hog knows about Sunday.
The growth and well being of
this county depends on business.
- But what's that got to
do with Nancy Poteet?
- It's got to do with race relations!
- Well everything does.
- You rocking the boat you know.
We got this conflict now
the blacks are moving north,
and going to Chicago,
they're joining the army
so they can get a 1500 dollar bonus,
then they can go to Germany for two years
and just wallow in that kraut snatch
and become ski instructors.
And what happens to me?
I gotta replace them with whites,
but no self respecting white will do
grunt labor for what I pay the niggers.
I can't make no money outta relief checks,
that's all that'd be left.
First thing you know I'd be up there on
the mountain with Breck,
sitting in a rocking chair
jawin' with a bunch of old shines.
- Shit.
- You're cutting your
own throat to ya know.
That's right, there's a
black majority in this county
what's gonna happen if they
decide to run old junior
here for sheriff, where'd you be then,
where'd you be with
your gift house from the
grateful county people, and your gift car,
and your kid going to West Point?
Got you where it hurts don't I?
And don't look at me like I'm the heavy
'cause I'm not, if you wanna
know who the heavy is I'll tell ya.
It's the system and we're
all of us caught up in it.
You, me, Breck, all of us.
And it's gonna be one
hell of a mess when them
newspaper men come in
here and go up to Breck
and he starts mouthing about that sweet
little Nancy Poteet, that poor little
yellow headed outcast that you saved from
a ravaging horde of church goers,
when that happens we're all gonna be
in a deep shit on national television.
- So she says red eye gravy on your grits
I thought she was offering me a shot of.
- On.
- Trixie , who is this Breck Stancill?
- Breck?
- Ya, who the hell does he think he is?
He won't even talk to us.
- He's fairly particular who he talks to.
Here make yourself useful.
His families been around here
for eight generations you know.
- Maybe that's what makes him so peculiar.
He wouldn't even let us shoot
a still of his God damn dog.
- You must understand
if that dog were just
another sorry cur with
mange I think he would
have said okay, but Chrissy's pure bred
and some of the people
around here might be
peeved because it's Breck's,
and the dog might come to harm.
- What about the black reliefers?
All I wanted was a shot inside one
of their shacks to show the awful poverty.
- That awful poverty isn't as
awful as the white reliefers.
Blacks on Stancill's
mountain get free rent,
a vegetable patch, fire wood,
rat poison, a solid roof,
a church, and a grave yard.
Anybody reading about them might be
tempted to practice a little arson.
- Isn't there anything we
can write about Mr. Breck Stancill?
- Yes, there's this.
Birds are leaving this part of
Alabama, like yellow hammers.
They need a worthless, half
rotten, old oak tree to live in.
The only tree farmer who
spares old oaks is Breck,
he let's them stand sprawling his forest,
costing him money,
all that for the sake
of the yellow hammers.
- God, that's fascinating.
- Yes, I thought you'd be touched.
Anything else?
- Yes, are you busy tonight?
- What have you got in mind?
- Well, we could go down town
and watch them turn on the street lights.
- Or we could go to my room
at the Heart of Dixie Motel,
and listen to the plumbing.
- Sorry, I've had enough
excitement in the past few days.
- What about tomorrow?
I'll take you to Johnson's funeral.
- We could both take you.
- Now, that's a date.
That make me pure
Rock of ages cleft for me
Let me hide myself in thee
- Must have been some of
them God damn agitators.
- Shamed us in front of the grand wizard
and two imperial dragons.
- No, it weren't no agitator.
- What do you mean no, a couple of our
night hawks saw them up
on Stancill's mountain.
John with that nignog Loretta.
- I know that, but it weren't
anyone who shot Taggert.
- Now, how can you be so God damn sure?
- Remember the night we got Henry?
- Uh huh.
- Well, Garth was with him.
He must have seen what we did to him.
That black son of a bitch
got Johnson, got Taggert,
and I think he's fixing
to get us all one by one.
- Yeah, you tell Track?
- How could I, how could I tell him
it was us that got Henry?
- Well I'll tell him, I'll tell him I got
an anonymous phone call,
no, I'll go bring him myself,
I'll get that son of a bitch.
- How you gonna do that,
how you gonna find him?
- How, how am I gonna find him?
Listen, I'll lay you five
to ten that that gal
agitator gots him stashed away in
her shack up in the mountains.
- I dunno, that's Breck's
private piece of brown comfort.
You wanna go up against Breck?
- Anytime, anyplace.
But this is the one night of the week that
Mrs. Big Track Bascomb takes pity on that
poor miserable son of a bitch bachelor
and asks him to supper.
- Huh, Mrs. Track never asks me
to supper, she ever ask you?
- Wouldn't go if she were to ask,
but particularly not tonight,
we've got more important things to do.
Come on man, Hector, come on boys.
Got a lot a work to do.
- Hey!
- What do you want?
- Open up.
Look, you don't want me
to put the hood on you.
- Have you got a search warrant?
- Search warrant, my ass, give me that
I'll open the God damn.
- Alright, alright, shh.
- Search warrant, heh.
- What's that 'retta?
- Nothing grandma.
- Evening.
Have a good look around boys, I mean good.
Alright Loretta, where's Garth?
- I have no idea.
- Anybody else in the house?
- Like you saw, just my grandmother.
- Loretta, tell me, what
brought you back here?
- It's my grandmother, she's dying.
- Don't you lie to me, nigger.
You've come here to demonstrate.
Two days ago you let them
two communist agitators
into this house, and they
spent the night with you.
- They come to my door, we
talk for about ten minutes,
but nobody spent the night here.
- Well, now that's a crock.
But at least you're admitting that
the three of you was conspiring.
- I never said that.
- Yes, conspiring against the peace
and dignity of Atoka county.
- If you've got charges that I...
- Ya, I might have, I just might have,
you know, for example, there's a law
in this state against a nigger gal
committing fornication with a white man.
- Nothing like that happened.
- On |'|| bet it didn't,
| just bet it didn't.
You know, I can see you in that
court room now, a swearing ya?
That you and them communists spent a night
in a shack in the woods,
and all you did was pray
and count nigger votes
and sing a few verses
of We Shall Overcome
- Nothing, nothing, nobody home.
- You sure?
- Not a squeak.
- Well, I'm taking you in,
that's what I'm gonna do, yeah.
- What for?
- For further investigating.
- Grandma, I'll be back soon,
the neighbors will look after you.
- Let's get her ass in the truck.
- Get your hands off me.
- Well I'll do the dishes later.
- Nah, I'll do 'em.
- I do wanna pay my
respects to Mrs. Taggart.
- Thank you, Mable,
you sure do set a fine table.
- Aw, well thank you for joining us.
Yes?
Just a minute.
Right, right.
Alright, yeah, alright.
Oh, Allen.
That was Mayor Hardy Riddle, seems that
he got a phone call from
your high school principle.
It seems that you've been
going around tearing down
all them patriotic
bulletins that Butt Cutt
goes to such trouble to put up.
- That's right, daddy.
- Seems like you
got yourself a fan.
- You oughta quit that,
Allen, got too much to lose.
- What for instance?
- West Point that's what.
- Daddy.
- You don't suppose you
could get an appointment
to West Point without Hardy
Riddles support, do ya?
Or his friends in high places.
- To hell with Hardy Riddle, I
don't wanna go to West Point.
Now, daddy, I've been trying
to tell you of what I want
I want to be a tree farmer,
I could be like an apprentice to Breck.
I wanna marry Billy Jean, I
wanna stay close to my family,
I ain't gonna fight any goddamn wars.
- How about you take a walk, Allen.
- I gotta do the dishes.
- Later.
- I'm sorry.
- Hell.
- Life is one long suffer.
- But does it have to be?
You know, I often wonder why you do it.
- Do what?
- Tear down Butt Cutts bulletins.
- 'Cause I don't buy that racist bullshit.
- But don't you think
that's just a little.
- Self indulgent?
- That's a good word for it.
I mean, of all the good
country people in this county
have you ever managed to influence anyone?
Change their mind about anything?
- Allen's, suppose you wish I hadn't.
- Well I don't know, who the hell can say?
- This I know.
We live in a Klan-ridden
society, about 40 gorillas
dominating the lands of
16,000 so called free people.
- Well, if you think the Klan is just
a fist full of red necks
we got your facts twisted.
There's over 6000 Klan members stretching
from here to California,
membership over half a million.
- Doesn't that sadden you Track?
- I'll tell you what saddens me.
You and the Klan are
runnin' a collision course.
- Just 'cause I treat blacks they were
members of the human race?
- No, because you're so God
damn righteous about it.
You know that the Klan has a shit list
down at state head quarters?
And did you know that
your name is on that list?
- How do you know my name was on it?
- Well, as a police officer
I'm given a certain.
You're making this tough on me.
- Why?
- Because I'm trying to keep you
alive and you won't cooperate.
- You a member of the Klan, Track?
- What the hell kind
of a question is that?
- What the hell kind of an answer is that?
- I'm a tell you something.
I'm just a back country sheriff,
up for election every year,
and in order to get reelected
I had to swear allegiance to
the Rotary, the American
allegiance, even God.
That's right, I'm a card carrying member
of the West Ellington
First Baptist Church,
and I'm an honorary captain
in the State Troopers,
and a light colonel in the National Guard,
and something else, I
don't even know what,
Boy Scouts of America.
I'll tell you this, I
wouldn't be the first
public servant that ever joined the Klan,
we have congressmen in
this state, senators,
Supreme Court judge.
Why don't you drink your whisky
and we'll chin more
ice on another subject.
- She alright?
Just hold her, don't worry yet.
- Now that we got her, what we gonna do?
- We must give the enemy a sign.
- Begging your pardon, preacher,
but what in the hell does that mean?
- Every black knows Loretta
Sykes and the reds are
expecting to lead a demonstration
in Ellington in a few days.
God expects his people to fight back.
- And we are God's
instruments so let's beat
the living shit out of
her, excuse it, Reverend,
and just take her down main street
and leave her there for everbody to see.
- That won't work.
What we need is something that won't
show on TV or bring in any
more of them outside reporters.
- What we need is something
that hurts niggers
and nigger lovers that won't show.
- You mean some kind of torture?
- Sorta, you know in
my time I handled lots
of niggers in the woods, but
I never yet hit one,
I always let some other
nigger do it for me, cause
nothing hurts a nigger more
than having some
smart white man sit back
and watch another nigger
beat the piss out of them.
- You mean you want that nigger
got beat up by another nigger?
- I mean, Lightning Rod, that gal
be one unholy mess when
old Lightning Rod's
through with her.
- You just hold on Vern,
You know, Jesse, there's better ways to do it.
Ya see, a nigger gal don't
mind being raped a little
by another nigger, but
suppose, I mean just suppose
a white man would nail her, why for her
that would be humiliating,
although it'd keep
her damn mouth shut later
for TV, but she'd probably
haul ass back to Chicago even
before the demonstration,
but every nigger in the
county would get the picture
that the Klan is on the job
and they gonna make it hard,
I mean, real hard for any black son of
a bitch what gets out of line.
- That's right, that's right.
- Who's gonna nail her?
- Well, let me put it this
way, there ain't nothing
old Lightning Rod can do,
that old Butt Cutt can't do better.
- Let's get her out of the truck.
Come on, bring her out, bring her out.
- Get her over there.
- Give her to me.
Come here.
Come here.
Come here, you.
Gotcha ya.
- Oh, no.
- I always wanted me some
of that black meat, baby.
- Oh no, it looks like old Butt
Cutts gonna need some help.
- You little dark meat, you.
Grab her, and the legs.
Grab her.
- Hold that leg.
- Would you take a ride,
old Butt Cutt's gets in there,
we're gonna find some nigger,
we're gonna find some.
- Oh, brother sweet Jesus.
- Good God, he'll tear
something loose in her.
- Nigger women are made for it.
- Jesus, this is better
than dogs fighting a bear.
- Where are we gonna dump her?
We can't leave her here
in the lumber shed.
- I hope, what's been done tonight serves
the purpose for which it was intended.
- What're we gonna do?
- I think, Big Track oughta handle this
and I'm going to get him,
you best wait here
with her Butt Cutt.
- Loretta?
Loretta, get up.
Come on, Loretta.
Come on, get up.
Loretta, you gonna be alright, ya hear?
Track, we had an accident.
A accident.
- Get in.
Get in!
- Sheriff, I'm gonna bleed to death
if you don't get me to a hospital.
You know, but you're not moving.
You wanna kill me, don't you?
Sheriff.
- You know, I could grab that squawk box
and call the hospital and
have the doctor there.
Turn on the red lights and the siren
and you could be in emergency
with in ten minutes.
If we can make a deal.
- Deal, what kind of deal?
- Nothing much, just have
to make me a promise.
- What do I have to do?
- Butt Cu? Gates picked
you up 'm the mountain,
took you into town and tried to book you,
he had nothing to hold you on,
so he released you at 9:15.
You were hitching a ride
back to the mountain,
when a black man in a car,
kind of good looking, tall,
blue glasses, picked you
up and gave you a lift
back to the mountain, but
instead he drove you here,
where three other blacks
were waiting for ya,
and they did this to ya.
- That's not the truth, sheriff.
- Nothing is true.
- I have no choice, do I?
- Nobody has a choice.
- Alright, alright, it's a deal.
Just hurry, sheriff.
- Promise me.
- It's a deal, okay?
Hurry, sheriff, hurry.
- And Loretta?
- Loretta, she's gonna be alright.
I have her permission to describe her
injury to the both of
you and to no one else.
When she arrived here. she
was bleeding heavily from the vagina.
She had been subjected
to violent intercourse.
- Did she tell you who did it?
- Yes, she said it was four Negros.
We've made the necessary
repairs to the damaged tissue.
What accounted for the heavy,
even dangerous bleeding
was an unusual vascular
concentration in the area,
where her so called
maiden hood was ruptured.
A ruptured hymen is an observable fact,
like a broken leg.
But I know what you're thinking.
- Everybody in the county
knows a black girl's
popped by the time she's 13 years old.
- This time, sheriff, you might
have to do something about it.
- Well, that's killing talk
The idea that Loretta was a virgin
will never occur to the
good country people.
I'll be damned I if mention it.
- You better take her things to her.
She's over there in 18, Sheriff.
- Hi there.
- How's my grandma?
- Oh she's fine, she's fine.
You know, Trixie just made her some supper
and now they're sitting around,
watching some thing instructive on TV.
- All your efforts to make me striving.
- In a few days you'll be
back in Chicago again, striving again.
- No, I don't think I want to Breck.
Maybe, maybe I've been
doing a wrong number.
I, I'd a quit long ago if
you hadn't encouraged me.
- Well, you know to encourage people
is sometimes a reckless act.
- Well, don't fret about me,
I'll get along.
I just wanted you to be so proud of me.
I guess, guess I kinda lost
track of what I wanted in life.
- What do you want?
- I've been thinking about it,
guess I just have to think some more.
- Not now, you're to tired.
- Breck, before you go can
you give me some advice?
- Well, advice and encouragement
are both equally reckless.
- About what happened to me,
I lied to the doctor.
I had to, I promised the sheriff.
- Does the sheriff know the truth?
- Yes, but I want you to know, you see.
- Shh, shh, that's killing talk.
You keep your promise to the sheriff.
- Why should I?
- To stay alive till
we get you out of here.
- Alright, Breck, alright.
Breck, how's my grandma?
Did I ask ya that?
- She's fine, they're all fine,
they're watching TV.
- Nigger humpers,
Heffer bitch, you oughta be ashamed.
Look at this little black son of a bitch.
Stop laughing, picket
in there, go to hell.
- Some turn out, huh?
- Loaded the whole bunch on the bus.
- Well, that's where they should be,
on some bus on their way out a town.
- I've seen more people
at a slick pig contest.
- Look at that ass, he's
just standing there.
- What the hell was that all about?
- Aw, who cares.
- I drew up a list of the
conduct of your demonstrators,
if they abide by them there
shouldn't be any trouble.
- Yes, sir.
- Look at 'em, so that's what they want on
a great git up morning, to
take a piss for freedom.
- They can piss in the
basement and like it,
heh, look at them, all outsiders and a few
sorry snot nosed kids,
not one of them's a local nigger,
nor over 20.
- If any of them was local,
I'd have their job.
- Hey there, doctor,
morning, mr. Mayor.
- Brothers and sisters.
Your attention, please.
The sheriff's office has some
peculiar notions as to
what a demonstration is.
But in good faith I'd like to
read them to you, and I
know you'll abide by them.
Number one, we are not to
return insult for insult,
even word or gesture.
Two, we're not to hug, kiss,
urinate, defecate, or
copulate in the streets.
- Other than that, brothers and
sisters, enjoy yourselves.
Oh, when the saints go marching in
Oh, when the saints go marching in
I wanna be in that number
When the saints go marching in.
- Hey Hardy, you promised
to talk remember?
- Alright, alright.
- I'm not gonna
discuss it anymore.
- That's bullshit, you mean you
ain't gonna do nothing about them?
- You're just gonna let
them carry on like that?
- Okay, you gonna see, you'll see,
you watch and see.
- Real discipline.
- Why don't you put Butt
Cutt back on the force?
My wife's giving me a lot a shit,
he owes me a little money.
What the hell is the matter
with you, for Christ sake.
- Mr. Stancill, Mr. Stancill.
- Yeah?
- Can I talk with you for a moment?
- Sure, sure, why not.
What do you wanna talk about?
- I wanted to tell you
we're sorry about Loretta.
-Ah.
- Talking to her for a few moments,
we didn't realize she'd
be exposed to such risk.
- Well, you were wrong.
Tell me what are you doing
standing around here?
- Never underestimate just
standing around, Mr. Stancill.
- Well, you're standing around
with cameras for the TV?
- Without those cameras,
we'd have no movement.
Without TV, we'd get our heads cracked.
But with the whole country watching.
- Tell me about that, clerical
collar invites trouble, no?
- In every crusade we've marched with
whores, thieves, our blessed Lord
didn't shrink from the
touch of an adulteress.
- What about you, don't you
like to kiss, and hug, and fondle?
- I'm a minister to the leper,
I touch them freely and often,
but not lustfully.
- Well that's a pity.
At my place we've got
a white woman
who's kind of a leper.
- Nancy Poteet, yeah.
- She believes no man will
ever want to bed her again.
So, what we're searching for
is a kind of a
decent, lecherous young man
who'll maybe
come down to the house of an evening
and listen to the radio
with her and slap her
on the tail and convince her
he needs that
piece of tail and get her
off my hands.
- Tell me, Mr Stancill, are
you as cynical as you sound?
- I don't know, I wonder.
- Why don't you crawl on her yourself?
- Well, I suppose I'm
as decently lecherous
as the next man
but my lechery does not
extend to trapped women.
I feel to sorry for her.
- That's probably what her husband said.
He probably felt so sorry
for her he couldn't.
- Sure, sure, sure, you have
any more business to discuss?
- I was hoping you might
encourage Loretta to tell the truth.
Her story makes it sound like
she was raped
by one of our people.
- Now. listen. Mr Minister, you
got Loretta into trouble by
seeking her on the mountain,
now you wanna get her killed?
- Mr. Stancill, in every revolution...
- Oh sure sure, you I know, I know.
In order to make an omelette,
you gotta
break eggs, or heads,
the end justifies the means, right?
- That's right, sometimes they do.
- This time they do not.
- Nigger lover.
- Bastard he really has.
- Track.
How you doing?
- Well, I got elected to keep
the demonstraters outta town.
Well, it looks like I'm gonna
lose next years election.
I didn't think you liked circuses.
- No, I just came to take Loretta
home from the hospital.
So good luck.
- Track, Track, let me ask you something.
Why don't you stomp you foot
and chase those pissants off?
Alright, alright, then stay out
of our way and let us do it.
- Flag!
-Aw sh.
- They find the man who
did the shooting, Breck?
- I don't think so.
After this Chicago must seem like
the friendliest town on earth.
- Breck, I'm not going back,
now I've made up my mind.
- What are you gonna do here?
- I don't know, maybe I could
do something for the movement.
So what happened to me
doesn't happen again.
Maybe I'll find a job.
- What job you gonna do?
- I don't know, but it won't
be hiding in the woods.
- What did you mean when you
said hiding in the woods?
Think that's what I do
because of my leg,
because I'm crippled?
- You're not crippled, Breck,
but I think you think you are.
You're a very attractive man.
- Naw.
- Now that's true, why
every one in the county
thinks you can get any gal
you want, including me.
- Quit that.
- No, Butt Cutt and those Kluxes, as they
watching me get raped, they think I'm
your piece of brown comfort,
that's one of the
reasons they did it,
they wanted to foul your nest.
- Never thought of that.
- No, you wouldn't.
- Just keep driving.
- Hey, what are you trying to do?
- Kick some asses, baby.
- What's the point of busting
up a peaceful meeting?
- What goods a peaceful meeting?
It's for them bourgeois Negros.
When you gonna learn any way that
all that marching gonna get
ya is what you got, screwed.
- And don't you now you gotta keep
violence out of the movement?
- You know, if I was honky I'd want niggers
to all be just like you, do nothings.
Always marching them dumb ass marches
and mouthing them dumb ass slogans.
Ain't that right, boy?
Hey, boy I'm talking to you.
- Yeah, sure.
- Let me out a here.
- You're twisted.
- Twisted?
You're the one's twisted.
Hey, you think you're man here,
you think he's the one responsible for you
having that job in Chicago?
I tell who got it for you, baby.
It was your brothers, you
know, the ones in Watts,
in Detroit, on them roofs?
With them Molotov cocktails
and them grease guns?
Hey, they're responsible baby.
'Cause the only thing that
man understands is this, violence.
- You're crazy.
- She's right.
- Now, you may be some kind
of giant brown
up on that hill of yours,
but you ain't shit here.
You're just a peg leg honky
with a gun at his head, ya dig?
Now, look at you huh?
What's the matter with you?
Look at him telling you what to do.
They wanna keep suckers
like you around to serve
on one of them dumb-ass advisory boards
or some urban renewal committee.
Ya, you play your cards right,
you'll end up owning
an apartment building,
then raising the rent on us,
niggers, who make it possible.
He don't give a shit about you.
All he cares about, is they
hung his great granddaddy.
- Well, what do you want
with all your killing?
- The same damn thing you
want with all your marching.
Only history proves my way works.
Your boy there, he's a reader.
Ain't he told you about the revolution
fixed to go off around this world?
You dun heard about the
revolution, ain't ya, boy?
- Yes, there's a revolution going on.
- Well, I'm a part of that revolution.
The revolution of the oppressed minority.
- Well, you've got to be organised
don't you at least know that?
- I'm an organization of one.
I'm headquarters, you might say,
for the revolution in Atoka county.
- And you mean, that's
how the line is drawn,
white on one side, and black on the other?
- Hey, now, when they raped you,
didn't you fight back?
Now you're learning.
Hey mister, man, when you gonna learn, huh?
When you gonna pick up a gun and fight?
Well, whenever you do,
you know where to find me.
- Yes, he's dead.
- Who killed him?
- I don't know.
I heard the shot,
I heard Chrissy cry out.
- Red neck sons of bitches.
They wanted to kill him,
Charlie Peck and Josh Franklin.
All those nuns in the
square and they end up
killing my son-
- Carl is it ready yet?
- Couple minutes yet, mama.
- I'll get you a drink.
Now you drink it.
What's the matter?
- I never thought anybody
would want to touch me again.
- That's a ringer.
- I tell you, it's been a frustrating week.
Four, Martha, bring out some more beer.
- Everything, I mean
everything's gone contrary.
- Nothing good came of what
we did to the Chicago gal.
- Now, what you should have done,
is get old Willy Washington.
It's only right, he's the
nigger that black snaked Nancy.
- Goddamn Willy sitting in
that slammer, living like a lord.
Eating like he was in the army.
We oughta kill him, tonight.
- You boys wanna go up
against old big Track?
- You bet ya, if Hardy
Riddle was to approve.
- Ain't no harm in asking him.
- Well, it's gonna take a little time.
Hardy'll have to check
with state head quarters,
they might wanna check
with the national office.
By the time they get back to us,
I'd best put a move on.
- Just turn your head around, Track,
we want Willy.
- Jesus, here we go again.
How bad do you boys want Willy?
I mean bad enough to shoot me?
- We might.
- Now, that wouldn't look very
goon on network TV, would it?
Local boys shoot dully elected sheriff.
- Quit your gassing, Track.
- Come on, Track,
give me the damn key.
- You're not taking Willy.
- Shit, Track, come next election
you gonna be grubbing cotton
and hunting coons.
- Listen,, Track we're all
white patriotic Christians.
- Well, haul ass.
Before I hit you with this,
white patriotic Christian.
- Now, now, wait a minute fellas.
- Watch your ass.
- Sheriff?
Sheriff.
- What the hell are you doing here?
- I'm here to testify before
the Lord and Sheriff Bascomb.
Willy Washington never raped Nancy Poteet.
- Is that a fact, Martha?
- It purely is because that
night Willy was with me.
- You Goddamn whore.
You son of a bitch, you nigger loving.
I'll kill her, I'll
kill her, I'll kill her!
- What the hell did you
think I do at night while
you're out running around.
- Why don't you all go out
and have a few more beers, huh?
- You gotta lock him
up for an hour, sheriff.
- Now go on, go on.
- Let me go.
- Come on, Jesse, let's
get the hell out of here.
Come on, Jess, she ain't worth it.
- Come on, Jessie, we're
gonna have couple of drinks.
- Don't let it get to you.
- I loved her, she's the mother of my kids.
- You gotta lock him up for an hour, Track,
till I can get the first
bus oughta Alabama.
- Well, that won't be necessary,
I'll get Trixie to drive ya.
Now, you boys stay with Shaneyfelt, huh,
and get rid of those Goddamn guns.
You're a brave women, Martha.
- Oh, I'm not brave,
I'm just so tired of it all.
You best look after Willy, too.
- Hello, Ron, could you tell me
where you were last
Saturday around sundown?
- He was right there with that dog and me.
- And where were you, Garth?
- Don't try to pin no rape on me.
- Where were you when your friend Henry
was jerked to heaven
and Taggert was killed?
And Johnson, and Flag?
- How do you figure?
- Why else would you be
holding a rifle on me?
You know, if I can figure
it out, so can the Klan.
And you'll end up with your
balls shoved down your throat.
- Not me.
- Not you.
Because you're leaving the county now.
And if you ever point
a gun at me again,
I'll drop you myself on sight.
- Hey, sheriff, just what were
you doing when they got Henry?
Sheriff.
- Breck, wake up.
- Wake up.
- Hm, what?
- Are you awake?
- Now I am.
- I'm hungry, are you?
- Tell me, you gonna keep these
undisciplined hours after we marry?
- Marry?
You wanna marry me?
- Well, I weren't proposing to the sandwich.
- I can't.
I've thought about it, maybe someday,
when I come back if you still want me.
- Where are you going?
- I don't know, it's a big world out there
and I've never seen any of it.
- When do you go?
- Soon.
Maybe tomorrow.
- How are you going?
- A long time ago you offered me
some money, does the offer still hold?
- Sure.
Are you sure you don't want to stay?
Is that of your considered opinion?
- I thought you wanted to get rid of me?
- I changed my mind.
It's my mind, I can change it.
- Breck, I've found I like older men.
- Yeah?
- Sorta mellow a girl,
if you know what I mean.
But you're old enough to be my uncle.
- Well, I suppose in a certain sense.
- Hey, Breck.
Thought you was a reader.
Hey, ain't you interested
in my literature?
- Jackson, one way please.
- That suit case heavy for ya?
What with your gimpy leg and all.
I mean, maybe what you need is a
real red blood patriot
American to help you tote it.
Little lady, here's one
lump might appeal to you.
- Why don't you beat it, you scum bag.
- Got a mouth as big as awful Annie's ass.
Just listen, that might help.
You must sink to a Negros level,
if you walk as his equal in
physical contact with him.
The physical touch of a
Negro is pollution and any.
- Get him, Cutt.
Get up, Cutt, let me help you.
- You wack son of a bitch.
- Cutt, Cutt, come on.
Get him, Cutt, get him,
go ahead, get him.
Come on, Cutt, get up,
get up, hit him.
Come on, Cut, get up.
Come on, come on, come on.
- Excuse me, bus leaving, God almighty.
- I'll always remember you.
- Like this?
- We're leaving, lady.
- Evening all, hi Annie.
- Hi Hector.
- Hiya Butt, what the
hell happened to you?
- Why don't you go screw yourself.
- You get hit by a truck?
Christ almighty, he looks
like Custer's massacre.
Who don't it, big Track?
Breck?
- Imagine that, beating
up on our next sheriff.
- Oh, that son of a bitch.
Draw one, Annie.
- He shamed us all by
taking in that Nancy Poteet.
- Yeah, you know he taught
Loretta how to type.
And he got her a good
job in Chicago which is
more than he's done
for any of you
decent God fearing white girls
in this whole county.
- Yeah, but he come from a
violent and ungodly family.
He oughta stretch a rope just
like his great grand daddy.
- You're right, I hear he's
even got a whole library
of Communist books.
- And you know what, he
doesn't even have a TV.
- I say, let's burn out the son of a bitch.
String him to the same goddamn tree
as his great grandaddy was strung to.
What about my three dollars?
What about my money?
- Mixing with white folk,
by God, he wouldn't have made
those sons of bitches black.
Ain't that right boys?
- What the hell's this?
- Yeah, what's he doing here?
- Vernon Hodo tells me that some of the
good old boys is kinda sore
at you, up at awful Annie.
- What else is new?
- They might be fixing to burn you out.
Tonight.
- Well, you know sprig's coming
up, the saps rising high.
- You better take this seriously.
You've been pretty salty
with these old boys.
- Well, we seem to have trouble relating.
- Usually I can relate to 'em.
See half of 'em work for me, the other half
borrow money from my bank.
But this thing is gone beyond the knife.
If I could pass on some
favorable word from you,
question is what word do I pass?
- You might ask them to disband.
- Don't waste time.
- Well, you tell them, Kluxes,
to get together and maybe we
can come to some sort of arrangement
and tell them, if they're ashamed of
their faces, they can wear
their Halloween masks.
- Now, we're getting somewhere.
Here's what you're gotta do.
You've got to acknowledge the souths
debt to the Christian
patriots to the Klan.
Two, you gotta kick
Loretta off your mountain.
And three, you gotta let big Track
evict your relief hounds.
- I can't do that.
- Well, then you're just asking
for a midnight knock on your door.
There is one other way.
I could buy ya out.
You could take the money, go to California.
- No sir.
- You could go to the south of France.
- No sir.
- You could go to the goddamn Louve.
- No sir.
I'm not leaving here,
I've lived here too long.
- Trouble is, you just lived too long.
And you got all shot up in the war.
That's when you should have died.
- I'm sorry, I disappointed you.
- In every society there's
a way out for a man
who gets himself so screwed up.
He has to die
a little bit before his time.
The ancient Greeks used hemlock,
the Japs used harikari
and America, they just jump off of bridges.
- Are you trying to tell me
to kill myself?
- I'm telling, ya, you
are killing yourself.
But you are letting
the Klan do it for you.
Aw, it's gonna take a better man,
than me to unscramble this omelette.
- I wish you luck, for
you and for all of us.
- Daddy, now I've been thinking it over.
And I decided that I
want to go to West Point.
- Well, you best spell that out for me.
- Well, there's nothing
more to say, I mean, I know
our congressman, I mean,
he's not gonna make
any appointments that the Klan
doesn't like, so I'll behave myself.
I mean, I'm not gonna make it unpleasant
for you, with your election coming up.
- You're pacing like a
stalled horse, sit down.
Now, look, son, I know a
lots been happening lately
and none of it pleasant.
But if you wanna be a tree
farmer for the rest of your life,
hell, I'll hand you the shovel.
Come next election, we might
both be planting trees.
Yeah, Trixie?
Ya, put 'em on.
Yes, Hardy, what is it?
Tonight?
On the mountain?
Alright, I'll look into it,
I'll get right on it.
- Is Breck in trouble with the Klan?
- You go on home, Allen.
- Can I help?
- I don't want you flirting
with no purple heart.
- What's the big do?
- Breck's got problems.
- The Klan again?
- Yeah, I think so.
Where are you going?
- To Stancill's mountain.
- Well, I'm going with ya.
- Now, as I told you, go home
and put out your lights.
We'll hide in the dark, as we've done
so many times before
on the hill, goodnight, Erin.
- Breck.
- Yeah?
- Here's the horns.
- There's one for you, one
for you, and one for you.
And if you hear any strangers come,
you just use those things.
- Come on, boys, let's go.
- What do you want, Track?
- I'm trying to stop a war.
If you tangle with the Klan tonight,
a lot of people could get killed,
and that would blow the
lid off of this county.
And orphan a lot of raggady ass kids.
- You know, if you'd nailed
Loretta's rapists, instead of
covering up, we wouldn't have a war
on the mountain tonight.
- What's done is done, I tried.
And I'm still trying to keep you alive.
The odds are against it.
- Tell you what you could do.
You could deputize a few good men
to guard my woods from burning.
- I tried that too.
Nobody.
Not one man in this whole
county would protect your trees.
- They're all afraid of the Klan?
- No.
- Why, then?
- They hate your guts.
You expect poor white men to like you,
when you take a blacks part against them?
You let the relief hounds
live up here for free
on poor white taxes,
you know what they say?
They say that if you had
run the blacks north
20 years ago, we'd have a
new football stadium
and higher prices for
teachers, and what's a
noble purpose to some, is a
pain in the ass to others.
I hate to tell you this,
but just as this county,
you might say, is out of step
as the rest of the world,
you arw out of step with the goddamn county.
Anyway, if there's trouble tonight,
you let me handle it, will ya?
Breck?
- Maybe I should get out.
- Well, what are you doing here?
- If he's in a tangle,
I wanna be in it with him.
- In the ditch.
- Uh uh.
- Uh uh what?
- Uh here.
- Uh uh in the ditch.
- You're gonna be killed, because
you're at a disadvantage.
The Klan wants to kill you,
but you don't wanna kill them.
- Maybe I won't have to.
- If you stay here, you'll have to.
Have to be killing them the rest of
your life, until they kill you.
That would be the most pathetic
useless murder in the
history of this town.
- Get in the house,
turn out the lights, quick.
- Allen, come on.
You take this, and get on down the road.
Don't use it unless you have to.
Cover me.
I want you to hear this!
Breck is leaving the county.
- It's too damn late now, Track.
- You boys are trespassing.
- Well now ain't that
some kind of a chicken shit crime?
You better think of
something better than that.
- Unless you got
something more important to say,
sheriff, you best get out of the way.
- I want you all to
throw down your weapons,
and come out with your
hands above your head.
- Just remember,
Track, you're one of us.
- Not anymore.
- Screw you, Track.
- Butt Cutt Cates, I am
charging you with the assault
and rape of Loretta Sykes,
and I'm charging the rest of you
as members of the Klan of Atoka county,
with conspiracy against the Constitution
of the United States and the
sovereign state of Alabama.
- Everybody watch it, he done
shot Pea right in the back.
- What a stupid waste.
- Alright boys.
- But who's left?
- Daddy, daddy, are you alright?
- Don't.
Just look around and
see if anybody's alive.
I'm gonna call for help.
- Somebody help me.
Oh God, I'm dead.
- No, not yet.
- Murderer.
- I'm the executioner.
-1099, 1099 at 10:20 at
Stancill's mountain.
I need all available
forestry fire department.
- Daddy!
Dad.
Oh, my God.
- No one'll ever
have to pass this tree again.
Got some love to share
But when it sharin' time
We all change our minds
It's a slip of the lip,
when you say you care
I keep my love over here,
you keep yours over there
And it's all in the name
of the good Christian people
Said that it's all in the name
of the good Christian people
You wanna tell the truth
Who you gonna tell it to?
Ain't got no hiddin' place
Go on and show your face
Good Christian people
Get your heart on
Don't let your feeling's and fears
Be your downfall
All in the name of the
good Christian people
Said that it's all in the name
of good Christian people
- This property is posted,
you boys are trespassing.
- Oh sheriff, we's was
just having a little fun.
- You do this for fun, you
go to hell for pleasure.
Now get out of here, go on.
- Aw old Lightning Rod don't object.
He likes a piece of whiskers,
we's gonna give him a dollar.
Ain't no nigger girl a
mind being raped a little.
- How'd you figure
where we was anyhow?
- Well Lightning Rod's
mama saw you fetch him
and she figured what was spreding in the air.
Alright boys, party's over.
Rod, oh Rod.
Here's your dollar.
Go on, take it.
Now, you know where you live?
DO you?
Well, you go on home now.
Go on.
You too, Bobby.
- Well, you mind if I get my
wife, I mean she's got the car.
- And where she at?
- Oh, she just up the hill there, a piece.
She and Mrs. Alverson bird watching.
- I'll give you a lift.
- Ah, thank you, sheriff.
- I'm turnin' here.
- Thanks a lot sheriff,
Nancy's waiting for me already.
I'll see you.
- Hi Track.
- Could you spare me a few minutes, Breck?
- Sure, sure.
- Well, if you wanna
finish what you're doing
I might lend ya a hand.
- No, no, no, it's okay.
It's practically finished anyway.
You can go in, come inside?
Would you like a drink?
- Not just yet.
The last time I was out here you could see
27 miles across north west Alabama.
You getting tired of the view?
- No the trouble is the
birds keep on flying into the
glass, because they can't see
them and break their wings.
- Well, why don't you just throw
an old fishnet over the window?
That way you'd have your
view and your birds.
- Well, I just guessing,
calculate I never thought of it.
- You know, I swear if a fly was to
bust his leg, you'd be coming
running with a split.
Do you plan on welcoming
the strangers next week?
- You mean the black folk demonstration?
- You gonna let them
camp on your mountain?
- I hadn't intended to, why?
- Well, a lot of the good
country people asked me what
you're gonna do and I didn't
know, so I thought I'd ask you.
- It's none of their business, is it?
- Well, it's just that they
don't like a lot of strangers
coming in and telling them
how to run their county.
Maybe they got a point.
- I'm not gonna be down in the court house
square cheering the movement.
I don't like circuses.
- But you won't be cheering
against either, will you?
- Well, I'll try to maintain
a dignified neutrality.
Now, what do you want to drink?
- Well, you got anymore
of that brown whisky?
- Yeah, you know where it is.
You think you might be having
trouble with the strangers?
- No, I don't think so, no.
- No, someones coming.
Someday your father's gonna catch us.
- Ah, forget about it.
- What were you
doing all afternoon?
- Who me?
I wasn't doing nothing.
What in the world, this thing is skipping.
Anyway, we'll get a new car in the spring,
don't make no sense to fix it up now.
- You've been saying that since Christmas.
- Almighty what in the
hell is, the hell.
- I have had it with this,
I have had it with the car.
It must be the engine.
- Figured it out by yourself, did ya?
- Come on, let's go into
town and get a tow truck.
Come on.
- I'm tired.
I've been on my feet all day,
I'm not walking no four miles to town.
- You ain't?
Well, I recon you can just wait here then.
- I'm cold.
- Will you make up your
goddamn, bang tailed mind
how do you feel this morning?
And don't go messin' with
the God damn radio you hear?
'Cause I don't hold no grudge
A grudge ain't never been
strong enough to block our love
' No!
No!
No!
No!
No!
- Well, I can guaran-goddamn-tee ya one thing.
We're not gonna have no
trouble from outside agitators.
Not as long as I'm the mayor.
- What I wanna know, how we gonna stop em?
- We, you mean the Klan'?
Well, the Klan's gonna do nothing.
I spoke to the Grand Dragon in Birmingham.
He says nothing, we're gonna let them have
their sweet Jesus freedom
"we shall overcome",
get out the God damn
black vote demonstration.
- We might have some trouble
with the membership about that,
they're getting kinda antsy.
- Well, then I suggest you take 'em down to
awful Annie's and let
them get their rocks off.
I tell you what,
as the president of the
Atoka Lumber Company
I'll pick up the tab.
- Well, that's truly kind off you, Mr. Hardy
But what I was thinking that,
well, we should you know--
- The thing is when a good
old boy joins the Ku Klux,
every once in a while he wants to cluck
and I know the feeling.
- Do ya?
- You betcha I do.
- Well, let me tell you something.
I don't care if you're the
deputy sheriff and my own brother in law.
You nor nobody else get
special clucking privileges.
- The boys get tired of coming over here
to meet and talk about the Fourth of July
picnic and Christmas
turkeys for orphans
and horse shit like that.
They figure they're missing
too many good TV shows.
- As a matter of fact
the boys was planning
a little action for tonight, Hardy.
Kind of a preventive action, so to speak.
Nows the time to discourage our niggers
from attending that
demonstration next week
- We thought you'd want to know about it.
- Well, I got to know about it.
Hell, I'm the God damn exalted cyclops.
What I don't want to know
is what you're gonna do.
You see, one of these days I
might have to put my hand
on the Bible, what we oughta talk about
is what you're not gonna do.
Now, you're not gonna kill nobody.
- No, we ain't gonna do that.
- And you're not gonna maim nobody like
cutting off some niggers nuts
or slicing up his back, so I get to read
in the New York Times
what barbarians we are.
And you're not gonna dynamite no churches.
' No.
- Then I guess it's alright.
What I mean is this.
We've got fine Christian people here
both black and white, we
got great opportunity,
my only interest is the orderly
development of Atoka county.
And none of us want a
bunch of agitators, whores,
punks, scum, atheists, perverts,
all controlled by the Communists coming
in here, bothering our niggers.
The boys at state head
quarters don't mind if you
go out and burn a few crosses
every once in a while,
every once in a while take an agitator out
and touch him up a bit,
leave him feeling chastised
so he knows his
good Christian neighbors
just doing what you gotta do,
so everybody can get along.
- Sure, Hardy, sure.
- Hello.
What?
God almighty.
Nancy Poteets done been raped.
- What?
Well, thank you for calling,
Fred, I appreciate it, right.
- Nancy Poteet?
- 'Lil yellow headed gal.
- Jesus Christ.
Raped by a nigger.
- What nigger?
- Well, we don't know yet.
- I'll venture a guess.
- I guess and calculate it's
that God damn Willy Washington.
- That black son of a
bitch, get your guns.
- Now, wait a minute, just
wait a minute, God damn it.
- Aw, he's queer for married women,
always did get his enjoys out
of some other niggers wife.
- Always bragging on his
triumphs at the sawmill.
- Well, this is different if he
stuck his black peg in a white hole.
- Alright you boys
remember what I told ya,
just take it easy, you hear me?
- God damn it, you boys wait for the law.
- Come on, Vernon, do something.
- How in the hell am I
going to hold 'em now?
You got any suggestions about that, Hardy?
- Well, God damn it, you've gotta try.
- Willy.
- What it is?
- Step outside for a minute.
- You can run it down to me right here.
- Where were you between eight and nine?
- Tonight?
I was poppin'
me a piece of heaven.
- What was her name?
- Now, Sheriff, I don't go around
talkin' about my delight.
- Willy, I'm not here to pass
the God damn time of day.
I got a warrant for your arrest.
- Well, I ain't gonna be namin'
no names, 'cause that kind of
stuff'll get me in a
whole peck of trouble.
- You are in a peck of trouble.
I'm arresting you for rape.
- She said it was rape?
- Let's go, Willie.
You get in the front.
You better jump in the back, Willy.
- Thank you,
Sheriff, it sure gonna feel
a lot safer back here.
- We want him, Track.
- Sherif,f goddamn it, be reasonable.
- Don't dispute us, Mr. Bascomb,
we're just trying to save the
county the cost of a trial.
- I know what you're trying
to do. Now, if you boys'll just
back off and let me do my elected duty.
- Your goddamn duty
is to us, we elected ya,
and by God, we can unelect ya.
- Well, until that great day comes...
You take your hand off that arm.
- Son of a bitch.
- Shit, alright, get in the truck.
- Hey, hey, couple niggers.
- Well, what cha say, boys?
It's Garth, that uppity
spade, and his friend Henry.
Let's get the son of a bitch.
- Come on, Henry, come on, bank up.
- Get those bastards.
- Come on, you guys, get 'em.
Come on, come on, let's go get 'em.
Come on.
Let's go.
- Come on, man, come on.
- Garth!
Garth!
- Catch him, catch him!
- Hey, wait for me, man!
- Jessie, your skinning knife.
- Whatcha all doin' to me?
No'. No'. No!
- Let's go.
Alright now, you all know
the rules. We each gotta put a
shot in him.
- No, no, no, no, no.
- What is it?
Breck, can I ask you a
world famous question?
- What, at this time of night?
- Why won't you marry me?
I mean really?
I'd light your pipe, I'd
put out your slippers
I'd even read you the funny papers.
Well, Mayor Hardy Riddle
asked me to marry him
that's a secret.
- Well, Mayor Hardy Riddle is married.
- Of course he is, that's
why it's a secret.
- Well, you know I wouldn't turn
him down because he weighs
in at about a million dollars.
- Hm, well, he's too fat.
- What's that?
What're you saying?
- I said, if you'd marry me
I'd live in a tent and eat turnips.
- You could pester fine.
- I hear Loretta Sykes is coming back.
Is she gonna stay up here on the mountain?
- Loretta's coming back
to see her grandma.
- Are you gonna start that up again?
- Start what?
- Getting your chocolate milk from her.
- That is a disgusting expression.
- Yes I know, but are you?
- Why I never did it.
- Well I've got to believe
you although everybody says
that you used to lift her skirt up
with a certain regularity.
- Loretta's coming home to see her
grandma, because her
grandma is dying of cancer.
- That's not what they
say down at the office.
Butt Cutt said she's coming
back for the demonstration.
- What does big Track say?
- Big Track says nothing about anything.
If spoken words were a dollar
a dozen he'd be bankrupt.
- It's probably why he's the
best sheriff we've ever had.
- I don't know.
This town, it shivers me, like that
gun fire suddenly in the middle
of the night, what was it?
- Oh, it was maybe
they're out coon hunting,
or maybe it was a drunk
stumbling around in the dark.
Maybe it was a keg of dynamite.
- I feel like we're all sitting on it,
waiting for it to go off.
- That's how they found Henry, just
up the hill behind the juke
joint on the Birmingham road.
- Who'd you figure done it?
- A little something
from a national office
- You wanna know who done it?
Probably some other nigger.
- Probably so.
- Or one of them outside agitators.
Some of them's already in town,
a nigger by the name of Charlie Peck
and a mongolizing white preacher.
- Preacher?
- Well he was wearing one
of them front ass collars.
- No don't worry about it,
we had the word on that
bunch a long time ago.
- In any case we'll take
care of them bastards.
- That's right.
- For sure.
- This republic is great,
not because of our land,
our wealth, or our population.
We are great because of the genius of
pioneer white freeman who
settled this continent
dared the might of kings and made
the wilderness a home of freedom.
Our future depends on the purity
of this racial stock.
Granting the ballot to Negros
is a crime against human progress.
Trash.
- Open three.
- Hi.
- Hey, sheriff Bascomb, hey
sheriff, I wanna talk to you.
- Okay, Toddy, out.
- Thanks, sheriff.
- How you feeling?
- Holy, must have been something I ate.
- Must have been something
you washed it down with.
- I'll swear to you,
I'll never do it again.
I'll swear to you on a stack--
- Stack of six packs.
- What did I do?
- Well, you gave your wife
one hell of a nose bleed,
you wrapped a kid something
awful, you mashed the cat,
then you killed the dine.
- God almighty.
You fixed it with my wife?
- You can go home now.
- Hey, hey mister, hi, sheriff, sir.
Did old Henry rape Miss Nancy Poteet?
Well all I know is it sure
in the hell wasn't me,
why that warrant you laid on me at that
juke joint kinda, kinda
caught me by surprise.
Shit, I sure in the hell
didn't have to rape her.
- Hey Track, Track, he'd
done it to me again,
he yanked down my bulletin in front of
Hardy Riddle and everybody,
I mean don't he give a diddly damn
about preserving the purity of the race?
- He don't care about the people that do.
Why he even thinks our
great governor is a pissant.
- You know something,
he even hates the Han.
- Well, maybe he has his reasons.
- Yeah, but that happened a long time ago,
you know, in the holy here,
and now I think I might
knock Mr. High and mighty Breck
right flat on his stiff legged ass.
- Oh, no, you won't, he knows
karate from the marines,
he can ram his fist in a
barrel of rice up to his elbow.
- Hey, honey cheeks, let
me tell you something,
I got friends and we got ways.
- Sure, sure, I know you
can poison Breck's dog or
you can shoot his horse,
or maybe you could burn
down his trees, or maybe
you could shotgun him
in his pick up, sure I know.
- Well, maybe that's the way it'll end.
But as long as I'm sheriff
you ain't gonna be the one to do it.
- Well, if you say so, Track,
I mean, if that's what you want or shit.
Could be so easy, there he is now.
Right now over at the bus depot.
- Welcome home.
- Thank you, Breck.
- How's the job?
- 120 a week, it's kind
of a miracle for a,
for a handkerchief head five
years out of the corn pone belt.
- You married?
- When I left, you told me to keep my
skirt down and my legs crossed.
- Well I didn't mean it to last forever.
By this time I expected you
to have a husband, a Chevy,
and an old electric kitchen.
- Oh, the Chevy I got, you're the one that
taught me to strive, make
a run for the middle class.
But you're not much of a striver yourself.
Now are you?
- Well, you know there's
not much use striving
on a 3000 acres that grows
nothing but rocks and pines and.
- And relief hounds.
- Well, sure, they're have their shacks,
their welfare checks,
and have a TV and hope for heaven.
- They're mummified,
you think it's too late
for them to change?
- Why should they change?
It's all they've ever wanted.
- And you Breck, what do you want?
- Much the same thing,
as long as there's quiet on the mountain.
- Grandma wrote you never married.
- She wrote right, did she write you
about the demonstration next week?
- I wrote her.
- It could be dangerous.
- Danger's just another way of
thinning out talent down here.
- Well, down here, you know,
we work without nets.
- Breck, I'm not against
shaking up the mountain a bit.
But I came back because the only creature
in the world who really
ever loved me is dying.
I guess that's not the whole truth.
Guess, I also came back to
see what happened there,
well, see what happened to you.
- Who is it?
- A couple of friends.
Are you Loretta Sykes?
- Yes.
- This is Charles Peck, I am
the reverend Josh Franklin.
- So what do you want?
- We know you're with the movement.
- Chicago?
- Ya, we were hoping you'd help us here
on Stancill's mountain.
- Help you do what?
There's nobody here anymore.
Just a dozen people or so.
- They all count and they're gonna
learn where the ballot box is.
- A dozen old people waiting to die,
most of 'em can't even
read, five or six kids in a
sprinter's crouch,
waiting to take off for
Chicago or the army.
- So lay it on them why they have to vote.
- Most of them too young.
Something else to.
Both of you guys city dudes,
you don't know what a forest fires like,
you start messing with
these people up here
and they'll burn you out.
They'll be homeless, someone be dead.
Now, is that what you want to
do, set this place on fire?
- The fire's everywhere,
everybody's gotta risk getting burned.
- Well, that's big talk.
- I got you pegged baby, you ain't no
anti-Tom handkerchief head,
you're in he movement alright.
Right up to your polished finger tips
but not up to your tight little butt.
You eating high, you
got your own private can
in Chicago, so you ain't
too pained about your
poor raggady ass brothers and sisters
with nits in their hair and
grits in their over hauls.
- Charles take it easy.
Who is this Breck Stancill?
Is he a brother of the sheet?
- Not in his head, nor in his heart.
Just likes to read and
work in these woods.
- He got any bread?
We could use the donation.
- Even the relievers feel sorry for Breck,
he doesn't even have a TV set.
- He must be some kind of nut.
- Yes, a very stubborn kind of nut.
With a long memory.
See that tree?
That's the most famous,
the most infamous tree in
the history of our county.
Breck's great grandfather
opposed succession
was against slavery.
So the local red necks, they hanged
judge Stancill from this tree in 1861.
- What's he ever done about it?
- Well, there's not much he can do.
Going past this tree
everyday, it must remind him.
I guess that's what
makes him drink so much.
Maybe it's a pain in
his leg, I don't know.
- That's tough, but we've
all of us got some kind
of cross to bear, next week me and Josh
will be toting ours in
the court house square.
Eyeball to eyeball with old
big Track and old Butt Cutt
and all the other hyenas.
- I think you'll survive.
- I've been thinking
baby, maybe one night I'll
slip back to here through
the confederate lines
and you can comfort me
on the eve of Armageddon.
- I think you better stick to those long
stringy head girls with
the dirty tennis sneakers.
- Okay, baby, but if you
hear me running through
the woods with them dogs on my tail
don't harden your heart against me.
You will do me that favor.
- I'll be running right
with you steady buck,
matching your stride for stride.
- How do you figure that?
- 'Cause I'll be with ya,
in the court house sqaure.
See ya.
- Who is that?
Oh, constant denied.
Shit house mouse.
Shit house mouse.
Look at that.
Haven't worn our glory
suits for a long time.
Freeze!
- Why didn't you just kill him?
- Nigger!
- And this is Johnson's shot gun.
- Ever find the murder weapon?
- No but we think it was
an automatic or a pump,
or a five empties double out back.
- Got any idea who did it?
- Not yet.
- And you think it was a black huh?
- Jan, putting your words in
my mouth won't win you the Pulitzer prize.
- Hey, wait a minute.
- Track, I've come all the way from
Birmingham on a God damn Sunday morning
and this stud in the barn yard threads,
he's come from New York.
- You've got to give us
something, even if it's filler.
- What's the crime rate in this county?
- Nothing to write about.
- No crime or you don't
keep records of the rate?
- There are two kinds of law
open to a back county sheriff.
He can book and punish.
- That way every peckerwood in
this county would have a police record.
- Or he can cool things,
smooth them out by
bending the law a little to
keep people from breaking them.
- Sheriff, that's mighty
fine cracker barrel
talk but we've got a
job to do and it might
be best for all of us if you
were a little more cooperative.
- Well, I could be more cooperative if
I got back to work, huh?
- Isn't there anybody
around here we can talk to?
- Well, why don't you try
Trixie in the other room,
you'll find her very cooperative.
- We'll be back.
- You are always welcome.
- What I wanna know is who
the hell does he think he is?
Trixie baby.
- Hello.
- Hey Trixie, working on Sunday?
- Hi Jan.
- Hi.
- Winston, New York Times.
- Aren't you a little off your beat?
- Not if this is Ellington, Alabama,
the garden spot of the universe.
- And the news capital of the world.
- At least this week.
- Why the sudden interest
in the back woods of Alabama?
- Well, maybe it has something to do
with a rape and a couple of murders.
- And a black vote
demonstration coming up.
- Or maybe it has to do with the fact
that the human skin differs in pigment.
- Ah, sugars in homicide.
- What do you think honey?
What I mean is how did all this happen?
How did it start?
- I guess it started in 1619 where the
sea captain lying off Virginia
with the first cargo of slaves.
Sometimes I wish the son of a bitch had
been fired on and denied
permission to land.
Oh, it's a missing persons.
- Uh, sheriff, I gotta see you.
- What is it Bobby?
- Listen, I'm leaving town.
- Oh, then I guess you better give me
a forwarding address in case you.
- Oh no, no, not with Nancy,
I mean, I'm sorry, but I
cannot take it no more.
Working in the market
there cutting up pork chops
for some lady who I just know wants to
ask me how does it feel
to screw a wife that's
been screwed by a nigger.
But, but, what bothers me is
it don't bother her.
She's got no shame.
- Where will you go?
- Oh God, I don't know.
All I know is I'm going greyhound.
Just like the niggers, God damn it.
Why did this thing have to happen to me?
- You don't think that
there's anyway that you could.
- No, no, no, listen would you
give her my insurance policy?
And this 34 dollars,
now I've divided it up.
Half for her and half for grey hound.
Just tell her that.
- And because of them the
way of truth will be reviled.
Oh, Lord, give us a sign so
we may know what we must do.
And grant us the strength to do it.
Amen.
We stand alone, besieged by God's enemy's.
Our once Christian nation is
being delivered to the godless.
We are losing our young people.
Look around you.
They are not here,
they have banished themselves
from their righteous company.
Just as God's alter has been
banished from those schools.
Bearing the mark of the black beast
are being forced into the
innocent fellowship of our children.
As devoted parents and patriots
we must stand up for Jesus.
And Ella.
- I can smell nigger on her,
I can truly smell nigger on her.
- Get out, get out.
- Shame.
- Filth.
- How can you push yourself
on these good Christian folks?
After being in that niggers foul embraces?
- Please, please, please.
Will the congregate, will the
congregation, please be seated.
- Well, she don't belong here.
- I think I'm gonna faint.
- If you have any
Christian decadency in you,
you will leave.
I am waiting.
- You blame me for what happened?
As though I did something filthy?
Well, you're the filthy ones.
You lying Christian people.
- Nancy, come on now,
let's get out of here.
- I wish I could forgive you like our Lord
forgave his enemies.
- They're just trying to bother you.
- But I won't!
I can't!
And I never will!
I am not ashamed for what
happened, I did nothing!
- You know it's quiet
and peaceful up here.
It's a shame.
- What's a shame.
- I mean up here, Nancy'd be outta sight.
Outta sight, outta mind.
Nobody be calling her names
or smelling nigger on her.
- Track, I got about, I guess 200 dollars,
now you take it and ship her off,
I don't care where to the Vatican,
to the Salvation Army,
or to anyone who cares enough
about nursing her back to health.
- Oh, she's healthy enough,
that's the trouble.
She's too damn healthy.
- Why she suddenly become so healthy?
- When a yellow headed
gal gets black snaked
the good country people think
she oughta dig a hole
and stick her head in it.
If she ain't dead from rape
she oughta suicide herself.
Or at least have the decadency
to be all torn up and crying
and trembling with shame.
But hell, Nancy kept her head.
She even showed up in church
and that's when it hit the fan.
- How could I ever get rid of her?
- Beats the hell oughta me.
- I'd have to supply her with food.
- Unless you wanted her to starve.
- She'd have to move in here with me
and you go tell her it can't be done.
- Aw hell, you do that much
for a bird with a broken wing.
Okay, you tell her it can't be done.
She's out in the car.
- Come on in.
- Why the hell did you take
Nancy Poteet up to Breck's?
Ain't you got enough on your hands?
You keep riling these good country people,
come next election you're
gonna be flat out on you ass.
- So who you gonna put in, Butt Cutt?
He's already set the brother
in law business back 20 years.
- At least he don't
make so damn many waves.
Track you're the best
sheriff this county ever had,
but you don't know anymore
about business than
a hog knows about Sunday.
The growth and well being of
this county depends on business.
- But what's that got to
do with Nancy Poteet?
- It's got to do with race relations!
- Well everything does.
- You rocking the boat you know.
We got this conflict now
the blacks are moving north,
and going to Chicago,
they're joining the army
so they can get a 1500 dollar bonus,
then they can go to Germany for two years
and just wallow in that kraut snatch
and become ski instructors.
And what happens to me?
I gotta replace them with whites,
but no self respecting white will do
grunt labor for what I pay the niggers.
I can't make no money outta relief checks,
that's all that'd be left.
First thing you know I'd be up there on
the mountain with Breck,
sitting in a rocking chair
jawin' with a bunch of old shines.
- Shit.
- You're cutting your
own throat to ya know.
That's right, there's a
black majority in this county
what's gonna happen if they
decide to run old junior
here for sheriff, where'd you be then,
where'd you be with
your gift house from the
grateful county people, and your gift car,
and your kid going to West Point?
Got you where it hurts don't I?
And don't look at me like I'm the heavy
'cause I'm not, if you wanna
know who the heavy is I'll tell ya.
It's the system and we're
all of us caught up in it.
You, me, Breck, all of us.
And it's gonna be one
hell of a mess when them
newspaper men come in
here and go up to Breck
and he starts mouthing about that sweet
little Nancy Poteet, that poor little
yellow headed outcast that you saved from
a ravaging horde of church goers,
when that happens we're all gonna be
in a deep shit on national television.
- So she says red eye gravy on your grits
I thought she was offering me a shot of.
- On.
- Trixie , who is this Breck Stancill?
- Breck?
- Ya, who the hell does he think he is?
He won't even talk to us.
- He's fairly particular who he talks to.
Here make yourself useful.
His families been around here
for eight generations you know.
- Maybe that's what makes him so peculiar.
He wouldn't even let us shoot
a still of his God damn dog.
- You must understand
if that dog were just
another sorry cur with
mange I think he would
have said okay, but Chrissy's pure bred
and some of the people
around here might be
peeved because it's Breck's,
and the dog might come to harm.
- What about the black reliefers?
All I wanted was a shot inside one
of their shacks to show the awful poverty.
- That awful poverty isn't as
awful as the white reliefers.
Blacks on Stancill's
mountain get free rent,
a vegetable patch, fire wood,
rat poison, a solid roof,
a church, and a grave yard.
Anybody reading about them might be
tempted to practice a little arson.
- Isn't there anything we
can write about Mr. Breck Stancill?
- Yes, there's this.
Birds are leaving this part of
Alabama, like yellow hammers.
They need a worthless, half
rotten, old oak tree to live in.
The only tree farmer who
spares old oaks is Breck,
he let's them stand sprawling his forest,
costing him money,
all that for the sake
of the yellow hammers.
- God, that's fascinating.
- Yes, I thought you'd be touched.
Anything else?
- Yes, are you busy tonight?
- What have you got in mind?
- Well, we could go down town
and watch them turn on the street lights.
- Or we could go to my room
at the Heart of Dixie Motel,
and listen to the plumbing.
- Sorry, I've had enough
excitement in the past few days.
- What about tomorrow?
I'll take you to Johnson's funeral.
- We could both take you.
- Now, that's a date.
That make me pure
Rock of ages cleft for me
Let me hide myself in thee
- Must have been some of
them God damn agitators.
- Shamed us in front of the grand wizard
and two imperial dragons.
- No, it weren't no agitator.
- What do you mean no, a couple of our
night hawks saw them up
on Stancill's mountain.
John with that nignog Loretta.
- I know that, but it weren't
anyone who shot Taggert.
- Now, how can you be so God damn sure?
- Remember the night we got Henry?
- Uh huh.
- Well, Garth was with him.
He must have seen what we did to him.
That black son of a bitch
got Johnson, got Taggert,
and I think he's fixing
to get us all one by one.
- Yeah, you tell Track?
- How could I, how could I tell him
it was us that got Henry?
- Well I'll tell him, I'll tell him I got
an anonymous phone call,
no, I'll go bring him myself,
I'll get that son of a bitch.
- How you gonna do that,
how you gonna find him?
- How, how am I gonna find him?
Listen, I'll lay you five
to ten that that gal
agitator gots him stashed away in
her shack up in the mountains.
- I dunno, that's Breck's
private piece of brown comfort.
You wanna go up against Breck?
- Anytime, anyplace.
But this is the one night of the week that
Mrs. Big Track Bascomb takes pity on that
poor miserable son of a bitch bachelor
and asks him to supper.
- Huh, Mrs. Track never asks me
to supper, she ever ask you?
- Wouldn't go if she were to ask,
but particularly not tonight,
we've got more important things to do.
Come on man, Hector, come on boys.
Got a lot a work to do.
- Hey!
- What do you want?
- Open up.
Look, you don't want me
to put the hood on you.
- Have you got a search warrant?
- Search warrant, my ass, give me that
I'll open the God damn.
- Alright, alright, shh.
- Search warrant, heh.
- What's that 'retta?
- Nothing grandma.
- Evening.
Have a good look around boys, I mean good.
Alright Loretta, where's Garth?
- I have no idea.
- Anybody else in the house?
- Like you saw, just my grandmother.
- Loretta, tell me, what
brought you back here?
- It's my grandmother, she's dying.
- Don't you lie to me, nigger.
You've come here to demonstrate.
Two days ago you let them
two communist agitators
into this house, and they
spent the night with you.
- They come to my door, we
talk for about ten minutes,
but nobody spent the night here.
- Well, now that's a crock.
But at least you're admitting that
the three of you was conspiring.
- I never said that.
- Yes, conspiring against the peace
and dignity of Atoka county.
- If you've got charges that I...
- Ya, I might have, I just might have,
you know, for example, there's a law
in this state against a nigger gal
committing fornication with a white man.
- Nothing like that happened.
- On |'|| bet it didn't,
| just bet it didn't.
You know, I can see you in that
court room now, a swearing ya?
That you and them communists spent a night
in a shack in the woods,
and all you did was pray
and count nigger votes
and sing a few verses
of We Shall Overcome
- Nothing, nothing, nobody home.
- You sure?
- Not a squeak.
- Well, I'm taking you in,
that's what I'm gonna do, yeah.
- What for?
- For further investigating.
- Grandma, I'll be back soon,
the neighbors will look after you.
- Let's get her ass in the truck.
- Get your hands off me.
- Well I'll do the dishes later.
- Nah, I'll do 'em.
- I do wanna pay my
respects to Mrs. Taggart.
- Thank you, Mable,
you sure do set a fine table.
- Aw, well thank you for joining us.
Yes?
Just a minute.
Right, right.
Alright, yeah, alright.
Oh, Allen.
That was Mayor Hardy Riddle, seems that
he got a phone call from
your high school principle.
It seems that you've been
going around tearing down
all them patriotic
bulletins that Butt Cutt
goes to such trouble to put up.
- That's right, daddy.
- Seems like you
got yourself a fan.
- You oughta quit that,
Allen, got too much to lose.
- What for instance?
- West Point that's what.
- Daddy.
- You don't suppose you
could get an appointment
to West Point without Hardy
Riddles support, do ya?
Or his friends in high places.
- To hell with Hardy Riddle, I
don't wanna go to West Point.
Now, daddy, I've been trying
to tell you of what I want
I want to be a tree farmer,
I could be like an apprentice to Breck.
I wanna marry Billy Jean, I
wanna stay close to my family,
I ain't gonna fight any goddamn wars.
- How about you take a walk, Allen.
- I gotta do the dishes.
- Later.
- I'm sorry.
- Hell.
- Life is one long suffer.
- But does it have to be?
You know, I often wonder why you do it.
- Do what?
- Tear down Butt Cutts bulletins.
- 'Cause I don't buy that racist bullshit.
- But don't you think
that's just a little.
- Self indulgent?
- That's a good word for it.
I mean, of all the good
country people in this county
have you ever managed to influence anyone?
Change their mind about anything?
- Allen's, suppose you wish I hadn't.
- Well I don't know, who the hell can say?
- This I know.
We live in a Klan-ridden
society, about 40 gorillas
dominating the lands of
16,000 so called free people.
- Well, if you think the Klan is just
a fist full of red necks
we got your facts twisted.
There's over 6000 Klan members stretching
from here to California,
membership over half a million.
- Doesn't that sadden you Track?
- I'll tell you what saddens me.
You and the Klan are
runnin' a collision course.
- Just 'cause I treat blacks they were
members of the human race?
- No, because you're so God
damn righteous about it.
You know that the Klan has a shit list
down at state head quarters?
And did you know that
your name is on that list?
- How do you know my name was on it?
- Well, as a police officer
I'm given a certain.
You're making this tough on me.
- Why?
- Because I'm trying to keep you
alive and you won't cooperate.
- You a member of the Klan, Track?
- What the hell kind
of a question is that?
- What the hell kind of an answer is that?
- I'm a tell you something.
I'm just a back country sheriff,
up for election every year,
and in order to get reelected
I had to swear allegiance to
the Rotary, the American
allegiance, even God.
That's right, I'm a card carrying member
of the West Ellington
First Baptist Church,
and I'm an honorary captain
in the State Troopers,
and a light colonel in the National Guard,
and something else, I
don't even know what,
Boy Scouts of America.
I'll tell you this, I
wouldn't be the first
public servant that ever joined the Klan,
we have congressmen in
this state, senators,
Supreme Court judge.
Why don't you drink your whisky
and we'll chin more
ice on another subject.
- She alright?
Just hold her, don't worry yet.
- Now that we got her, what we gonna do?
- We must give the enemy a sign.
- Begging your pardon, preacher,
but what in the hell does that mean?
- Every black knows Loretta
Sykes and the reds are
expecting to lead a demonstration
in Ellington in a few days.
God expects his people to fight back.
- And we are God's
instruments so let's beat
the living shit out of
her, excuse it, Reverend,
and just take her down main street
and leave her there for everbody to see.
- That won't work.
What we need is something that won't
show on TV or bring in any
more of them outside reporters.
- What we need is something
that hurts niggers
and nigger lovers that won't show.
- You mean some kind of torture?
- Sorta, you know in
my time I handled lots
of niggers in the woods, but
I never yet hit one,
I always let some other
nigger do it for me, cause
nothing hurts a nigger more
than having some
smart white man sit back
and watch another nigger
beat the piss out of them.
- You mean you want that nigger
got beat up by another nigger?
- I mean, Lightning Rod, that gal
be one unholy mess when
old Lightning Rod's
through with her.
- You just hold on Vern,
You know, Jesse, there's better ways to do it.
Ya see, a nigger gal don't
mind being raped a little
by another nigger, but
suppose, I mean just suppose
a white man would nail her, why for her
that would be humiliating,
although it'd keep
her damn mouth shut later
for TV, but she'd probably
haul ass back to Chicago even
before the demonstration,
but every nigger in the
county would get the picture
that the Klan is on the job
and they gonna make it hard,
I mean, real hard for any black son of
a bitch what gets out of line.
- That's right, that's right.
- Who's gonna nail her?
- Well, let me put it this
way, there ain't nothing
old Lightning Rod can do,
that old Butt Cutt can't do better.
- Let's get her out of the truck.
Come on, bring her out, bring her out.
- Get her over there.
- Give her to me.
Come here.
Come here.
Come here, you.
Gotcha ya.
- Oh, no.
- I always wanted me some
of that black meat, baby.
- Oh no, it looks like old Butt
Cutts gonna need some help.
- You little dark meat, you.
Grab her, and the legs.
Grab her.
- Hold that leg.
- Would you take a ride,
old Butt Cutt's gets in there,
we're gonna find some nigger,
we're gonna find some.
- Oh, brother sweet Jesus.
- Good God, he'll tear
something loose in her.
- Nigger women are made for it.
- Jesus, this is better
than dogs fighting a bear.
- Where are we gonna dump her?
We can't leave her here
in the lumber shed.
- I hope, what's been done tonight serves
the purpose for which it was intended.
- What're we gonna do?
- I think, Big Track oughta handle this
and I'm going to get him,
you best wait here
with her Butt Cutt.
- Loretta?
Loretta, get up.
Come on, Loretta.
Come on, get up.
Loretta, you gonna be alright, ya hear?
Track, we had an accident.
A accident.
- Get in.
Get in!
- Sheriff, I'm gonna bleed to death
if you don't get me to a hospital.
You know, but you're not moving.
You wanna kill me, don't you?
Sheriff.
- You know, I could grab that squawk box
and call the hospital and
have the doctor there.
Turn on the red lights and the siren
and you could be in emergency
with in ten minutes.
If we can make a deal.
- Deal, what kind of deal?
- Nothing much, just have
to make me a promise.
- What do I have to do?
- Butt Cu? Gates picked
you up 'm the mountain,
took you into town and tried to book you,
he had nothing to hold you on,
so he released you at 9:15.
You were hitching a ride
back to the mountain,
when a black man in a car,
kind of good looking, tall,
blue glasses, picked you
up and gave you a lift
back to the mountain, but
instead he drove you here,
where three other blacks
were waiting for ya,
and they did this to ya.
- That's not the truth, sheriff.
- Nothing is true.
- I have no choice, do I?
- Nobody has a choice.
- Alright, alright, it's a deal.
Just hurry, sheriff.
- Promise me.
- It's a deal, okay?
Hurry, sheriff, hurry.
- And Loretta?
- Loretta, she's gonna be alright.
I have her permission to describe her
injury to the both of
you and to no one else.
When she arrived here. she
was bleeding heavily from the vagina.
She had been subjected
to violent intercourse.
- Did she tell you who did it?
- Yes, she said it was four Negros.
We've made the necessary
repairs to the damaged tissue.
What accounted for the heavy,
even dangerous bleeding
was an unusual vascular
concentration in the area,
where her so called
maiden hood was ruptured.
A ruptured hymen is an observable fact,
like a broken leg.
But I know what you're thinking.
- Everybody in the county
knows a black girl's
popped by the time she's 13 years old.
- This time, sheriff, you might
have to do something about it.
- Well, that's killing talk
The idea that Loretta was a virgin
will never occur to the
good country people.
I'll be damned I if mention it.
- You better take her things to her.
She's over there in 18, Sheriff.
- Hi there.
- How's my grandma?
- Oh she's fine, she's fine.
You know, Trixie just made her some supper
and now they're sitting around,
watching some thing instructive on TV.
- All your efforts to make me striving.
- In a few days you'll be
back in Chicago again, striving again.
- No, I don't think I want to Breck.
Maybe, maybe I've been
doing a wrong number.
I, I'd a quit long ago if
you hadn't encouraged me.
- Well, you know to encourage people
is sometimes a reckless act.
- Well, don't fret about me,
I'll get along.
I just wanted you to be so proud of me.
I guess, guess I kinda lost
track of what I wanted in life.
- What do you want?
- I've been thinking about it,
guess I just have to think some more.
- Not now, you're to tired.
- Breck, before you go can
you give me some advice?
- Well, advice and encouragement
are both equally reckless.
- About what happened to me,
I lied to the doctor.
I had to, I promised the sheriff.
- Does the sheriff know the truth?
- Yes, but I want you to know, you see.
- Shh, shh, that's killing talk.
You keep your promise to the sheriff.
- Why should I?
- To stay alive till
we get you out of here.
- Alright, Breck, alright.
Breck, how's my grandma?
Did I ask ya that?
- She's fine, they're all fine,
they're watching TV.
- Nigger humpers,
Heffer bitch, you oughta be ashamed.
Look at this little black son of a bitch.
Stop laughing, picket
in there, go to hell.
- Some turn out, huh?
- Loaded the whole bunch on the bus.
- Well, that's where they should be,
on some bus on their way out a town.
- I've seen more people
at a slick pig contest.
- Look at that ass, he's
just standing there.
- What the hell was that all about?
- Aw, who cares.
- I drew up a list of the
conduct of your demonstrators,
if they abide by them there
shouldn't be any trouble.
- Yes, sir.
- Look at 'em, so that's what they want on
a great git up morning, to
take a piss for freedom.
- They can piss in the
basement and like it,
heh, look at them, all outsiders and a few
sorry snot nosed kids,
not one of them's a local nigger,
nor over 20.
- If any of them was local,
I'd have their job.
- Hey there, doctor,
morning, mr. Mayor.
- Brothers and sisters.
Your attention, please.
The sheriff's office has some
peculiar notions as to
what a demonstration is.
But in good faith I'd like to
read them to you, and I
know you'll abide by them.
Number one, we are not to
return insult for insult,
even word or gesture.
Two, we're not to hug, kiss,
urinate, defecate, or
copulate in the streets.
- Other than that, brothers and
sisters, enjoy yourselves.
Oh, when the saints go marching in
Oh, when the saints go marching in
I wanna be in that number
When the saints go marching in.
- Hey Hardy, you promised
to talk remember?
- Alright, alright.
- I'm not gonna
discuss it anymore.
- That's bullshit, you mean you
ain't gonna do nothing about them?
- You're just gonna let
them carry on like that?
- Okay, you gonna see, you'll see,
you watch and see.
- Real discipline.
- Why don't you put Butt
Cutt back on the force?
My wife's giving me a lot a shit,
he owes me a little money.
What the hell is the matter
with you, for Christ sake.
- Mr. Stancill, Mr. Stancill.
- Yeah?
- Can I talk with you for a moment?
- Sure, sure, why not.
What do you wanna talk about?
- I wanted to tell you
we're sorry about Loretta.
-Ah.
- Talking to her for a few moments,
we didn't realize she'd
be exposed to such risk.
- Well, you were wrong.
Tell me what are you doing
standing around here?
- Never underestimate just
standing around, Mr. Stancill.
- Well, you're standing around
with cameras for the TV?
- Without those cameras,
we'd have no movement.
Without TV, we'd get our heads cracked.
But with the whole country watching.
- Tell me about that, clerical
collar invites trouble, no?
- In every crusade we've marched with
whores, thieves, our blessed Lord
didn't shrink from the
touch of an adulteress.
- What about you, don't you
like to kiss, and hug, and fondle?
- I'm a minister to the leper,
I touch them freely and often,
but not lustfully.
- Well that's a pity.
At my place we've got
a white woman
who's kind of a leper.
- Nancy Poteet, yeah.
- She believes no man will
ever want to bed her again.
So, what we're searching for
is a kind of a
decent, lecherous young man
who'll maybe
come down to the house of an evening
and listen to the radio
with her and slap her
on the tail and convince her
he needs that
piece of tail and get her
off my hands.
- Tell me, Mr Stancill, are
you as cynical as you sound?
- I don't know, I wonder.
- Why don't you crawl on her yourself?
- Well, I suppose I'm
as decently lecherous
as the next man
but my lechery does not
extend to trapped women.
I feel to sorry for her.
- That's probably what her husband said.
He probably felt so sorry
for her he couldn't.
- Sure, sure, sure, you have
any more business to discuss?
- I was hoping you might
encourage Loretta to tell the truth.
Her story makes it sound like
she was raped
by one of our people.
- Now. listen. Mr Minister, you
got Loretta into trouble by
seeking her on the mountain,
now you wanna get her killed?
- Mr. Stancill, in every revolution...
- Oh sure sure, you I know, I know.
In order to make an omelette,
you gotta
break eggs, or heads,
the end justifies the means, right?
- That's right, sometimes they do.
- This time they do not.
- Nigger lover.
- Bastard he really has.
- Track.
How you doing?
- Well, I got elected to keep
the demonstraters outta town.
Well, it looks like I'm gonna
lose next years election.
I didn't think you liked circuses.
- No, I just came to take Loretta
home from the hospital.
So good luck.
- Track, Track, let me ask you something.
Why don't you stomp you foot
and chase those pissants off?
Alright, alright, then stay out
of our way and let us do it.
- Flag!
-Aw sh.
- They find the man who
did the shooting, Breck?
- I don't think so.
After this Chicago must seem like
the friendliest town on earth.
- Breck, I'm not going back,
now I've made up my mind.
- What are you gonna do here?
- I don't know, maybe I could
do something for the movement.
So what happened to me
doesn't happen again.
Maybe I'll find a job.
- What job you gonna do?
- I don't know, but it won't
be hiding in the woods.
- What did you mean when you
said hiding in the woods?
Think that's what I do
because of my leg,
because I'm crippled?
- You're not crippled, Breck,
but I think you think you are.
You're a very attractive man.
- Naw.
- Now that's true, why
every one in the county
thinks you can get any gal
you want, including me.
- Quit that.
- No, Butt Cutt and those Kluxes, as they
watching me get raped, they think I'm
your piece of brown comfort,
that's one of the
reasons they did it,
they wanted to foul your nest.
- Never thought of that.
- No, you wouldn't.
- Just keep driving.
- Hey, what are you trying to do?
- Kick some asses, baby.
- What's the point of busting
up a peaceful meeting?
- What goods a peaceful meeting?
It's for them bourgeois Negros.
When you gonna learn any way that
all that marching gonna get
ya is what you got, screwed.
- And don't you now you gotta keep
violence out of the movement?
- You know, if I was honky I'd want niggers
to all be just like you, do nothings.
Always marching them dumb ass marches
and mouthing them dumb ass slogans.
Ain't that right, boy?
Hey, boy I'm talking to you.
- Yeah, sure.
- Let me out a here.
- You're twisted.
- Twisted?
You're the one's twisted.
Hey, you think you're man here,
you think he's the one responsible for you
having that job in Chicago?
I tell who got it for you, baby.
It was your brothers, you
know, the ones in Watts,
in Detroit, on them roofs?
With them Molotov cocktails
and them grease guns?
Hey, they're responsible baby.
'Cause the only thing that
man understands is this, violence.
- You're crazy.
- She's right.
- Now, you may be some kind
of giant brown
up on that hill of yours,
but you ain't shit here.
You're just a peg leg honky
with a gun at his head, ya dig?
Now, look at you huh?
What's the matter with you?
Look at him telling you what to do.
They wanna keep suckers
like you around to serve
on one of them dumb-ass advisory boards
or some urban renewal committee.
Ya, you play your cards right,
you'll end up owning
an apartment building,
then raising the rent on us,
niggers, who make it possible.
He don't give a shit about you.
All he cares about, is they
hung his great granddaddy.
- Well, what do you want
with all your killing?
- The same damn thing you
want with all your marching.
Only history proves my way works.
Your boy there, he's a reader.
Ain't he told you about the revolution
fixed to go off around this world?
You dun heard about the
revolution, ain't ya, boy?
- Yes, there's a revolution going on.
- Well, I'm a part of that revolution.
The revolution of the oppressed minority.
- Well, you've got to be organised
don't you at least know that?
- I'm an organization of one.
I'm headquarters, you might say,
for the revolution in Atoka county.
- And you mean, that's
how the line is drawn,
white on one side, and black on the other?
- Hey, now, when they raped you,
didn't you fight back?
Now you're learning.
Hey mister, man, when you gonna learn, huh?
When you gonna pick up a gun and fight?
Well, whenever you do,
you know where to find me.
- Yes, he's dead.
- Who killed him?
- I don't know.
I heard the shot,
I heard Chrissy cry out.
- Red neck sons of bitches.
They wanted to kill him,
Charlie Peck and Josh Franklin.
All those nuns in the
square and they end up
killing my son-
- Carl is it ready yet?
- Couple minutes yet, mama.
- I'll get you a drink.
Now you drink it.
What's the matter?
- I never thought anybody
would want to touch me again.
- That's a ringer.
- I tell you, it's been a frustrating week.
Four, Martha, bring out some more beer.
- Everything, I mean
everything's gone contrary.
- Nothing good came of what
we did to the Chicago gal.
- Now, what you should have done,
is get old Willy Washington.
It's only right, he's the
nigger that black snaked Nancy.
- Goddamn Willy sitting in
that slammer, living like a lord.
Eating like he was in the army.
We oughta kill him, tonight.
- You boys wanna go up
against old big Track?
- You bet ya, if Hardy
Riddle was to approve.
- Ain't no harm in asking him.
- Well, it's gonna take a little time.
Hardy'll have to check
with state head quarters,
they might wanna check
with the national office.
By the time they get back to us,
I'd best put a move on.
- Just turn your head around, Track,
we want Willy.
- Jesus, here we go again.
How bad do you boys want Willy?
I mean bad enough to shoot me?
- We might.
- Now, that wouldn't look very
goon on network TV, would it?
Local boys shoot dully elected sheriff.
- Quit your gassing, Track.
- Come on, Track,
give me the damn key.
- You're not taking Willy.
- Shit, Track, come next election
you gonna be grubbing cotton
and hunting coons.
- Listen,, Track we're all
white patriotic Christians.
- Well, haul ass.
Before I hit you with this,
white patriotic Christian.
- Now, now, wait a minute fellas.
- Watch your ass.
- Sheriff?
Sheriff.
- What the hell are you doing here?
- I'm here to testify before
the Lord and Sheriff Bascomb.
Willy Washington never raped Nancy Poteet.
- Is that a fact, Martha?
- It purely is because that
night Willy was with me.
- You Goddamn whore.
You son of a bitch, you nigger loving.
I'll kill her, I'll
kill her, I'll kill her!
- What the hell did you
think I do at night while
you're out running around.
- Why don't you all go out
and have a few more beers, huh?
- You gotta lock him
up for an hour, sheriff.
- Now go on, go on.
- Let me go.
- Come on, Jesse, let's
get the hell out of here.
Come on, Jess, she ain't worth it.
- Come on, Jessie, we're
gonna have couple of drinks.
- Don't let it get to you.
- I loved her, she's the mother of my kids.
- You gotta lock him up for an hour, Track,
till I can get the first
bus oughta Alabama.
- Well, that won't be necessary,
I'll get Trixie to drive ya.
Now, you boys stay with Shaneyfelt, huh,
and get rid of those Goddamn guns.
You're a brave women, Martha.
- Oh, I'm not brave,
I'm just so tired of it all.
You best look after Willy, too.
- Hello, Ron, could you tell me
where you were last
Saturday around sundown?
- He was right there with that dog and me.
- And where were you, Garth?
- Don't try to pin no rape on me.
- Where were you when your friend Henry
was jerked to heaven
and Taggert was killed?
And Johnson, and Flag?
- How do you figure?
- Why else would you be
holding a rifle on me?
You know, if I can figure
it out, so can the Klan.
And you'll end up with your
balls shoved down your throat.
- Not me.
- Not you.
Because you're leaving the county now.
And if you ever point
a gun at me again,
I'll drop you myself on sight.
- Hey, sheriff, just what were
you doing when they got Henry?
Sheriff.
- Breck, wake up.
- Wake up.
- Hm, what?
- Are you awake?
- Now I am.
- I'm hungry, are you?
- Tell me, you gonna keep these
undisciplined hours after we marry?
- Marry?
You wanna marry me?
- Well, I weren't proposing to the sandwich.
- I can't.
I've thought about it, maybe someday,
when I come back if you still want me.
- Where are you going?
- I don't know, it's a big world out there
and I've never seen any of it.
- When do you go?
- Soon.
Maybe tomorrow.
- How are you going?
- A long time ago you offered me
some money, does the offer still hold?
- Sure.
Are you sure you don't want to stay?
Is that of your considered opinion?
- I thought you wanted to get rid of me?
- I changed my mind.
It's my mind, I can change it.
- Breck, I've found I like older men.
- Yeah?
- Sorta mellow a girl,
if you know what I mean.
But you're old enough to be my uncle.
- Well, I suppose in a certain sense.
- Hey, Breck.
Thought you was a reader.
Hey, ain't you interested
in my literature?
- Jackson, one way please.
- That suit case heavy for ya?
What with your gimpy leg and all.
I mean, maybe what you need is a
real red blood patriot
American to help you tote it.
Little lady, here's one
lump might appeal to you.
- Why don't you beat it, you scum bag.
- Got a mouth as big as awful Annie's ass.
Just listen, that might help.
You must sink to a Negros level,
if you walk as his equal in
physical contact with him.
The physical touch of a
Negro is pollution and any.
- Get him, Cutt.
Get up, Cutt, let me help you.
- You wack son of a bitch.
- Cutt, Cutt, come on.
Get him, Cutt, get him,
go ahead, get him.
Come on, Cutt, get up,
get up, hit him.
Come on, Cut, get up.
Come on, come on, come on.
- Excuse me, bus leaving, God almighty.
- I'll always remember you.
- Like this?
- We're leaving, lady.
- Evening all, hi Annie.
- Hi Hector.
- Hiya Butt, what the
hell happened to you?
- Why don't you go screw yourself.
- You get hit by a truck?
Christ almighty, he looks
like Custer's massacre.
Who don't it, big Track?
Breck?
- Imagine that, beating
up on our next sheriff.
- Oh, that son of a bitch.
Draw one, Annie.
- He shamed us all by
taking in that Nancy Poteet.
- Yeah, you know he taught
Loretta how to type.
And he got her a good
job in Chicago which is
more than he's done
for any of you
decent God fearing white girls
in this whole county.
- Yeah, but he come from a
violent and ungodly family.
He oughta stretch a rope just
like his great grand daddy.
- You're right, I hear he's
even got a whole library
of Communist books.
- And you know what, he
doesn't even have a TV.
- I say, let's burn out the son of a bitch.
String him to the same goddamn tree
as his great grandaddy was strung to.
What about my three dollars?
What about my money?
- Mixing with white folk,
by God, he wouldn't have made
those sons of bitches black.
Ain't that right boys?
- What the hell's this?
- Yeah, what's he doing here?
- Vernon Hodo tells me that some of the
good old boys is kinda sore
at you, up at awful Annie.
- What else is new?
- They might be fixing to burn you out.
Tonight.
- Well, you know sprig's coming
up, the saps rising high.
- You better take this seriously.
You've been pretty salty
with these old boys.
- Well, we seem to have trouble relating.
- Usually I can relate to 'em.
See half of 'em work for me, the other half
borrow money from my bank.
But this thing is gone beyond the knife.
If I could pass on some
favorable word from you,
question is what word do I pass?
- You might ask them to disband.
- Don't waste time.
- Well, you tell them, Kluxes,
to get together and maybe we
can come to some sort of arrangement
and tell them, if they're ashamed of
their faces, they can wear
their Halloween masks.
- Now, we're getting somewhere.
Here's what you're gotta do.
You've got to acknowledge the souths
debt to the Christian
patriots to the Klan.
Two, you gotta kick
Loretta off your mountain.
And three, you gotta let big Track
evict your relief hounds.
- I can't do that.
- Well, then you're just asking
for a midnight knock on your door.
There is one other way.
I could buy ya out.
You could take the money, go to California.
- No sir.
- You could go to the south of France.
- No sir.
- You could go to the goddamn Louve.
- No sir.
I'm not leaving here,
I've lived here too long.
- Trouble is, you just lived too long.
And you got all shot up in the war.
That's when you should have died.
- I'm sorry, I disappointed you.
- In every society there's
a way out for a man
who gets himself so screwed up.
He has to die
a little bit before his time.
The ancient Greeks used hemlock,
the Japs used harikari
and America, they just jump off of bridges.
- Are you trying to tell me
to kill myself?
- I'm telling, ya, you
are killing yourself.
But you are letting
the Klan do it for you.
Aw, it's gonna take a better man,
than me to unscramble this omelette.
- I wish you luck, for
you and for all of us.
- Daddy, now I've been thinking it over.
And I decided that I
want to go to West Point.
- Well, you best spell that out for me.
- Well, there's nothing
more to say, I mean, I know
our congressman, I mean,
he's not gonna make
any appointments that the Klan
doesn't like, so I'll behave myself.
I mean, I'm not gonna make it unpleasant
for you, with your election coming up.
- You're pacing like a
stalled horse, sit down.
Now, look, son, I know a
lots been happening lately
and none of it pleasant.
But if you wanna be a tree
farmer for the rest of your life,
hell, I'll hand you the shovel.
Come next election, we might
both be planting trees.
Yeah, Trixie?
Ya, put 'em on.
Yes, Hardy, what is it?
Tonight?
On the mountain?
Alright, I'll look into it,
I'll get right on it.
- Is Breck in trouble with the Klan?
- You go on home, Allen.
- Can I help?
- I don't want you flirting
with no purple heart.
- What's the big do?
- Breck's got problems.
- The Klan again?
- Yeah, I think so.
Where are you going?
- To Stancill's mountain.
- Well, I'm going with ya.
- Now, as I told you, go home
and put out your lights.
We'll hide in the dark, as we've done
so many times before
on the hill, goodnight, Erin.
- Breck.
- Yeah?
- Here's the horns.
- There's one for you, one
for you, and one for you.
And if you hear any strangers come,
you just use those things.
- Come on, boys, let's go.
- What do you want, Track?
- I'm trying to stop a war.
If you tangle with the Klan tonight,
a lot of people could get killed,
and that would blow the
lid off of this county.
And orphan a lot of raggady ass kids.
- You know, if you'd nailed
Loretta's rapists, instead of
covering up, we wouldn't have a war
on the mountain tonight.
- What's done is done, I tried.
And I'm still trying to keep you alive.
The odds are against it.
- Tell you what you could do.
You could deputize a few good men
to guard my woods from burning.
- I tried that too.
Nobody.
Not one man in this whole
county would protect your trees.
- They're all afraid of the Klan?
- No.
- Why, then?
- They hate your guts.
You expect poor white men to like you,
when you take a blacks part against them?
You let the relief hounds
live up here for free
on poor white taxes,
you know what they say?
They say that if you had
run the blacks north
20 years ago, we'd have a
new football stadium
and higher prices for
teachers, and what's a
noble purpose to some, is a
pain in the ass to others.
I hate to tell you this,
but just as this county,
you might say, is out of step
as the rest of the world,
you arw out of step with the goddamn county.
Anyway, if there's trouble tonight,
you let me handle it, will ya?
Breck?
- Maybe I should get out.
- Well, what are you doing here?
- If he's in a tangle,
I wanna be in it with him.
- In the ditch.
- Uh uh.
- Uh uh what?
- Uh here.
- Uh uh in the ditch.
- You're gonna be killed, because
you're at a disadvantage.
The Klan wants to kill you,
but you don't wanna kill them.
- Maybe I won't have to.
- If you stay here, you'll have to.
Have to be killing them the rest of
your life, until they kill you.
That would be the most pathetic
useless murder in the
history of this town.
- Get in the house,
turn out the lights, quick.
- Allen, come on.
You take this, and get on down the road.
Don't use it unless you have to.
Cover me.
I want you to hear this!
Breck is leaving the county.
- It's too damn late now, Track.
- You boys are trespassing.
- Well now ain't that
some kind of a chicken shit crime?
You better think of
something better than that.
- Unless you got
something more important to say,
sheriff, you best get out of the way.
- I want you all to
throw down your weapons,
and come out with your
hands above your head.
- Just remember,
Track, you're one of us.
- Not anymore.
- Screw you, Track.
- Butt Cutt Cates, I am
charging you with the assault
and rape of Loretta Sykes,
and I'm charging the rest of you
as members of the Klan of Atoka county,
with conspiracy against the Constitution
of the United States and the
sovereign state of Alabama.
- Everybody watch it, he done
shot Pea right in the back.
- What a stupid waste.
- Alright boys.
- But who's left?
- Daddy, daddy, are you alright?
- Don't.
Just look around and
see if anybody's alive.
I'm gonna call for help.
- Somebody help me.
Oh God, I'm dead.
- No, not yet.
- Murderer.
- I'm the executioner.
-1099, 1099 at 10:20 at
Stancill's mountain.
I need all available
forestry fire department.
- Daddy!
Dad.
Oh, my God.
- No one'll ever
have to pass this tree again.