American Reckoning: The Bombing (Excerpt)

TEXT ON SCREEN: August 27, 1965

MALE NEWSREADER: George Metcalfe, president of the Natchez chapter of the NAACP, was critically injured in Natchez this afternoon when dynamite hidden beneath the hood of his car exploded when he turned on the ignition.

WHARLEST JACKSON JR.: When the bomb went off under the hood of his vehicle, a lot of that metal and brass just went back into his face.

AKINYELE UMOJA: After the bombing of Metcalfe’s car, the Black community explodes.

JESSIE BERNARD WILLIAMS (SECRETARY, NATCHEZ NAACP):
Yeah. Get that phone, somebody! What is happening is that the people are arming themselves, true, but tonight the people just want to serve notice on the city, that’s all. We just gonna let these people know we’re tired. We have mass meeting tonight, Friday, Aug. 27, 1965. Place: Ninth and Catherine. Time: 6:30 p.m. Purpose: protest Ku Klux Klan violence.

GIRL: [Sings] You can kill my body but not my soul.

CROWD [singing]: God’s gonna trouble the water.

MALE VOICE: Are you ready?

CROWD [in unison]: Yeah!

MALE VOICE: Let Natchez know you’re ready!

CROWD [in unison]: Yeah!

CHARLES EVERS: George [Metcalfe] is not in good condition. As we have told them many a time, they can destroy a man, but they cannot destroy this movement. Didn’t do a thing but made us more determined. We’re more determined than ever that we’re going to rid Natchez of all of the racists, the bigots, the Ku Klux Klan, and you’re going to do your job as police officers and as mayor of our city or else. Now you figure out what “else” is. [Applause]

JAMES JACKSON: I’m going to stay here, man, and do whatever I can for freedom, if I have to die for it, man.

SER CLIFFORD BOXLEY, NATCHEZ ACTIVIST): After George Metcalfe is car-bombed, enter James Jackson, who is the cool street dude, dark glasses.

JAMES JACKSON: Hey, man.

SER CLIFFORD BOXLEY: Tall, dark and handsome.

MALE VOICE: Who’s your favorite movie star?

JAMES JACKSON: Hey, baby. Marlon Brando.

AKINYELE UMOJA: James Jackson was a local barber. Very charismatic, always with his gun to his side.

SER CLIFFORD BOXLEY: The community’s angry. The whole idea of nonviolence is out the window.

MALE VOICE: The quickest way to freedom is to meet violence with violence.

MALE VOICE: Violence with violence! Black mamba.

MALE VOICE: This is a powder keg, man, and tonight, tonight, the fuse is going to be lit.

SER CLIFFORD BOXLEY: On the day after that bomb explosion of George, five young men made a trip to Bogalusa, Louisiana. They had heard about the Deacons.

AKINYELE UMOJA: The Deacons first started in Louisiana. They clashed with the police as they openly practiced armed self-defense. It got national attention.

RICHARD “DIP” LEWIS (FOUNDING MEMBER, DEACONS FOR DEFENSE): We decide to drive to Bogalusa and ask them how they got organized. We got there about maybe about 1:00 that night. They sent us down a back road to find them. We was surrounded by Blacks like I don’t know what. Shotgun all in my nose, like that, through the door. James Jackson, he got out of the car and went with them, but they came back about an hour or so later. They gave us guns. Then we came on back here.

(END)