lynching is a tool to control and oppress black people. racialized violence is as old as the constitution. klans are not running around with white sheets over their head, but it s still happening. today, people are horrified of the police. it s the modern day lynching. what are we going to do about it? we move forward with people deciding i m bold enough, and i m going to make it change. beulah mae donald took on one of the most violent criminal organizations in the united states. this is an incredible story of courage. the body of a black man has been found hanging from a tree in mobile, alabama. living in mobile was a quiet town. it s nothing but old trees. but after march 1981, it was kind of, like, creepy to me to just look at the trees. the hurt is still there. the hurt my mom went through, i just visualize her face and i go, like, i can t talk about it today. my mama, beulah mae donald, was a quiet woman. she was a good-hearted person. all the neighbor
grandfatherly with a cane, but capable of sudden outbursts of anger. you get off me, son of a bitch. hit a dog. benny jack was a terrible man and i don t like speaking ill of the dead, but he was pure evil. and he was coming up herndon avenue, fussing and raising cain, talking about i own all of these houses, what the blank you doing keeping me from coming to my properties. and he was just loud-mouthed. i think there are certain parts of mobile that feared him all the way to his death. they knew that it was the klan. and we knew that that element was in the community and it was a dangerous situation, as far as we were concerned. nobody at that point had any answers. we thought that an independent