After a confession was beaten out of Ell Persons, a Memphis mob skipped the trial and went straight to execution. But confessions, then and now, don't always lead to justice.
Generations later, three people wrestle with the terrible history that brought their ancestors to a wooded area on the outskirts of Memphis a century ago,.
In 1917, a Black woodcutter named Ell Persons was accused of murdering a white teenage girl on the outskirts of Memphis. The evidence against him was slim, but the white mob had more than one reason to abduct him from police custody and burn him alive.