DEL.ICIO.USUnsolved 1946 lynchings subject of documentary, public forum
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
A documentary screening and panel discussion Saturday involving law enforcement officials and a former Ku Klux Klan member aim to assist the investigation of the lynchings at Moore’s Ford Bridge.
New York City filmmaker Keith Beauchamp will screen his documentary about the 1946 incident, “Murder In Black and White,” Saturday in Monroe. The slayings of two black sharecroppers and their wives are considered the last mass lynching in American history.
The screening and public forum to follow seek to raise public awareness about the crime and gather support for the investigation.
“The FBI can’t solve these cold cases, civil rights murders on their own,” Beauchamp said. “To find justice and closure at Moore’s Ford and elsewhere, we have to overcome the fear that has silenced so many citizens.”
The documentary, which has already aired nationally on TV-1, recounts the events of July 25, 1946, when a mob of unmasked men — purportedly members of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan — repeatedly shot Roger and Dorothy Malcom, and George and Mae Murray Dorsey at the bridge 40 miles east of Atlanta.
The Moore’s Ford Memorial Committee will host a reception at 1 p.m., the screening at 2 p.m., and the panel discussion at 3:15 p.m. at the Monroe Community Center, 604 East Church St. The panel will feature Beauchamp, ex-Klansman Elwin Wilson, and FBI and Georgia Bureau of Investigations investigators working the cold case.
Beauchamp has been working with federal investigators and has turned over information he gained from interviewing local residents for his film.
“Keith is behind so much of this,” Moore’s Ford Memorial Committee secretary Rich Rusk said. “His film research nearly got indictments in the 1955 Emmett Till murder. He is doing his dead-level best not only to solve Moore’s Ford but other historic killings.”
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