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By the time Duncan was on trial, the country outside of Plaquemines had been forced to change.

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The difference between the South of the mid-'50s and that of the mid-'60s comes down to a series of federal court decisions and new laws. My father got the hell out of Elon in 1955 at age 20, a year older than Duncan was in ’66, when the latter found himself stuck in jail in Plaquemines Parish on the bogus battery charge. Thinking of James Baldwin’s warning about similar characters in 1967’s 'In the Heat of the Night,' my laughter died quickly: The blinkered racists of that film “can be considered moving and pathetic only if one has the luxury of the assurance that one will never be at their mercy.” Perez’s “scientific” theories on black inferiority are pitiful comedy-Boss Hogg with a thesaurus. Footage of Perez in his white suits and Stetsons, removing a fat cigar from his lips only to passionately defy desegregation or slander the Jews, plays like something from a Stanley Kramer message film of the era. Leander Perez, the Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana District Attorney and power broker who fought like hell to deny Duncan justice at every turn, emerges as more than just a segregationist megalomaniac his corruption oozes in every direction, from election fraud to embezzlement to illegal land deals. The guy is of steel about his rights.”ĭuncan tells us where the steel comes from: “I thank god I had the parents that I had,” he says now, “because me, I probably would have just went up there and pled guilty, figured I'd pay a fine and go on about my business.”īoth young men would pay the price in jail time but would not submit. I don't think there's one in a hundred people who would make that choice. As Solis puts it, Duncan could have spared himself extensive jail time by pleading guilty, “but he chose not to. His commitment to the dangerous work was as rare as Duncan’s decision to plead not guilty. The Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee (LCDC) sent him to Louisiana to handle various cases, including Duncan’s. Sobol could have settled into a comfortable career at Washington D.C.’s prestigious “cause work” firm, Arnold, Fortis and Porter, but when Fortis turned out to prioritize money over cause, Arnold proved racist and Porter a drunk, he sought mentorship in the civil rights movement proper. A profound legacy, the friendship between Duncan and his young Jewish attorney, Richard Sobol, eventually rivals the outcome of their case.ĭuncan’s bond with Sobol is a study in moral brotherhood. Having made two other acclaimed films on landmark civil rights cases, 'The Loving Story' and ' The Rape of Recy Taylor,' she’s got it down: people and relationships are paramount. The legal saga that ensued eventually put longstanding wrongs of Southern justice on trial.įilmmaker Nancy Buirski has an elegant, judicious way of imparting the facts of the case, taking not just the political temperature of the moment (boiling) but finely sketching the character and minds of the people involved.

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Gary Duncan, an elder relative of two of the black boys, attempted to defuse the situation and ended up on trial for assault simply by patting one of the white boys on the shoulder.

The documentary 'A Crime in the Bayou' concerns a similar incident down in 1966 Louisiana, in which young white boys leaving a recently desegregated school taunted their black peers.

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