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Speaker 1: This episode Tonight does not have an antidote, because the

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Speaker 1: whole thing is an antidote. It was Tuesday, August the eighteenth,

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Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, at high noon at the Microtel

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Speaker 1: Hotel in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Me, several students and a few

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Speaker 1: experts were about to meet with the ex Imperial Wizard

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Speaker 1: of the Ku Klux Klan. Now let me give you

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Speaker 1: a little backstory. While investigating the moors Ford Bridge cold

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Speaker 1: case civil rights case, we could find zero evidence that

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Speaker 1: the Klan had orchestrated or called for a hit on

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Speaker 1: the Malcolms and the Dorseys, meaning their murder had to

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Speaker 1: come from either another state or a leader outside or

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Speaker 1: inside Monroe, Georgia. To make certain that we had looked

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Speaker 1: everywhere and left no stone unturned, I contacted the KKK

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Speaker 1: at their eight hundred number. I asked if anyone would

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Speaker 1: be willing to speak to me about the moor's Ford

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Speaker 1: Bridge Lyncheon. I never got a call back, so I

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Speaker 1: reached out to Johnny Lee Claric. Johnny Lee had joined

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Speaker 1: the Klan as a young boy and rose up to

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Speaker 1: the ranks to the Imperial Wizard. He said that he

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Speaker 1: would meet with me He said that he would keep

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Speaker 1: it a small group only he wouldn't meet with more

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Speaker 1: than ten of us. He said he had gotten several

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Speaker 1: death threats, credible death threats. The FBI confirmed they were

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Speaker 1: credible death threats, so he said that he would only

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Speaker 1: give me the location the morning that we were going

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Speaker 1: to meet. At the time, I had several students that

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Speaker 1: were going into law enforcement in some capacity, and I

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Speaker 1: also had a couple of students that had a very

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Speaker 1: similar background to him, and I thought it would be

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Speaker 1: imperative that they meet and hear his story. I knew

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Speaker 1: that hearing from him and his intel into the klu

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Speaker 1: klutz Klan would be invaluable as future investigators, but I

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Speaker 1: had no idea what was fixing to happen in that room.

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Speaker 1: I had one student we called her Foe because she

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Speaker 1: would jokingly say, I'm your enemy, I'm everybody's enemy. I'm

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Speaker 1: a foe, So that's what we called her now. Her

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Speaker 1: background and Johnny Lee were similar in this regard. They

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Speaker 1: both lost a father to violence, both of them were

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Speaker 1: thrown out of their house by their mother, both had

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Speaker 1: gang affiliations, and both had joined a gang, not because

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Speaker 1: they wanted to necessarily be in that gang, but it

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Speaker 1: was for survival. When I sat down with my students

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Speaker 1: and told them the opportunity they were fixing to have

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Speaker 1: right at me, and she says, Matt, what do you mean,

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Speaker 1: ex Imperial Wizard? She was mad. She wasn't happy at all.

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Speaker 1: She thought you had finally crossed the line. You have

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Speaker 1: taken me, you know, out in the middle of nowhere.

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Speaker 1: You've had me cutting down trees. You've had me processing

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Speaker 1: scenes with hogs that you brought from somewhere and a

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Speaker 1: cow head that you brought from somewhere. You made me

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Speaker 1: get involved with some elements of these cases where the

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Speaker 1: black market was involved, and you made me take care

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Speaker 1: of a baby tiger. But in her estimation, I had

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Speaker 1: finally snapped if I thought that she was fixing to

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Speaker 1: go meet with the Klan in some secret location that

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Speaker 1: only he was going to tell us about. We had

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Speaker 1: a real honest conversation, and I told her that she

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Speaker 1: had a great career ahead of her, and that in

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Speaker 1: this business you do not get to pick and choose

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Speaker 1: who you work for. You don't get to pick and

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Speaker 1: choose who you advocate for, who you protect. When those

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Speaker 1: nine one one calls come in, you go, and if

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Speaker 1: that person happens to hate you, you protect them anyway.

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Speaker 1: You care about what happens to them anyway. So begrudgingly

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Speaker 1: she went. We loaded up the bus, we waited for

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Speaker 1: the call, and it came and we headed to the hotel.

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Speaker 1: We all sat down. Everybody was a little nervous, including

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Speaker 1: Johnny Lee. Nobody really knew what to expect, so I thought,

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Speaker 1: let's just get to business. So I was like, Johnny Lee,

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Speaker 1: was this crime a clan hit? And he looks at

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Speaker 1: me and he smiles, and he says, can I talk

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Speaker 1: to y'all first, tell y'all a little bit about myself

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Speaker 1: before we get right into the moors for a bridge lynching.

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Speaker 1: And immediately everybody kind of relaxed a little bit, and

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Speaker 1: I was like, of course. And that's when something extraordinarily

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Speaker 1: started to happen. Hearts changed, It's all I can tell you.

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Speaker 1: Because Johnny Lee started to talk and Foe was watching him,

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Speaker 1: and again she was mad, and she was kind of

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Speaker 1: giving that expression like you can go ahead and say

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Speaker 1: whatever you feel like saying, but I don't know if

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna buy it or not. So Johnny Lee starts

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Speaker 1: to say that when he was eleven years old, he

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Speaker 1: watched his father pick up a forty five caliber pistol

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Speaker 1: and blow his head off, and that his mama had

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Speaker 1: a boyfriend move into his daddy's house with her and

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Speaker 1: she basically told him get out at eleven years old. Now,

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Speaker 1: just one of those things would have been traumatic, your

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Speaker 1: mama moving another man in your dad's house, being thrown

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Speaker 1: out of your house at eleven, and then the unimaginable

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Speaker 1: scene of your father taking his own life in front

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Speaker 1: of you, some of his blood splattering on you. Well,

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Speaker 1: I instinctively glanced over at Foe, and she looked at

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Speaker 1: him as someone that understood and a little bit of sadness,

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Speaker 1: and her shoulders were very relaxed now. And then he

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Speaker 1: said that the only thing he knew to do was

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Speaker 1: get on the bus and go to his sisters in California. Well,

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Speaker 1: her sister was living with a boyfriend too, that was

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Speaker 1: a drug dealer, and he beat on him. He beat

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Speaker 1: on him and told his sister, I'm going to make

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Speaker 1: a man out of him. Foe knew something about that too.

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Speaker 1: She's visibly connecting with him. She's got tears in her eyes. Now,

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Speaker 1: and Johnny continues, and he tells her and the rest

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Speaker 1: of us. When he was just fourteen years old, he

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Speaker 1: saw a man talking on TV about how white people

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Speaker 1: were superior. And he said he had never heard that before.

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Speaker 1: All he had ever been told is he was nothing,

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Speaker 1: He was nobody, he was never going to mount anything,

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Speaker 1: and yet this man on TV was telling him the

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Speaker 1: exact opposite. He felt like the man was talking directly

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Speaker 1: to him. So, as a fourteen year old boy, he

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Speaker 1: wrote the man a fan letter. That man sent somebody

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Speaker 1: to his house, and that man said, if you want

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Speaker 1: to change your life, if you don't want to be hungry,

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Speaker 1: if you want to have a steak dinner tonight, if

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Speaker 1: you want to have brand new clothes, if you want

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Speaker 1: to have a family that's going to take care of

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Speaker 1: you and live in a nice house, come getting this

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Speaker 1: limousine with me right now. And Johnny Lee Clary did.

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Speaker 1: And the man that he saw on TV was David Duke.

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Speaker 1: So at fourteen years old, he's joined the Klan. Now.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy nine, at just twenty two years old,

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Speaker 1: Johnny Lee, living in Oklahoma, was slated by the clan

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Speaker 1: to debate Reverend Wade Watts on TV. Johnny Lee said

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Speaker 1: he was expecting somebody, you know, militant and angry and

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Speaker 1: was going to come in there and call him names

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Speaker 1: and cuss him out. And he said, the door opened

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Speaker 1: and this really nicely dressed kind man walks through the

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Speaker 1: door and says, how are you, John I'm Reverend Wade

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Speaker 1: Watts and stuck his hand out and Johnny shook his

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Speaker 1: hand and then immediately pulled back because he knew he

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Speaker 1: had just violated one of the codes of the clan,

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Speaker 1: and that is you do not touch a person of

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Speaker 1: another race. And Johnny said that Reverend Watts said to

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Speaker 1: him that day, I love you, and Jesus loves you too.

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Speaker 1: You're my brother. Well, Johnny Lee was telling the students

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Speaker 1: he didn't know what to do with that, because nobody

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Speaker 1: had ever said that to him, especially somebody that he disliked,

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Speaker 1: somebody that he had spoke openly against. So Johnny Lee

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Speaker 1: was supposed to stop Reverend Watts from registering people to vote,

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Speaker 1: and Reverend Watts was over the NAACP there in Oklahoma,

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Speaker 1: and he was supposed to shut him down. So he

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Speaker 1: did several things. He took a bunch of trash and

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Speaker 1: a bunch of clansmen and they went over there and

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Speaker 1: they threw trash all over his yard. Then one night

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Speaker 1: they went over and they stood in his yard in

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Speaker 1: their full clan regalia. Well, Reverend Watts opened the door

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Speaker 1: and he said, hey, boys, Halloween ain't for four months.

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Speaker 1: Well at this point, my students were like, what who

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Speaker 1: is this guy? Well then Johnny Lee said that wasn't

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Speaker 1: good enough, that he needed to call him and make

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Speaker 1: sure he knew you need to be afraid of me.

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Speaker 1: So Johnny Lee calls him and he says, let me

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Speaker 1: tell you something. We're coming for you. You need to

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Speaker 1: be afraid of us. And he said he disguised his voice.

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Speaker 1: He was talking, you know, real different on the phone.

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Speaker 1: And Reverend Watts didn't miss a beat. He said, hey there, Johnny,

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Speaker 1: I just will remind you I love you and God

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Speaker 1: loves you too. And Johnny Lee was like, I've got

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Speaker 1: to do something. I've got to get his attention because

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Speaker 1: I'm supposed to be in charge of this area for

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Speaker 1: the clan, and I mean, he's making a joke out

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Speaker 1: of me. So Johnny Lee Cleary burn his church down,

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Speaker 1: and when he called him after burning his church down.

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Speaker 1: Reverend Watts said, Dear Lord, please forgive Johnny Johnny Lee

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Speaker 1: has left with this. How can this man care anything

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Speaker 1: about me? How can he want the Good Lord to

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Speaker 1: forgive me? How can he tell me I'm his brother?

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Speaker 1: How can he tell me he loves me? So Johnny's

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Speaker 1: walking down the street one day with four or five

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Speaker 1: of his clansmen and they see Reverend Watts sitting in

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Speaker 1: a restaurant and he's just been served. Johnny Lee walks

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Speaker 1: in with his clansmen in tow and Reverend Watts has

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Speaker 1: got a fork in one hand and a knife in

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Speaker 1: the other, and he's fixing to have his fried chicken dinner.

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Speaker 1: And Johnny Lee tells the students and the experts that

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Speaker 1: he looked at Reverend Watts and he said, whatever you

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Speaker 1: do to that chicken, I'm gonna do to you. And

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Speaker 1: Reverend Watts dropped the knife and dropped the fork, and

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Speaker 1: picked the chicken up and kissed it. And Johnny Lee said,

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Speaker 1: even the klansmen fell out laughing, and he just stormed

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Speaker 1: out of the restaurant and got them out on the sidewalk.

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Speaker 1: And it's like, I'm going to suspend every one of you.

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Speaker 1: I can't believe y'all are laughing, and you know, letting

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Speaker 1: him have the last word essentially. Well, Johnny Lee thought

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Speaker 1: back about the first time they met in nineteen seventy nine,

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Speaker 1: and he said, after that episode where they were debating

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Speaker 1: on the issues of race, he said, I was walking

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Speaker 1: out and Reverend Watts calls me over and his wife

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Speaker 1: is standing there holding a little baby, and he said

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Speaker 1: to Johnny Lee, I want you to look at this

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Speaker 1: little baby. Her daddy's black and her mama's white. She's

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Speaker 1: a little mixed baby, and you can't tell me in

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Speaker 1: your heart that you hate her. And Johnny Lee said

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Speaker 1: he was kind of just caught off guard by that

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Speaker 1: whole scene, and he looks down at this little baby,

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Speaker 1: and he said, Reverend kept talking to him, but what

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Speaker 1: amazed him was that little baby smiled at him. And

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Speaker 1: he said he got a little choked up and he

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Speaker 1: couldn't even really say anything else, and he just left.

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Speaker 1: And all this time, the meeting the little baby, the

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Speaker 1: throwing the trash, the showing up in their hoods on

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Speaker 1: his front lawn, the burning his church down, the episode

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Speaker 1: in the restaurant, through all of it, whenever he saw

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Speaker 1: Reverend Wade Watts. He would say to him, Johnny, I

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Speaker 1: love you, and Jesus loves you too. So Johnny Lee

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Speaker 1: decided at some point he had had a change of

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Speaker 1: heart and he might need to get out of the clan.

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Speaker 1: But he wasn't sure how to do that, but he

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Speaker 1: told us, he said, well, you know, I was going

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Speaker 1: to give it one more shot, and we might even

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Speaker 1: need to get with Reverend wattson beat him, like, send

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Speaker 1: a really clear message, one last thing. So he calls

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Speaker 1: him up and he said, we're coming to get you,

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Speaker 1: and Reverend Watts said that'd be fine. How bout if

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Speaker 1: we meet at Pete's the barbecue joined out on Highway

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Speaker 1: two seventy four. I'll buy you dinner. In fact, I'll

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Speaker 1: buy all of you dinner. They got the best ribs

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Speaker 1: in the state. And Johnny Lee just hung up, just

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Speaker 1: hung the phone up, and the other clansmen they were like,

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Speaker 1: what did he say? And Johnny Lee said, he said

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Speaker 1: he's gonna feed us. He said to meet him at Pete's.

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Speaker 1: And Johnny Lee said he was sitting at a hotel

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Speaker 1: and there was a Bible in it, and he grabbed

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Speaker 1: the bible and he just flipped it open and he

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Speaker 1: said it turned to Luke chapter fifteen, the Prodigal Son.

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Speaker 1: He said, he got down on his knees right then

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Speaker 1: and there, and he said, Okay, God, if you're telling

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Speaker 1: me that I can turn my life around, that I

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Speaker 1: can go back, then I'm going to go back, and

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Speaker 1: I'm going to talk to the man whose church I

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Speaker 1: burned down. And Johnny Lee contacted Reverend Watts. He said,

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Speaker 1: I've turned my life around and I'm now a preacher.

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Speaker 1: And Reverend Watts said, well, Johnny, I'm proud of you, son,

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Speaker 1: and I love you, and God loves you too. Why

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Speaker 1: don't you come preach it my church? Now? At this point,

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Speaker 1: several of the experts and Foe and mysel are all

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Speaker 1: little terry eye. We've just heard a story about somebody's

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Speaker 1: heart that was completely changed, whose life was completely changed.

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Speaker 1: And Reverend Watts has just opened the doors to the

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Speaker 1: church that this man burnt to the ground and said,

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Speaker 1: please come back. We want to hear from you from

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Speaker 1: the pool pit. So Johnny Lee goes. He's nervous, he's

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Speaker 1: not real sure of the reception he's going to get.

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Speaker 1: And he preached, and he said he was so moved

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Speaker 1: by the whole experience. At the end, he offered, if

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Speaker 1: anybody wants to come forward and devote your life to Christ,

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Speaker 1: come on, and he said there was a little girl

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Speaker 1: about fourteen years old that came down front, and he

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Speaker 1: was like, this is amazing, and that fourteen year old

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Speaker 1: little girl was that little baby that smiled at him.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy nine, I think meeting with Johnny Lee

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Speaker 1: Clary was one of the most important experts that we

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Speaker 1: have ever met with because it put in perspective for

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Speaker 1: us when you work a case and you go back

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Speaker 1: and you actually find evidence, which we did over one

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifteen different fragments, casings, bullets, or artifacts and

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Speaker 1: turn them over to the FBI, and there's still no

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Speaker 1: movement when we reach out to the community and we're

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Speaker 1: looking for either a deathbed confession maybe or somebody from

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Speaker 1: the family to come forward to say this gun was

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Speaker 1: passed down and here's the story. I was told, any

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Speaker 1: small statement or piece of evidence, you may put some

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Speaker 1: puzzle pieces together, it may give answers. But what happened

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Speaker 1: in this case when Claire and Holly and Laura and

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Speaker 1: Janie and so many other people got involved and started

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Speaker 1: working this case. It became clear that we probably weren't

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Speaker 1: going to be able to move this case in the

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Speaker 1: direction that we wanted. The solvability factors just weren't there. Yes,

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Speaker 1: we had a nickel from nineteen forty seven, we had

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Speaker 1: a button from the era. We had bullets and shell

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Speaker 1: casings from that period. But we couldn't put a gun

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Speaker 1: in somebody's hand. And even though the jailer, mister Howard

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Speaker 1: is on our list of people that should have been

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Speaker 1: looked at more closely, Lloyd Harrison is on the list

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Speaker 1: of somebody that should have been looked at more closely.

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Speaker 1: All those things are obvious. But to me, something bigger

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Speaker 1: and even more important in some ways happened. And that's

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Speaker 1: to show that love wins. Maybe there were twenty five

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Speaker 1: people on that bridge, I could name two hundred that

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Speaker 1: have tried to do something about it. Love wins, good

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Speaker 1: conquers evil. And in this case, my students got to

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Speaker 1: meet somebody they originally did not want to meet with.

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Speaker 1: They thought he was going to be a certain person,

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Speaker 1: and they found out he joined a gang for the

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Speaker 1: same reasons that I might have joined a gang to survive.

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Speaker 1: Because he was eleven, he was fourteen, he was seventeen.

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Speaker 1: He had no family, no money, no education, no job skills.

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Speaker 1: And sometimes people that run street games or organized crime

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Speaker 1: or any of that, they look for desperate people. That's

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Speaker 1: who they go get. And if you're lucky, like Johnny

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Speaker 1: Lee Clary, there's a Reverend Wade Watts out there to

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Speaker 1: save you. I think it's important that I update y'all

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Speaker 1: on FOE and what she's doing now. She is one

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Speaker 1: of the best bel enforcement officers in Georgia. She is incredible.

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Speaker 1: She is finding fugitives all over the place. We all

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Speaker 1: got together recently and we jokingly told her we've got

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Speaker 1: to change her nickname from FOE to GPS. So she's

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Speaker 1: doing really well, and I just wanted y'all listening to

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Speaker 1: know that's where she wound up and that's what she's doing.

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Speaker 1: When I think about Morris fort Bridge, the last mass lynching,

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Speaker 1: I choose to think about Reverend Wade Watts. So I'm

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Speaker 1: going to end this little antidote by quoting the Reverend

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Speaker 1: Wade Watts. And this is something that he said to

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Speaker 1: Johnny Lee Clary. You can't do enough to me to

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Speaker 1: make me hate you. I'm gonna love you, and I

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Speaker 1: will pray for you, whether you like it or not.

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Speaker 1: I'm Cheryl my column and this is its own summon.

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Speaker 1: H