'Undercover in the Land of Jim Crow,' the Series, Part 2
A continuation of the spec script I wrote for the Netflix-like limited series that I hope someone in the creative community will have the balls & brains to make from my book '30 Days a Black Man.'
Part 1 of this spec script starts here.
EXT. SHUFORDVILLE CEMETERY, LYON, MISS. -- DAY
Near the edge of the cotton fields outside Clarksdale, DOBBS
and SPRIGLE turn off Highway 61, cross some railroad tracks
and enter segregated Shufordville Cemetery.
The graves and headstones on the left side of the gravel
driveway -- the white side -- are neat and tidy. The simple
gravestones on the right -- the black side -- are invisible
beneath the knee-high grass, weeds and wild flowers.
A dozen WHITE PEOPLE attend a service in the white graveyard,
their PARKED CARS lining the driveway.
Farther ahead sits a lone 1948 CADILLAC. Several hundred feet
into the black cemetery a well-dressed black man, DR. P.W.
HILL, 40, stands by the open door to a large gleaming WHITE
MARBLE TOMB.
Sprigle exits the car and surveys the white cemetery.
SPRIGLE
Where is it, Mr. Dobbs?
DOBBS
(POINTING to the black side)
There.
Dr. Hill waves.
Sprigle and Dobbs set out through the grass and weeds toward
the tomb, sweating, swatting mosquitoes and tripping over the
small HEADSTONES and sunken GRAVES hidden by the low jungle.
SPRIGLE
Even in death, separate and unequal...
DOBBS
Shameful.
SPRIGLE
Jim Crow is one cold-hearted bastard.
9.
DOBBS
Our people are too poor to care for
their own ancestors.
From inside the tomb's open iron-bar door, Dr. Hill
cheerfully waves to Sprigle and Dobbs as they near.
SPRIGLE
Dr. Hill's built quite a monument for
himself. DOBBS
Not for himself, Mr. Sprigle. His wife
and baby.
EXT. PASSENGER TRAIN, LYON, MISS., MOVING -- DAYS
As SPRIGLE and DOBBS tramp through the cemetery, a northbound
Illinois Central passenger TRAIN approaches on the nearby
tracks.
INT. PASSENGER COACH, MOVING -- DAY
In a crowded Jim Crow passenger car at the tail of the train
are a hundred black EX-SHARECROPPERS. Many of the men are with their families. Joining "The Great Migration," they and all they own are making a one-way journey to Chicago.
As the DIESEL LOCOMOTIVE approaches the railroad crossing by
the cemetery, it emits a long, deep, PLAINTIVE BLAST on its
powerful horn.
The white 1946 FORD COUPE with TWO WHITE MEN is parked on the
dirt road to the cemetery, blocked by the passing train.
EXT. POOR FARM IN KENNESAW, GEORGIA -- DAY
CAPTION: 1888
A steam locomotive's piercing STEAM WHISTLE sounds.
Six-year-old JOHN WESLEY DOBBS, barefoot and dirt poor,
watches an Atlanta-bound passenger TRAIN slowly passing the
gate of his grandfather's poor struggling farm.
10.
Two primitive log cabin HOUSES with dirt floors are home to
half a dozen adults, 20 COUSINS of various ages, some
chickens and a mule.
Dobbs is being raised by his grandparents. His noticeably
lighter-skinned grandmother JUDIE is the daughter of a white
slave owner and a slave.
JUDIE
John Wesley, you done feeding those
chickens?Dobbs stares back at the faces of a dozen WHITE PEOPLE
staring from the windows of the passing train. The only white
people he ever sees, he still doesn't quite know what they
are.
DOBBS
Ghosts.
EXT. POOR FARM IN KENNESAW, GEORGIA -- DAY
CAPTION: 1891
JOHN WESLEY DOBBS, 9, joyfully greets his mother MINNIE, 29,
who arrives from Savannah in a WAGON to take him back with
her.
A proud aristocratic mulatto beauty wearing fine clothes,
she's been working for a white family and sees John Wesley
twice a year.
She gives him a picture BOOK, a new SHIRT and hands him his
first pair of SHOES.
MINNIE
You'll need these in Savannah, John Wesley.
EXT. WHITE MAIN STREET, SAVANNAH -- DAY
A fine pair of men's shoes... is being spit-shined by DOBBS,
13. With his school books close at hand, he is polishing the
shoes of A WHITE BUSINESSMAN in front of a barbershop that
has BLACK BARBERS and WHITE CUSTOMERS.
11.
EXT. CORNER DRUGSTORE, AUBURN AVENUE, ATLANTA -- DAY
CAPTION: 1899
At 6 a.m. DOBBS, 17, rides his bike to open up a black-owned
drugstore on Auburn Avenue, Atlanta's black main street. He
works two hours, then, with his BOOKS strapped over his
shoulder, he sprints to A BLACK HIGH SCHOOL on his bike.
INT. RAILROAD MAIL CAR, MOVING -- NIGHT
CAPTION: 1906
DOBBS, 24, is a U.S. Post Office clerk. Wearing a silver-
plated government badge, a white shirt and khakis and a long
brass chain heavy with keys, he sorts Christmas mail in a
locked mail car on an overnight train going from Atlanta to
Nashville.
The only black man in the CREW OF EIGHT MEN, Dobbs wears his
U.S. Post Office-issued .32 REVOLVER on his hip. A SATCHEL
full of library BOOKS from Fisk University is by his feet.
INT. NASHVILLE HOTEL ROOM -- DAY
On a table DOBBS has a well-worn NOTEBOOK and a small stack
of history and literature BOOKS -- biographies of Lincoln and
Napoleon and an English literature anthology.
On the cover of his thick notebook of quotes from the likes
of AESOP and FREDERICK DOUGLASS is his hand-written title, "Armory of Ideas." In the notebook Dobbs carefully writes: "I cannot conquer age, all other fights I can win. -- John Wesley Dobbs"
EXT. DOWNTOWN ATLANTA STREET -- DAY
CAPTION: SEPT. 23, 1906
Seven armed and frenzied WHITE MEN and BOYS stop a city
TROLLEY and pull a BLACK MAN from his seat in the rear. They
beat him up, call him racist names, shoot him several times
and leave him for dead in the street.
The bloody ATLANTA RACE RIOT is underway.
12.
Mobs of white men have been stirred up by several days of sensationalized front-page articles in the city's white newspapers that railed about Negro "brutes" raping white
women:
"ATLANTA IS SWEPT BY RAGING MOB; DUE TO ASSAULTS ON WHITE WOMEN.
INT. DOWNTOWN BARBER SHOP -- NIGHT
A black-owned barber shop that caters to white businessmen is
being set on fire by a dozen young WHITE MEN.
Two terrified older black men, BARBERS in white coats with
their hands up, are hit in the face by bricks and shot to
rags.
Their bodies are dragged into the street where they are
mutilated by the blood thirsty mob, which tears off pieces of
their clothing as souvenirs and waves them above their heads.
A third unlucky BLACK MAN nearby is grabbed, quickly gunned
down and his BODY thrown on top of the dead barbers.
INT. DOBBS' HOME, AUBURN AVENUE -- NIGHT
The race riot is in its second night. DOBBS, 24, sits on a
chair in the dark facing his front door.
His .32 Colt REVOLVER is on his lap and a FRESH BOX OF SHELLS
is open at his feet. His young wife IRENE sleeps on a cot behind him.
Outside on the street are angry voices, occasional gunshots
and flashes of light from the torches of the GANGS of white
men roaming the black neighborhood looking for victims.
INT. MIDDLE-CLASS HOUSE, HOUSTON ST. -- MIDNIGHT
Three blocks from Dobbs' house, WALTER WHITE, 13, a
frightened slight Negro boy with white skin, blue eyes and
blond hair, looks out the parlor window.
His equally pale but heavily suntanned father, GEORGE WHITE,
is still in his U.S. Post Office mailman UNIFORM.
Peering from the darkened second floor window in terror are
Walter White's MOTHER and five younger SISTERS, all very
light-skinned.
13.
The White family watches an approaching MOB of a dozen
hopped-up white men with guns and torches.
Some in the mob shoot randomly or throw STONES into the
windows of houses.
In the small stable in the front of the house the HORSE that
pulls George White's U.S. MAIL CART is jittery. From the
White's front porch the lawn slopes to a picket fence and the
street.
MOB LEADER
'Darktown' starts right here. Let's clean
out some coons!
MOB MEMBER ONE
That's where that nigger mail carrier lives.
MOB MEMBER TWO
It's too fancy for niggers to live in!
From a hall closet GEORGE WHITE gets a SHOTGUN and a PISTOL.
He makes sure the pistol is loaded and calmly hands it to his
son WALTER.
GEORGE WHITE
Shoot when the first man puts his foot
on the lawn. WALTER WHITE
Where did you get these!?
GEORGE WHITE
Your mother made me buy them this
morning. WALTER WHITE
I don't know how....
GEORGE WHITE
Point and pull the trigger, boy -- and
don't miss.
As the mob approaches the White's perfectly painted and well-
kept home, shots are fired from a BARRICADED BUILDING across
the street by A GROUP OF BLACK MEN armed with shotguns and
pistols.
The mob stops, ducks, then retreats.
14.
EXT. FRONT YARD OF DOBBS HOME, AUBURN AVE. -- DAWN
DOBBS and his wife IRENE survey the random damage to their
all-black neighborhood. A corner store across the street is
burned out and still smoking but the bloody riot is over.
Dobbs carefully empties the cartridges from his .32 Colt
REVOLVER.
IRENE
Thank the Lord you didn't need that.
DOBBS
Ida B. Wells is right.
IRENE
About what?
DOBBS
She says 'A Winchester rifle should
have a place of honor in every black
home, and it should be used for that
protection which the law refuses to
give.' ...
Until we get our own police we have to
defend ourselves....
EXT. FRONT YARD OF A MIDDLE-CLASS HOME -- DAWN
WALTER WHITE, 13, the future National Secretary of the NAACP,
stands with his father GEORGE WHITE on the front porch of
their untouched house.
GEORGE WHITE
Now you know what it means to be
a Negro. WALTER WHITE
What do you mean?
GEORGE WHITE
It doesn't matter how wealthy or smart
we are, or how pale our skin is. We
are in constant danger of being hunted
down like animals -- or lynched.
WALTER WHITE
What have we done wrong?
15.
GEORGE WHITE
Nothing. We are black. We are always
held to be inferior to the lowest
white man.
WALTER WHITE
When will it change?
GEORGE WHITE
We'll never be equal as long as
there's Jim Crow. I'll never see it
end in my lifetime. I pray to Jesus
you will.
The historic Atlanta race riot is over. It makes news around
the world. As the NEW YORK TIMES' front-page headlines
scream:
"ATLANTA MOBS KILL TEN NEGROES; Maybe 25 or 30; Assaults on
Women the Cause; SLAIN WHEREVER FOUND; Cars Stopped in
Streets, Victims Torn from Them; MILITIA MEN CALLED OUT;
Trolley Systems Stopped to Keep the Mob from Reaching the
Negro Quarter."