Join ACLU of Mississippi April 7, 2022, 6-8 p.m., at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum for a special screening of Critics Choice Documentary Awards Nominee A Crime on the Bayou, followed by a discussion on Black representation in the judicial system.
A Crime on the Bayou is the story of Gary Duncan, a Black teenager from Plaquemines Parish, a swampy strip of land south of New Orleans. In 1966, Duncan tries to break up an argument between white and Black teenagers outside a newly integrated school. He gently lays his hand on a white boy’s arm. The boy recoils like a snake. That night, police burst into Duncan’s trailer and arrest him for assault on a minor.
A young Jewish attorney, Richard Sobol, leaves his prestigious D.C. firm to volunteer in New Orleans. With his help, Duncan bravely stands up to a racist legal system powered by a white supremacist boss to challenge his unfair arrest. Their fight goes all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and their lifelong friendship is forged.
Duncan is one of many unsung heroes that stood up for what was right during the Civil Rights Movement. He did not set out to change history, but his actions remind us that anyone can.
The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has said we need to know the real people behind their groundbreaking cases. Gary Duncan is one of them.
Executive produced by John Legend, A Crime on the Bayou is the third film in director Nancy Buirski's trilogy profiling brave individuals who fought for justice in and around the Civil Rights era, following The Loving Story and The Rape of Recy Taylor.
