Racial hatred in the Deep South before the passage of the Civil Rights Act wasn’t limited only to African-Americans.  The Klan had an interest in Jews, too.  In 1913, Atlanta was the setting for a legal trial that captured the attention of the entire nation and unleashed a seething anti-Semitism that eventually led to the creation of the Anti-Defamation League.  Leo Frank, a northern educated Jew, arrived in Atlanta to manage a local pencil factory.  There were lingering resentments against northerners who were perceived to be threatening Southern culture and morality, and Leo Frank had no idea how much safer he would have been had he remained in Brooklyn.

When a 13-year-old girl was found murdered in the basement of the factory, the police investigation soon pointed to Frank, despite the fact that the evidence was virtually nonexistent, and his alibis were ignored.  The Frank trial exposed a deep-seated, latent hatred of Jewish achievement in the Deep South, and when Frank was convicted and his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, he was kidnapped from jail and lynched by a mob of Klansmen, which included a former governor, a senator’s son, a Methodist minister, a state legislator, and a former state Superior Court judge.

They Won’t Forget, a classic motion picture from the 1930s, is a fictionalized drama based on the Leo Frank trial. Joining us for an important and illuminating post-screening conversation will be Abraham Foxman, the Executive Director of the Anti-Defamation League, Alfred Uhry, who wrote the book for the musical Parade based on the Leo Frank case, and cultural critic Morris Dickstein, whose most recent book, Dancing in the Dark, discusses the ways in which the culture of the 1930s has shaped American consciousness and thinking.

They Won’t Forget will be screened Wednesday, Oct. 20, during the Fordham Law Film Festival. The festival runs Oct. 15-21.

Check out the other sneak peeks:

HBO Films You Don’t Know Jack

PBS Documentary Worse Than War

12 Angry Men

Amistad

…And Justice for All

Tags: Abraham Foxman, Alfred Uhry, Fordham, Fordham Law Film Festival, Morris Dickstein, They Won't Forget

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