2/21 Film: FAIR GAME: Surviving a 1960 Georgia Lynching
Fair Game
NCAAA Museum screening and discussion
FAIR GAME: Surviving a 1960 Georgia Lynching
By Clennon L. King
Thursday, February 21, 2019
7:00pm
Free to the public
This Locally-Produced Documentary About a Black New Jersey Man Sentenced
To Death in A Town Notorious for Lynching Recalls a Tragedy Too Common
in Our History.
A new locally-produced documentary about a Black New Jersey veteran
sentenced to death in a Georgia town notorious for lynching will help
mark Black History Month in Boston.
The film entitled “Fair Game: Surviving A 1960 Georgia Lynching”,
directed by Boston-based filmmaker Clennon L. King, tells the story of
James Fair, Jr. who, in 1960, was arrested, jailed, tried, convicted and
sentenced to Georgia’s electric chair in less than three days, for a
rape and murder he didn’t commit.
“These were the kinds of stories I grew up hearing as a native
Southerner,” said the Roxbury-based filmmaker, who researched, wrote and
edited the project in Boston. “And to think this happened while JFK was
making a White House run.”
King will introduce his 65-minute documentary Thursday, February 21,
2019 at the Museum of the National Center of Afro American Artists
(NCAAA), 300 Walnut Ave, Roxbury, MA 02119. King will lead a
post-screening discussion, followed by audience Q&A. The program is free
and open to the public.
“Fair Game: Surviving A 1960 Georgia Lynching” Trailer from
AugustineMonica Films on Vimeo.
An award-winning Boston-based journalist and filmmaker, King dedicated
the documentary to the 24 known Black men who were lynched in Early
County, Georgia between 1881 and 1941, and to his father, Georgia’s
legendary civil rights attorney C.B. King, who tried to prevent Fair
from becoming the 25th victim.
The mother of James Fair Jr. of Bayonne, NJ visits her son on death row
in Blakely, Georgia in 1960.
In the mid-1940s, the family of James Fair, Jr. joined the second wave
of the Great Migration, leaving Tampa, Florida, and resettling in
Bayonne, New Jersey, where he grew up. In May 1960, the 24-year-old Navy
vet joined a friend from nearby Newark on a road trip home to Blakely,
Georgia. Their arrival, however, in Early County could not have been
more ill-timed. It coincided with the alleged rape and murder of an
8-year-old girl, prompting local authorities to finger Fair as the fall
guy. Less than three days later, a local judge sentenced him to
Georgia’s electric chair, prompting Fair’s mother, Alice, to mount an
18-month campaign that captured national headlines to save the life of
her son.
The film features multiple national luminaries, including the
presidential advisor Vernon Jordan, who was a young law clerk on the
case, and White House cabinet secretary Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, who
hailed from the town where the case unfolded. Also featured is former
Blakely chief of police, Charles Middleton, who offers an unvarnished
and candid look into his own family’s suggested role in that lynching
that took place in Early County.
“Fair Game” marks King’s second documentary. His first, the
award-winning “Passage at St. Augustine: The 1964 Black Lives Matter
Movement That Transformed America”, won the Henry Hampton Award of
Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking at the 2015 Roxbury International
Film Festival.
NCAAA Museum
300 Walnut Avenue
Roxbury MA 02119
(617) 442-8614
themuseum@ncaaa.org
Tuesday-Sunday 1:00 pm-5:00 pm
© 2019 NCAAA by Spectrum Creatives
______________________________
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Act-MA@act-ma.org
http://act-ma.org/mailman/listinfo/act-ma_act-ma.org
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NCAAA Museum screening and discussion
FAIR GAME: Surviving a 1960 Georgia Lynching
By Clennon L. King
Thursday, February 21, 2019
7:00pm
Free to the public
This Locally-Produced Documentary About a Black New Jersey Man Sentenced
To Death in A Town Notorious for Lynching Recalls a Tragedy Too Common
in Our History.
A new locally-produced documentary about a Black New Jersey veteran
sentenced to death in a Georgia town notorious for lynching will help
mark Black History Month in Boston.
The film entitled “Fair Game: Surviving A 1960 Georgia Lynching”,
directed by Boston-based filmmaker Clennon L. King, tells the story of
James Fair, Jr. who, in 1960, was arrested, jailed, tried, convicted and
sentenced to Georgia’s electric chair in less than three days, for a
rape and murder he didn’t commit.
“These were the kinds of stories I grew up hearing as a native
Southerner,” said the Roxbury-based filmmaker, who researched, wrote and
edited the project in Boston. “And to think this happened while JFK was
making a White House run.”
King will introduce his 65-minute documentary Thursday, February 21,
2019 at the Museum of the National Center of Afro American Artists
(NCAAA), 300 Walnut Ave, Roxbury, MA 02119. King will lead a
post-screening discussion, followed by audience Q&A. The program is free
and open to the public.
“Fair Game: Surviving A 1960 Georgia Lynching” Trailer from
AugustineMonica Films on Vimeo.
An award-winning Boston-based journalist and filmmaker, King dedicated
the documentary to the 24 known Black men who were lynched in Early
County, Georgia between 1881 and 1941, and to his father, Georgia’s
legendary civil rights attorney C.B. King, who tried to prevent Fair
from becoming the 25th victim.
The mother of James Fair Jr. of Bayonne, NJ visits her son on death row
in Blakely, Georgia in 1960.
In the mid-1940s, the family of James Fair, Jr. joined the second wave
of the Great Migration, leaving Tampa, Florida, and resettling in
Bayonne, New Jersey, where he grew up. In May 1960, the 24-year-old Navy
vet joined a friend from nearby Newark on a road trip home to Blakely,
Georgia. Their arrival, however, in Early County could not have been
more ill-timed. It coincided with the alleged rape and murder of an
8-year-old girl, prompting local authorities to finger Fair as the fall
guy. Less than three days later, a local judge sentenced him to
Georgia’s electric chair, prompting Fair’s mother, Alice, to mount an
18-month campaign that captured national headlines to save the life of
her son.
The film features multiple national luminaries, including the
presidential advisor Vernon Jordan, who was a young law clerk on the
case, and White House cabinet secretary Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, who
hailed from the town where the case unfolded. Also featured is former
Blakely chief of police, Charles Middleton, who offers an unvarnished
and candid look into his own family’s suggested role in that lynching
that took place in Early County.
“Fair Game” marks King’s second documentary. His first, the
award-winning “Passage at St. Augustine: The 1964 Black Lives Matter
Movement That Transformed America”, won the Henry Hampton Award of
Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking at the 2015 Roxbury International
Film Festival.
NCAAA Museum
300 Walnut Avenue
Roxbury MA 02119
(617) 442-8614
themuseum@ncaaa.org
Tuesday-Sunday 1:00 pm-5:00 pm
© 2019 NCAAA by Spectrum Creatives
______________________________
Act-MA mailing list
Act-MA@act-ma.org
http://act-ma.org/mailman/listinfo/act-ma_act-ma.org
To set options or unsubscribe
http://act-ma.org/mailman/options/act-ma_act-ma.org
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