Latest / History Dark / You Belong To Me_ Sex_ Race and Murder in the South

Transcript

You Belong To Me_ Sex_ Race and Murder in the South · History Dark

• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Honey, the white man is the ruler of everything as
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: far as I've been able to find out. Maybe it's
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: some place way off in the ocean where the black
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: man is in power. But we don't know nothing but
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: what we see. So the white man throw down the
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: load and tell the nigger man to pick it up.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: He pick it up because he have to. But he
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: don't tote it. He handed to his woman folks. The
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: nigger woman is the mule of the world so far
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: as I can see. I've been praying for it to
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: be different with you. Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Watching God, 1937.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: When I was growing up in Live Oak, I would
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: actually go by that house just to look at it
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: and say to myself, I sure would like to have
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: a house like that one day.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: Growing up in Live Oak, Florida, I remember passing by
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: this house that had been, you could tell, absolutely grand.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Who had owned that house?
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: When had it been built? It looked so different from
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: all the other shotgun houses that surrounded it. And that's
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: how I first became interested in the story of Ruby McCollum.
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: I asked my parents at the dinner table, I said,
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: who is Ruby McCollum? And my parents told me that
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: I was not to talk about that.
• 2:46
  Speaker 5: This was on a Sunday morning. I never will forget it.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: Quiet morning, white congregants are gathered in the First Methodist
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: Church in downtown Live Oak. A doctor enters his office,
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: Clifford Leroy Adams.
• 3:05
  Speaker 6: Halfway across town, we have an African-American woman get into
• 3:08
  Speaker 6: a car with two of her children. Start driving over
• 3:13
  Speaker 6: to Dr.
• 3:14
  Speaker 7: Adams' office.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: Driving a blue Chrysler. That woman was Ruby McCollum. Everyone
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: would have.
• 3:21
  Speaker 6: Known who she is.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: She is the wealthiest African-American woman in Live Oak.
• 3:31
  Speaker 8: She had two children in her car that she pulled
• 3:34
  Speaker 8: up in a hot August morning and she left those
• 3:37
  Speaker 8: children in the car. Today she could get arrested for that.
• 3:42
  Speaker 8: She kept going back and forth looking to see if
• 3:45
  Speaker 8: there were people in the waiting room. Then she had
• 3:47
  Speaker 8: a concealed weapon in her pocketbook.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: She finally goes into the doctor's office.
• 3:56
  Speaker 6: What happened next shook Suwannee County and Live Oak for
• 3:58
  Speaker 6: years to come.
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: Black women did not shoot white men.
• 4:13
  Speaker 9: Why would she do something like that?
• 4:17
  Speaker 10: Something must have happened. that was overwhelming for her to
• 4:26
  Speaker 10: decide and act that way.
• 4:32
  Speaker 9: It was a shock to the community.
• 4:37
  Speaker 11: And my mother was afraid that the KKK was going
• 4:43
  Speaker 11: to turn this town upside and down.
• 4:46
  Speaker 6: When Ruby McCollum murdered Dr. Adams in 1952, it opened
• 4:48
  Speaker 6: up a sinkhole into what lies beneath the quaint, nice
• 4:56
  Speaker 6: facade of Suwannee County. We had to face our demons.
• 5:15
  Speaker 12: I was nine years old. when Dr. Adams died. I
• 5:20
  Speaker 12: remember the morning very well. I lived out in the
• 5:23
  Speaker 12: country about 12 miles out of town.
• 5:25
  Speaker 13: I was at summer camp.
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: Our floor manager, he come and stopped all of us
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: and said, Dr. Adams just been killed.
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: My girlfriend's parents drove up. They both immediately jumped out
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: of the car at the same time and ran up
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: to her and grabbed her and they were both crying.
• 5:47
  Speaker 12: He was our family doctor, and so it was a
• 5:51
  Speaker 12: shock to all of us.
• 5:52
  Speaker 14: I went down the day after the incident with my grandfather,
• 5:56
  Speaker 14: my brother, and I, and I can remember pulling.
• 5:59
  Speaker 7: Up to the back of Dr. Adams' office.
• 6:01
  Speaker 14: I vividly remember it made an impression on me to
• 6:04
  Speaker 14: see the bloody footprints coming out of the back of
• 6:07
  Speaker 14: the office there.
• 6:08
  Speaker 6: My great-grandparents, Vero and Margie Musgrove, went and saw Dr.
• 6:13
  Speaker 6: Adams just literally a few minutes before he was murdered.
• 6:16
  Speaker 6: My great-grandfather Vero and my great-uncle Harold were two of
• 6:19
  Speaker 6: the witnesses at the trial.
• 6:21
  Speaker 9: My name is Clifford Leroy Adams.
• 6:23
  Speaker 15: My father and Dr. Adams were friends, and I was
• 6:28
  Speaker 15: born a couple of months after the killing, so I
• 6:30
  Speaker 15: was named after him.
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: You just couldn't hardly believe it, you know. Why would
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: she do that? She had everything in the world.
• 6:40
  Speaker 13: I never knew Ruby McCollum, but for years her life
• 6:44
  Speaker 13: has haunted mine. I became determined to discover the truth
• 6:48
  Speaker 13: about her, a truth I felt in my heart had
• 6:51
  Speaker 13: never been fully told. It turns out I wasn't the
• 6:56
  Speaker 13: only one. Over 60 years after the murder of Dr. Adams,
• 7:02
  Speaker 13: my team went on a journey to find the real
• 7:05
  Speaker 13: Ruby McCollum. Ruby's son, Sam McCollum Jr. still lives in
• 7:17
  Speaker 13: Live Oak, still lives at the Great Yellow Stucco House.
• 7:21
  Speaker 13: The house is slowly rotting away like an unhealed wound.
• 7:26
  Speaker 13: I sent a letter to Sam Jr. asking him to
• 7:28
  Speaker 13: talk with me. His reply, through a mutual friend, I
• 7:33
  Speaker 13: don't talk about my mother.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: I would always say, I don't want to talk about that.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Just let that stay where it's at. And it was
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: kind of like his words, let it stay where it's at.
• 7:43
  Speaker 13: Others were ready to help tell Ruby's story, a story
• 7:47
  Speaker 13: that began long before August 3rd, 1952.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: The story of Ruby McCollum and Doc Adams takes place
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: in a Florida that existed before NASA. before Disney, before
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: the interstates.
• 8:16
  Speaker 6: Doc Adams comes from a long line of influential men.
• 8:22
  Speaker 7: My great-great-grandfather, Robert W.
• 8:24
  Speaker 15: Adams, was the first Adams who came to Hamilton County.
• 8:27
  Speaker 15: He came here before the time of the Civil War.
• 8:30
  Speaker 15: After the Civil War, he opened the Adams store in
• 8:32
  Speaker 15: White Springs. The Adams house in White Springs was built
• 8:36
  Speaker 15: by his sons. My great-grandfather was Frank Adams, who was
• 8:42
  Speaker 15: Robert W. Adams' oldest son, one of, I believe, five children.
• 8:48
  Speaker 15: Frank was a banker and businessman. He was one of
• 8:52
  Speaker 15: the people who started the Barnett Bank chain in Florida.
• 8:55
  Speaker 15: He was also president of the Florida Senate in the
• 8:58
  Speaker 15: early 1900s.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: Ruby Jackson was born in 1909 in a rural area
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: outside of Ocala, Florida. It was 40 years after the
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: end of slavery.
• 9:08
  Speaker 10: Ruby McCullough was a black woman that came along during
• 9:12
  Speaker 10: a very defining period.
• 9:16
  Speaker 16: Of our history.
• 9:17
  Speaker 17: Slavery ended. Black codes began. Black codes ended. Jim Crow began.
• 9:23
  Speaker 17: So you're talking a good 400 and some years of
• 9:26
  Speaker 17: people pretty much having a sense of superiority.
• 9:31
  Speaker 18: The Klan was running rampant. The Klan just had Florida
• 9:37
  Speaker 18: in a stranglehold.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: An African American living in the state of Florida had
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: the highest chance of getting lynched out of any black
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: person in the nation.
• 9:49
  Speaker 17: Living under the system of Jim Crow in the South
• 9:52
  Speaker 17: was like living in hell.
• 10:00
  Speaker 19: The Florida Ku Klux Klan is the most powerful paramilitary
• 10:04
  Speaker 19: organization in the United States between the 1920s and the 1950s.
• 10:08
  Speaker 19: It has so much power. The Klan runs entire cities.
• 10:14
  Speaker 19: It runs entire counties.
• 10:19
  Speaker 11: A lot of your KKK members was judges, was lawyers,
• 10:25
  Speaker 11: was doctors. They put on those hoods, and those was
• 10:29
  Speaker 11: the KKK guys.
• 10:31
  Speaker 12: I knew one gentleman that was proud to show you
• 10:34
  Speaker 12: his KKK card from the 50s.
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: I was never really interested in the Klan. I mean,
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: I thought from what I could hear, they sometimes... Things
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: they did was probably good, but sometimes things they did
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: wasn't good. So I just, I mean myself, I wouldn't
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: be involved with it.
• 11:02
  Speaker 20: But on Saturdays, Friday evenings and Saturdays, the Ku Klux
• 11:06
  Speaker 20: Klan would march downtown and look in all the stores.
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: I remember seeing the Klan's march.
• 11:15
  Speaker 20: And if they caught a black man on the streets,
• 11:17
  Speaker 20: I mean, they'd just beat him down.
• 11:19
  Speaker 9: It would be bad for.
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: Any blacks to get around them at that time.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: Ruby had a unique opportunity to receive an incredible education.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: She was able to attend the Fessenden Academy, which had
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: the reputation of being one of the few places throughout
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: the region where an African-American child could receive a world-class education.
• 11:44
  Speaker 7: Mr.
• 11:44
  Speaker 21: Fessenden came down to Florida. He found a black kids
• 11:49
  Speaker 21: having school in the old Union log cabin. So he
• 11:56
  Speaker 21: built a school on this beautiful hill that became Fessenden Academy.
• 12:03
  Speaker 21: And that was the greatest thing that could have happened
• 12:06
  Speaker 21: in the whole state of Florida because it was the
• 12:10
  Speaker 21: best school, I guess, anywhere. It was just a miracle.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: It attracted students from throughout the region, the Caribbean, as
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: well as Africa. And it had a reputation of producing
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: graduates that were both ambitious and incredibly talented.
• 12:25
  Speaker 21: Most of the graduates have that in them. A zest
• 12:32
  Speaker 21: for knowledge and a desire to move beyond the ordinary
• 12:39
  Speaker 21: circumstances that one might find themselves in. To always advance.
• 12:46
  Speaker 21: to reach for something greater than they perhaps ever had.
• 12:51
  Speaker 21: She had a pretty face and pretty hair, but I
• 12:55
  Speaker 21: thought she was, she was like reserved, very, very reserved.
• 12:59
  Speaker 21: But I noticed it as like, and the kids would say, oh,
• 13:05
  Speaker 21: she sure is, she's like selfish. And you know, she's
• 13:09
  Speaker 21: conceited or she's to.
• 13:11
  Speaker 7: Herself, you know.
• 13:12
  Speaker 21: Was like that. It was just kid, you know, and
• 13:15
  Speaker 21: they can be very cruel, I know that.
• 13:18
  Speaker 22: My mama said her school, get her good education, all that.
• 13:25
  Speaker 23: I studied nursing there for two years. I've always wanted
• 13:29
  Speaker 23: to relieve suffering.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: The story goes that she'd actually been dating one young man.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: but decided to begin dating Sam McCollum because in her opinion,
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: he was more ambitious and that she would be able
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: to go further in life. And so the two of
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: them get married and like a lot of other African
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: Americans during this period in time, they decided to leave
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: the segregated South and travel to New York. Sam McCollum's brother, Buck,
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: had the good fortune to get involved in the life
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: insurance business. He sends word to Sam that this may
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: be a good opportunity for him and Ruby, and the
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: couple make the decision to move back to Florida, eventually
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: settling in Live Oak.
• 14:19
  Speaker 24: I remember her as a very beautiful black woman.
• 14:24
  Speaker 9: She was one of my favorite aunts. You know, very
• 14:27
  Speaker 9: intelligent lady.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: She was a good person in the church, African Baptist church.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Sam put a lot of money into that church and
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: made donations. They were thought of as good people in
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: the community. I think there were people that were down
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: and out. They could go to them and get a
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: favor or get some help from them. So they were
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: thought of.
• 14:45
  Speaker 7: As good people.
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: Ruby and Sam and their family were well-known in Live Oak.
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: Very well-known.
• 14:55
  Speaker 24: My cousins had everything you could name.
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: Now, Ruby, she usually bought the groceries. Her husband, when
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: he come with her, he usually stayed around the car.
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: But he was a well-dressed man, well-mannered, real polite, and
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: he always had a new car.
• 15:17
  Speaker 24: She always got a brand new Chrysler New Yorker.
• 15:22
  Speaker 25: Every time we saw her at these events, Six, seven
• 15:26
  Speaker 25: years old, she always says, here's a quarter for you.
• 15:31
  Speaker 25: And I was glad to see something larger than a penny.
• 15:35
  Speaker 9: When you met Ruby, you could tell that she had money.
• 15:39
  Speaker 24: They were some of the richest people, you know, in Florida.
• 15:42
  Speaker 9: Sam used to.
• 15:43
  Speaker 20: Come out and hunt quails on my grandmother's place. And
• 15:47
  Speaker 20: he would sit to the table and eat with us
• 15:49
  Speaker 20: and talk and laugh. I mean, he just was a
• 15:51
  Speaker 20: simple person. Plus, he used to... on all the jukeboxes
• 15:57
  Speaker 20: that was in the nightclub.
• 15:59
  Speaker 25: The first time he walked in, he dug in the room.
• 16:04
  Speaker 25: His whole body covered or blocked the light out. I said,
• 16:09
  Speaker 25: he's lost.
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: He was opening the door for her and all this
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: kind of stuff. Never heard anything out of him. Only
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: he was Bolita King.
• 16:18
  Speaker 9: Bolita.
• 16:18
  Speaker 19: Bolita.
• 16:19
  Speaker 7: Bolita.
• 16:19
  Speaker 9: Bolita.
• 16:20
  Speaker 12: Sam was known as the Bolita King for this area.
• 16:25
  Speaker 26: Bolita literally means little ball, and its earliest incarnation, it
• 16:28
  Speaker 26: was very similar to the way the lottery is run.
• 16:31
  Speaker 26: People would bet on which number would be chosen.
• 16:34
  Speaker 18: Tourism and citrus were the number one and two industries.
• 16:37
  Speaker 18: Bolita may have been number three because it was just rampant.
• 16:41
  Speaker 26: Bolita was extremely popular all across Florida. In individual kingpins,
• 16:45
  Speaker 26: you know, they could be making a couple hundred thousand
• 16:47
  Speaker 26: dollars a year at that time just from the Bolita rackets.
• 16:50
  Speaker 19: And we can trace many fortunes in the state of Florida,
• 16:53
  Speaker 19: many respectable fortunes back to Bolita.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Oh, it was widespread. They were ushers in the church.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: They were deacons on the deacon boards in churches. They
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: actually wrote the numbers.
• 17:06
  Speaker 20: The money was being made by a lot of big people.
• 17:10
  Speaker 20: And there was a lot of big people in Iowa
• 17:12
  Speaker 20: involved outside of Sam McCullough.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: And the name that kept coming up time and time
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: again is that of Dr. Clifford Leroy Adams.
• 17:21
  Speaker 9: Oh, yeah, I knew Dr.
• 17:21
  Speaker 7: Adams.
• 17:23
  Speaker 9: He was kind of a stocky kind of a man, an.
• 17:27
  Speaker 20: Intellectual-looking gentleman, kind of looked like, never liked Newt Gingrich.
• 17:37
  Speaker 27: Now, how long had you known Dr.
• 17:39
  Speaker 28: Adams?
• 17:40
  Speaker 23: Ever since 1945, about three months before Sonia was born.
• 17:46
  Speaker 23: She is now seven years old.
• 17:49
  Speaker 6: Dr. Adams was the people's doctor.
• 17:51
  Speaker 29: I was raised with many of you. I went to
• 17:54
  Speaker 29: school with many of you. I dug ditches on the
• 17:57
  Speaker 29: WPA with many of you. I rode turpentine woods and
• 18:01
  Speaker 29: worked with timber around many of your holes. I have
• 18:04
  Speaker 29: served many of you, as a druggist, in retail drugstores.
• 18:09
  Speaker 30: Lewa Adams was a powerful and popular guy.
• 18:12
  Speaker 7: Probably, or at least.
• 18:14
  Speaker 31: 250, 300 pounds, but he wasn't, I wouldn't say he
• 18:20
  Speaker 31: was fat, but he was just a big, big, big man.
• 18:24
  Speaker 31: I was called just a big, big man.
• 18:28
  Speaker 7: Dr.
• 18:29
  Speaker 8: Adams was a huge man and very friendly and nice.
• 18:34
  Speaker 12: My recollection of Dr. Adams was he was kind, he was,
• 18:38
  Speaker 12: I was not afraid to go to the doctor.
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: He lived right at the hospital. He'd walk out his
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: door into the hospital almost immediately.
• 18:47
  Speaker 9: It wasn't just the black poor people, he took care
• 18:50
  Speaker 9: of poor people.
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: We always thought he was a fine doctor and he
• 18:58
  Speaker 5: would make house calls back then. He'd go all the
• 19:01
  Speaker 5: way out in the country to see you if you
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: were sick.
• 19:04
  Speaker 12: Oh yes, I'm sure that there were many people in
• 19:06
  Speaker 12: Suwannee County that were treated by Dr. Adams that he
• 19:12
  Speaker 12: never received a penny for.
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: If you had like fried chicken or something. But he'd
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: grab a piece of that, and he's just a good
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: old fella.
• 19:23
  Speaker 7: Just made his self at home. Dr.
• 19:27
  Speaker 9: Adam and Sam McCullough hunted together.
• 19:31
  Speaker 7: Dr.
• 19:31
  Speaker 20: Adam, a lot of the time, would go to Sam's house,
• 19:33
  Speaker 20: and I guess they would talk and have dinner together.
• 19:37
  Speaker 20: The way he carried himself, he thought he knew everything,
• 19:42
  Speaker 20: about everything. and he thought he knew the black community
• 19:46
  Speaker 20: better than anybody else.
• 19:49
  Speaker 27: Since that time, have you been more or less continuously
• 19:52
  Speaker 27: under his care as a physician?
• 19:55
  Speaker 23: Well, slightly, in a way, and then in a way
• 20:00
  Speaker 23: I wasn't. I discontinued going to him too very often
• 20:03
  Speaker 23: after I found out what it was all about.
• 20:08
  Speaker 32: There were all kinds of daily interactions that put black
• 20:10
  Speaker 32: women in very peculiar and difficult places.
• 20:14
  Speaker 27: Did he at any time have any other relations with
• 20:16
  Speaker 27: you other than as a private physician and doctor?
• 20:21
  Speaker 32: Black women in the segregated South were almost always vulnerable.
• 20:25
  Speaker 32: They could be approached, flirted with, and they knew what
• 20:29
  Speaker 32: that meant. They knew that that was the introduction to
• 20:33
  Speaker 32: a nightmare.
• 20:34
  Speaker 27: Tell us if you ever had sexual intercourse with Dr.
• 20:38
  Speaker 27: Adams and where it was.
• 20:41
  Speaker 23: It was in my home in 1948, the first time
• 20:45
  Speaker 23: I ever had any sexual relations with Dr.
• 20:49
  Speaker 33: Adams.
• 20:50
  Speaker 34: We just couldn't believe it because it was just impossible
• 20:53
  Speaker 34: that just things like that didn't happen.
• 20:56
  Speaker 7: To me, it wasn't. Not really.
• 20:59
  Speaker 31: I seen him right in the hospital. mess around with
• 21:07
  Speaker 31: the women. I can remember hearing him ask one woman,
• 21:12
  Speaker 31: he sort of put her on a button, he's asking about,
• 21:16
  Speaker 31: where can I get some of this or something like that.
• 21:19
  Speaker 7: You know.
• 21:21
  Speaker 23: And he came back out there next morning about 9.30
• 21:24
  Speaker 23: and took me upstairs and laid me down on the
• 21:28
  Speaker 23: bed and began the intercourse.
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: White men maintained relationship, short term and long term, with
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: black women. But none of that was ever supposed to
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: rise to the surface. It was never to be discussed
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: in Decent Company. All of that was supposed to be submerged.
• 21:46
  Speaker 23: And when it was finished, he left. And he said,
• 21:49
  Speaker 23: I will be back some other time.
• 21:52
  Speaker 32: White men in the Jim Crow South, they were able
• 21:54
  Speaker 32: to take black women at will and do what they
• 21:57
  Speaker 32: wanted to do with them without any kind of fear
• 21:59
  Speaker 32: of punishment or even persecution within the community.
• 22:04
  Speaker 23: And he said, I'm not afraid, and I don't want
• 22:07
  Speaker 23: you to be afraid of it. No one is going
• 22:09
  Speaker 23: to bother me. That is a definite. I told him, okay.
• 22:15
  Speaker 23: And that made me begin to be afraid of him.
• 22:20
  Speaker 20: She was a black, good-looking lady. She probably started going
• 22:24
  Speaker 20: to the doctor for medical reasons. And I believe the
• 22:30
  Speaker 20: doctor had taken advantage of them.
• 22:33
  Speaker 25: There was almost a law that if a white man
• 22:37
  Speaker 25: wanted to go with somebody's wife, he could do that.
• 22:43
  Speaker 27: Did you continue then after this first time to have
• 22:46
  Speaker 27: sexual relations with Dr. Adams up until the time of
• 22:49
  Speaker 27: his death?
• 22:51
  Speaker 23: Yes, sir.
• 22:53
  Speaker 20: My cousin Jordan, he was an old man. He told
• 22:57
  Speaker 20: me that was a law. That if a white man
• 23:00
  Speaker 20: wanted to go with a black woman, that was his right.
• 23:03
  Speaker 20: That the black woman didn't really have the right to deny.
• 23:06
  Speaker 19: It was a cultural practice in the United States that
• 23:10
  Speaker 19: goes back to slavery times.
• 23:13
  Speaker 17: He said he was coming back, and he kept coming back.
• 23:16
  Speaker 17: Neighbors saw him coming and going.
• 23:19
  Speaker 31: If I'd been, I had a cousin live right pretty
• 23:22
  Speaker 31: close to her. There was nothing to see him every
• 23:25
  Speaker 31: morning or any mornings going on. Coming out the house,
• 23:30
  Speaker 31: Ruby McCullough's house.
• 23:33
  Speaker 32: The woman will weigh the options. What are her chances
• 23:36
  Speaker 32: for survival if she says no?
• 23:38
  Speaker 35: What consent means is it means that a person has
• 23:42
  Speaker 35: full understanding of the consequences of giving consent.
• 23:46
  Speaker 32: And so she consents. Is that still a consensual relationship?
• 23:50
  Speaker 31: I don't know.
• 23:52
  Speaker 35: The question would be, could she afford not to consent?
• 23:57
  Speaker 30: I don't know whether she had a choice to enter
• 23:59
  Speaker 30: into them, but I guarantee once she was in it,
• 24:01
  Speaker 30: she didn't have a choice on whether to get out
• 24:02
  Speaker 30: or not.
• 24:03
  Speaker 17: Ruby McCullough was raped. When you have a history of
• 24:09
  Speaker 17: the raping of black women in this country, in the South,
• 24:12
  Speaker 17: the way it was for Ruby McCullough, I don't care
• 24:14
  Speaker 17: what anybody says. Living with the fear of not doing
• 24:18
  Speaker 17: what a white man told you to do was death.
• 24:21
  Speaker 17: Not just death for you, but death for your family.
• 24:24
  Speaker 17: Burn your house down, hurt your kids.
• 24:27
  Speaker 36: Doc Adams had a lot going on that people didn't
• 24:29
  Speaker 36: really know about. It was much kind of a Jekyll
• 24:32
  Speaker 36: Hyde scenario in that he was the saint one time,
• 24:36
  Speaker 36: but then he had all these evil things going on otherwise.
• 24:40
  Speaker 37: Everything that Doc Adams did from the time that he
• 24:42
  Speaker 37: was first going to go to pharmacy school and then
• 24:45
  Speaker 37: medical school, he cheated everybody. He lied to everybody. He
• 24:50
  Speaker 37: got into medical school on drugs. on false pretenses. He
• 24:54
  Speaker 37: just lied to everybody.
• 24:55
  Speaker 38: I took pride in Leroy's success. I thought he was
• 24:58
  Speaker 38: a big man. I resented every criticism made against him,
• 25:03
  Speaker 38: though I knew he was doing some fronting for Sam
• 25:05
  Speaker 38: McCollum in the Bolita racket, and I knew of his
• 25:09
  Speaker 38: relationship with Ruby. In 1949, he got into his first
• 25:14
  Speaker 38: trouble with the law. A federal grand jury indicted him
• 25:18
  Speaker 38: for submitting fraudulent bills and collecting money for services he
• 25:22
  Speaker 38: claimed he had rendered to veterans, but which, in fact,
• 25:26
  Speaker 38: he had not rendered at all. He was in real trouble.
• 25:30
  Speaker 38: About 40 character witnesses went from here to help Leroy,
• 25:34
  Speaker 38: and we beat the case. The jury found him not guilty.
• 25:38
  Speaker 38: Laverne Blue, quoted by William Bradford Huey.
• 25:41
  Speaker 37: With a personality like his, which was a little off,
• 25:45
  Speaker 37: Not getting caught made him bolder so that he'd take
• 25:49
  Speaker 37: greater and greater risks.
• 25:51
  Speaker 7: Dr. C.
• 25:52
  Speaker 39: Leroy Adams announced this week that he would be a
• 25:54
  Speaker 39: candidate for the state senate.
• 25:56
  Speaker 30: If you were elected to the state senate out of
• 25:58
  Speaker 30: Suwannee County, you had power.
• 26:01
  Speaker 40: A result of the Kefauver investigation of organized gambling was
• 26:05
  Speaker 40: passage by Congress in 1951 of a law requiring professional
• 26:10
  Speaker 40: gamblers to purchase federal license or tax stamps. William Bradford Huey.
• 26:19
  Speaker 6: Sam McCollum is one of 10 African Americans in the
• 26:23
  Speaker 6: Suwannee County area who register with federal government and now
• 26:27
  Speaker 6: Sam's alleged Bolita activities becomes public.
• 26:31
  Speaker 39: That Bolita has flourished in this county for years under
• 26:34
  Speaker 39: Bolita Sam McCollum has been freely discussed. It remained for
• 26:39
  Speaker 39: the new federal law passed to help curb gambling in
• 26:42
  Speaker 39: this nation to point the finger at the racket that
• 26:45
  Speaker 39: has been in vogue here for years. Suwannee Democrat January 11th, 1952.
• 26:50
  Speaker 30: You know, if you talk to the old timers in
• 26:55
  Speaker 30: Live Oak, they will tell you Sam and Ruby were
• 26:57
  Speaker 30: a team. It wasn't Sam, it was Ruby. It was
• 27:00
  Speaker 30: Sam and Ruby.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: Ruby begins to exhibit signs of despondency and anxiety.
• 27:08
  Speaker 41: I have treated this patient for a nervous disorder. I
• 27:11
  Speaker 41: treated her and put her in the hospital, Brewster Hospital, Jacksonville.
• 27:16
  Speaker 41: She was there first in January. when she was a
• 27:18
  Speaker 41: patient for about 12 days, Dr. William H.
• 27:22
  Speaker 7: McCullough.
• 27:24
  Speaker 10: Ruby was under such pressure that it got to a
• 27:30
  Speaker 10: point where the rational part of her mind took over.
• 27:36
  Speaker 6: 20 Democrat is putting pressure on not only Sam McCullough,
• 27:40
  Speaker 6: but also local law enforcement to cease their gambling activities.
• 27:45
  Speaker 42: So far as I know, No effort has been made
• 27:47
  Speaker 42: to stop the racket by any of our law enforcement officers,
• 27:51
  Speaker 42: and that includes our sheriff, constable, and mayor.
• 27:55
  Speaker 6: Sim Howell, it's his first term as sheriff, was elected
• 27:59
  Speaker 6: in 1948 on a mission, a campaign promise to get
• 28:02
  Speaker 6: rid of Belita.
• 28:04
  Speaker 20: The sheriff ran this county. I mean, people were riding
• 28:07
  Speaker 20: around knocking on people's doors. You got your numbers today?
• 28:13
  Speaker 20: And I mean, this was just in every neighborhood.
• 28:17
  Speaker 9: The law enforcement was taking the majority of the money.
• 28:23
  Speaker 42: Bill Ware, Brantford druggist, queried the sheriff about McCollum. What
• 28:28
  Speaker 42: about Belita Sam, he asked. Why haven't you been able
• 28:30
  Speaker 42: to do anything about it? Emmett Peter Jr., Tampa Tribune,
• 28:34
  Speaker 42: January 1952.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: Once the Tampa Tribune picked up news of this story,
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: Sheriff Howell announced that he would no longer be seeking office.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: Doc Adams' son is killed in a car crash in Texas.
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: Around the same time, Ruby McCullum suffered another setback and
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: was readmitted to the Brewster Hospital in Jacksonville for psychiatric treatment.
• 28:58
  Speaker 41: She was there about nine days.
• 29:02
  Speaker 32: Dr.
• 29:02
  Speaker 7: William H. McCullum.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: There are very interesting contrasts that arise in May of 1952.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: It's in that month that Doc Adams is celebrating his
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: victory in the Democratic primary as a part of his
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: campaign for the Florida Senate seat. At the same time,
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: Ruby has yet again experienced another breakdown, and she is
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: headed back to the Brewster Hospital in Jacksonville.
• 29:28
  Speaker 37: He'd been elected to the state Senate, and he had hopes, sensible,
• 29:33
  Speaker 37: reasonable hopes of being the governor of Florida. Why would
• 29:37
  Speaker 37: he back down? Why would he slack off? Things were
• 29:39
  Speaker 37: going fine.
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: July 1952, Doc Adams travels with his wife to Chicago
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: to participate in the Democratic National Convention. When Doc Adams
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: returns to Live Oak, he returns to work.
• 30:01
  Speaker 8: I think Ruby felt abused by Dr. Adams, and she
• 30:05
  Speaker 8: was very, very angry.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: From what I heard, people thought that she was his
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: willing mistress.
• 30:15
  Speaker 17: When I think about a woman not having a choice,
• 30:19
  Speaker 17: using the word affair, relationship, it doesn't even come into play.
• 30:26
  Speaker 17: There's no equal relationship.
• 30:34
  Speaker 34: Now, it's just possible that she was, that she felt
• 30:38
  Speaker 34: like she had to do what Dr.
• 30:39
  Speaker 25: Adams said.
• 30:41
  Speaker 34: But I strongly suspect that it was more than that,
• 30:44
  Speaker 34: that maybe she felt an attraction to him, and she
• 30:50
  Speaker 34: may have even been, say, honored that this white man,
• 30:56
  Speaker 34: this white doctor, you know, was showing an interest in her.
• 31:01
  Speaker 9: She may have.
• 31:04
  Speaker 37: Ruby was not a well person. I mean, she had
• 31:08
  Speaker 37: had a lot of emotional difficulties prior to that.
• 31:13
  Speaker 25: I was told too that he was giving her drugs.
• 31:18
  Speaker 37: She was addicted to something. She needed her shots from
• 31:23
  Speaker 37: the doc.
• 31:23
  Speaker 17: The way that people should view Doc Adams, I think
• 31:31
  Speaker 17: they should make up their own minds what he was
• 31:34
  Speaker 17: and what he wasn't.
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: There are two African-American women waiting for Dr. Adams in
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: the colored waiting room. It's that Sunday morning that Ruby
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: McCollum walks into his office.
• 31:58
  Speaker 25: She was a thin sort of lady, and before she
• 32:01
  Speaker 25: thought or before she did anything, there was a thought
• 32:06
  Speaker 25: behind it.
• 32:08
  Speaker 20: Ruby was not really a violent person. I knew a person.
• 32:12
  Speaker 20: My mama knew. I mean, she just was an ordinary lady.
• 32:15
  Speaker 20: She wasn't the kind of person that would just fly off.
• 32:18
  Speaker 9: And kill somebody.
• 32:20
  Speaker 8: She was angry. It was premeditated.
• 32:23
  Speaker 17: I didn't think he deserved to be shot in the back,
• 32:26
  Speaker 17: but something had to be done.
• 32:29
  Speaker 13: My father was singing in the choir at church.
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: He was tapped on the shoulder and called out to
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: go and see about Doc Adams, who had been shot.
• 32:38
  Speaker 35: I don't even think the.
• 32:39
  Speaker 13: First word that he'd been killed was just that he'd
• 32:41
  Speaker 13: been shot.
• 32:44
  Speaker 6: Ruby McCollum has already left. She's locked the door behind her.
• 32:49
  Speaker 6: Gotten into her two-toned Chrysler, driven home with her two
• 32:53
  Speaker 6: children that were still inside the car. Law enforcement arrives
• 32:56
  Speaker 6: within minutes. They eventually get the door opened. go in
• 32:59
  Speaker 6: and find Doc Adams lying dead on the floor between
• 33:03
  Speaker 6: the colored examination room and the colored waiting area.
• 33:07
  Speaker 39: The 42-year-old doctor was found clutching a $ 100.
• 33:10
  Speaker 16: Bill in his hand. Sheriff Sim P. Howell reported. Swanee Democrat, August.
• 33:18
  Speaker 43: 8, 1952.
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: In Live Oak, in the 50s, everybody knew their role.
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: When Ruby McCollum shot Dr.
• 33:27
  Speaker 7: Adams.
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: It was completely and utterly out of character.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: Ruby returns home as if nothing has happened.
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: She makes a bottle for her daughter, and she waits
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: on the police.
• 33:41
  Speaker 30: And they weren't really worried about the doc, and they
• 33:46
  Speaker 30: weren't really worried about Ruby. They were worried about the
• 33:48
  Speaker 30: fact that Sam was paying them kickbacks, protection money.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: When the law came, she took the sheriff's deputy up
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: into the bathroom to pay him off, as casually as
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: she and her husband had done to keep from being
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: arrested for operating their bolita game. Zora Neale Hurston.
• 34:08
  Speaker 29: And I says to her again, Ruby, what in the
• 34:11
  Speaker 29: world caused you to kill Dr.
• 34:13
  Speaker 30: Adams?
• 34:14
  Speaker 6: She looked at me very calmly and coolly and says, Mr.
• 34:18
  Speaker 7: Gray, I don't know why I shot him.
• 34:20
  Speaker 6: I said, Ruby, what did you do with the gun
• 34:24
  Speaker 6: you shot Dr.
• 34:25
  Speaker 34: Adams with?
• 34:26
  Speaker 29: She said she threw it in the hedge at the
• 34:27
  Speaker 29: back of the house in the bamboos.
• 34:31
  Speaker 7: This is the gun.
• 34:32
  Speaker 28: It's a Smith & Wesson 38 Special, and this is
• 34:35
  Speaker 28: the gun that Reuben McCallum killed the doctor with. My
• 34:40
  Speaker 28: dad was clerk of circuit court at Tawana County, and
• 34:44
  Speaker 28: the shape it's in is exactly the shape it was
• 34:46
  Speaker 28: when she had it. It was nickel-plated, and you can
• 34:49
  Speaker 28: see it's worn pretty bad. Me and my brother, we
• 34:53
  Speaker 28: found this gun And we played with a gun. When
• 34:58
  Speaker 28: my dad got home, we put it up before he
• 34:59
  Speaker 28: got in the house. It had four empty shells in it.
• 35:06
  Speaker 20: And a mob of white clans surrounded the county jail.
• 35:13
  Speaker 31: That was all gathered up in front of the courthouse.
• 35:16
  Speaker 31: I walked over and asked somebody.
• 35:18
  Speaker 7: They told me, you know, she had killed Dr.
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: Adams.
• 35:26
  Speaker 7: And they were trying to get in there.
• 35:29
  Speaker 8: At that time, there was a problem. There was a
• 35:32
  Speaker 8: fear of people being lynched. Let's be upfront about that.
• 35:37
  Speaker 39: Shortly after the slaying, 22 state patrolmen patrolled the streets
• 35:41
  Speaker 39: of this tobacco center town after restless crowds began gathering
• 35:45
  Speaker 39: as reports of the shooting spread.
• 35:47
  Speaker 6: These folks who just a few minutes before were peacefully
• 35:49
  Speaker 6: singing songs of worship to God are now, in many cases,
• 35:53
  Speaker 6: calling to lynch this black woman for that murder.
• 35:56
  Speaker 7: They was going to take her out and hang her.
• 36:01
  Speaker 8: My dad was a man of the law. After he
• 36:05
  Speaker 8: received a phone call saying that Ruby had shot Dr. Adams,
• 36:10
  Speaker 8: he told the sheriff, get her immediately out of this county.
• 36:14
  Speaker 8: Get her to a safe place.
• 36:15
  Speaker 20: And some of the crowd see the sheriff pulling out
• 36:20
  Speaker 20: with Ruby. And one of the men in the crowd
• 36:23
  Speaker 20: had a Cadillac. And they chased the sheriff's car, and
• 36:29
  Speaker 20: his deputy said that this Cadillac was so close to
• 36:34
  Speaker 20: the sheriff's car that the sheriff gave him the order.
• 36:39
  Speaker 20: He was in the backseat of the sheriff's car with
• 36:40
  Speaker 20: a shotgun and said the sheriff gave him an order
• 36:44
  Speaker 20: that if this car pulled up on the side, blow
• 36:46
  Speaker 20: the tires out. That's how Ruby got the rapist.
• 36:53
  Speaker 36: Dr.
• 36:53
  Speaker 8: Adams' widow pleaded for the community not to cause harm
• 36:59
  Speaker 8: to the black community.
• 37:02
  Speaker 17: You know, it's unfortunate that his wife gets left out
• 37:07
  Speaker 17: of the equation and his daughter gets left out because
• 37:12
  Speaker 17: I do feel for them. They lost their dad that day,
• 37:18
  Speaker 17: just like Sonia and Sam and Loretta and Kay lost
• 37:25
  Speaker 17: their dad.
• 37:26
  Speaker 20: Sam was out in the country to his farm. They
• 37:30
  Speaker 20: drove out there and told Sam what happened. Sam came back,
• 37:37
  Speaker 20: got in the car with Charles Hall and came back
• 37:40
  Speaker 20: to his house.
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: He packs a suitcase full of money, grabs some clothes
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: for the children, and he sets off.
• 37:53
  Speaker 24: I was in Sunday school. Well, I looked out the
• 37:55
  Speaker 24: window and I saw this Chrysler pull up in the yard.
• 38:03
  Speaker 9: Of the church.
• 38:04
  Speaker 24: And so I went and told my daddy that I
• 38:08
  Speaker 24: thought that Ruby was out there. It was Sam and
• 38:13
  Speaker 24: the three kids. This was on a Sunday. And then
• 38:17
  Speaker 24: on a Monday, my father said to the Sam had died.
• 38:24
  Speaker 20: Well, the story was that Sam had a heart attack
• 38:28
  Speaker 20: in Gainesville.
• 38:30
  Speaker 6: He had known heart trouble, and if I were to
• 38:33
  Speaker 6: hear that my wife has just murdered the most prominent
• 38:35
  Speaker 6: white man in town and I was a black person
• 38:38
  Speaker 6: who was running an illegal numbers game, partially protected by
• 38:41
  Speaker 6: this doctor and others, I think I would have had
• 38:44
  Speaker 6: a heart attack too.
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: You always wonder.
• 38:51
  Speaker 5: Did he actually die of a heart attack or whatever?
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: They want to believe that he was able to take
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: his money, leave the country, and perhaps was somewhere in
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: Cuba living the good life. As it turns out, that
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: was not the case.
• 39:06
  Speaker 13: Charles Hall told me Sam swallowed all his heart pills
• 39:10
  Speaker 13: on the way to Ocala, a form of suicide to
• 39:12
  Speaker 13: avoid facing the certain ruin that would have followed. One
• 39:17
  Speaker 13: thing Charles Hall never mentioned was a suitcase full of money.
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: Sam McCollum had a suitcase of money that he intended
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: to go for the care of his children. He turned
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: it over to his relatives. They hid it in a barn.
• 39:30
  Speaker 25: Somebody was following the money, so they stole most of it.
• 39:36
  Speaker 20: There was a rumor that his friends took some of
• 39:40
  Speaker 20: the money after he died, but I don't know that.
• 39:43
  Speaker 20: You know how rumors are.
• 39:44
  Speaker 25: When I got there, my mother said, the old dog's
• 39:49
  Speaker 25: Sold the money. They said, where'd you have the money?
• 39:53
  Speaker 9: In the barn.
• 39:55
  Speaker 25: But I did manage to pick up some that was dropped.
• 39:58
  Speaker 25: It was a very frustrating time to everybody.
• 40:03
  Speaker 16: Everybody.
• 40:04
  Speaker 22: She made some good things. She had Liz and her family.
• 40:10
  Speaker 22: She would not have been at City Trust.
• 40:13
  Speaker 39: Thousands of mourners from all walks of life crowded into
• 40:17
  Speaker 39: and around the First Methodist Church of Live Oak for
• 40:20
  Speaker 39: the funeral of Dr. C. Leroy Adams Tuesday afternoon. It
• 40:24
  Speaker 39: was the largest and most sincerely attended funeral ever witnessed
• 40:28
  Speaker 39: in Suwannee County. Suwannee Democrat, August 8, 1952.
• 40:33
  Speaker 37: What all the people in Live Oak wanted, what the
• 40:36
  Speaker 37: sheriff wanted, what everybody wanted, was for this to be
• 40:39
  Speaker 37: a case which there was a squabble in the black
• 40:41
  Speaker 37: woman community. killed the doctor. Pure and simple. And it
• 40:45
  Speaker 37: turns out, of course, it wasn't simple at all. A.K.
• 40:48
  Speaker 6: Black, an attorney, is going through Dr. Adams' belongings after
• 40:52
  Speaker 6: his death and finds Laverne Blue's will amongst Dr.
• 40:56
  Speaker 7: Adams' things.
• 40:57
  Speaker 6: Mr. Blue is the owner of the Blue Lodge, which
• 41:00
  Speaker 6: at the time is a prominent hotel.
• 41:03
  Speaker 38: Three or four weeks after the funeral, Jeff Elliott came
• 41:07
  Speaker 38: into the office and asked me if the doc had
• 41:09
  Speaker 38: been my heir, if I had made a will leaving
• 41:13
  Speaker 38: all my property to Dr.
• 41:15
  Speaker 7: Adams.
• 41:16
  Speaker 38: Why, of course not, I said.
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: That will left all of Laverne Blue's property and his
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: body to Clifford Leroy Adams.
• 41:28
  Speaker 17: I mean, how brilliant is that? I'll get the body,
• 41:31
  Speaker 17: I'll kill you, I'll get the body, and then I'll
• 41:32
  Speaker 17: take all your stuff and nobody will ever know.
• 41:35
  Speaker 38: When I first held it in my hand, I had
• 41:38
  Speaker 38: to go sit down. I thought I'd faint. I am
• 41:41
  Speaker 38: now certain that he had planned to kill me and
• 41:44
  Speaker 38: take my property.
• 41:51
  Speaker 22: We went up there to see her. My mama asked,
• 41:56
  Speaker 22: why did you have the kid abducted for? She said,
• 42:02
  Speaker 22: call out, I want to.
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: Live Oak had never seen anything like the Ruby McCollum event.
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: And there had to be a voice. There had to
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: be someone or something to lead through this event. And
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: the Democrat emerged as that voice. Whatever was missing in
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: the Democrats' coverage, the Pittsburgh Courier said, made every effort
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: to attempt to report. The Pittsburgh Courier was a prominent,
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: popular African-American newspaper. They contacted Zora Neale Hurston and sent
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: her to Live Oak to get the true story, the
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: real story.
• 42:47
  Speaker 6: Zora Neale Hurston in the 1950s was in the declining
• 42:50
  Speaker 6: years of her life. She had been a prominent writer, activist, anthropologist.
• 42:56
  Speaker 6: She wrote from a black perspective, from a black woman's perspective.
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: She herself was a native of the state and was
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: very familiar with the circumstances and the personalities who were involved.
• 43:08
  Speaker 6: She's looking for some avenue to reclaim, to rekindle that
• 43:11
  Speaker 6: fire that she had 20 and 30 years ago.
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: She was an important voice, a very important voice, in
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: the telling of the Ruby McCollum story.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: I had been sent to Live Oak by the Pittsburgh Courier.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: First and foremost, to get an interview with the defendant
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: in this case, Zora Neale Hurston.
• 43:33
  Speaker 37: Well, she couldn't get access. Rightly or wrongly, she thought
• 43:37
  Speaker 37: she was denied access because she was black.
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: The man that would stand in Zora Neale Hurston's way
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: would be Judge Hal Adams.
• 43:45
  Speaker 6: Judge Adams was a character. He'd been on the bench
• 43:48
  Speaker 6: for over 40 years. He knew his way around the law.
• 43:52
  Speaker 6: His spittoon cup, he was just the quintessential southern gentleman.
• 43:56
  Speaker 6: That could scare the pants off of people by his attitude,
• 44:00
  Speaker 6: by his demeanor.
• 44:01
  Speaker 34: He was very impressive. He was a brilliant man, and
• 44:07
  Speaker 34: he was a very understanding man. He put my father
• 44:13
  Speaker 34: in jail.
• 44:17
  Speaker 44: I have tried many homicide cases, and I want this
• 44:21
  Speaker 44: one to proceed like all the others. Judge Hal Adams.
• 44:25
  Speaker 44: quoted by Zora Neale Hurston.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: Probably one of the few lucky things that Ruby McCollum
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: does is that she picks up Frank Cannon to represent her.
• 44:36
  Speaker 36: My father grew up outside of Live Oak in a
• 44:39
  Speaker 36: very poor area.
• 44:41
  Speaker 33: Doc Adams was Grandma's doctor, and she thought he absolutely
• 44:46
  Speaker 33: hung the moon. She could not imagine how in the
• 44:48
  Speaker 33: world he could even think of defending somebody that had
• 44:52
  Speaker 33: shot her doctor.
• 44:55
  Speaker 13: The last surviving adult who was in the courtroom during
• 44:57
  Speaker 13: Ruby's trial is Curtis Awe.
• 44:59
  Speaker 31: That was the first time I was ever on jury
• 45:02
  Speaker 31: duty or anything, you know. Judge Adam, he was a
• 45:06
  Speaker 31: rough-looking fellow, and I had heard lots about him. He
• 45:10
  Speaker 31: was bad, you know. We weren't supposed to talk to nobody.
• 45:13
  Speaker 31: We weren't supposed to read no papers and all this
• 45:16
  Speaker 31: kind of stuff, you know. So we weren't even supposed
• 45:21
  Speaker 31: to talk to one another.
• 45:24
  Speaker 22: The courtroom was full of men, white.
• 45:27
  Speaker 45: Men of course.
• 45:27
  Speaker 35: What comes to mind is an old Far Side cartoon
• 45:31
  Speaker 35: which has a dog on trial and the judge is
• 45:34
  Speaker 35: a cat, the jurors are cats, the bailiff is a cat,
• 45:39
  Speaker 35: and in fact everybody in the courtroom watching the trial
• 45:42
  Speaker 35: are cats as well. And that would very much be
• 45:45
  Speaker 35: what a trial for an African American would be like
• 45:48
  Speaker 35: in the deep south.
• 45:50
  Speaker 32: For most African Americans, they knew there was no justice
• 45:53
  Speaker 32: system for them. They knew that the courts were biased.
• 45:56
  Speaker 32: They knew that the juries were rigged.
• 45:59
  Speaker 46: And she came on out and stood crossways at the
• 46:01
  Speaker 46: door and opened her pocketbook and got something, got a
• 46:04
  Speaker 46: bill out and said, give me a receipt for this.
• 46:08
  Speaker 46: And he says, I don't keep no books. He said,
• 46:11
  Speaker 46: come down here tomorrow and Thelma will run over the
• 46:14
  Speaker 46: books and tell you what is on. And she says,
• 46:17
  Speaker 46: here's the book. And he said, I ain't got no books,
• 46:21
  Speaker 46: I done told you. He said, furthermore, that ain't half
• 46:25
  Speaker 46: of the money.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: What you owe me.
• 46:27
  Speaker 46: And she said, how much do I owe? And he said,
• 46:30
  Speaker 46: you owe me more than $ 100. And she said, I'm
• 46:33
  Speaker 46: going to pay my part, and the other fella's going
• 46:36
  Speaker 46: to pay his. And he said, well, it matters a
• 46:39
  Speaker 46: damn with me.
• 46:40
  Speaker 47: I'm going to get mine if.
• 46:41
  Speaker 46: I have to carry it to the judge's office. And
• 46:44
  Speaker 46: she said, I know you will.
• 46:46
  Speaker 27: You can get yours.
• 46:51
  Speaker 39: The state charges the woman shot the physician in an
• 46:54
  Speaker 39: argument over a bill for professional services. Swanee Democrat, December 19, 1952.
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: Live Oak was unified in the voice that Ruby had
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: shot Dr. Adams over an unpaid medical bill, nothing more,
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: nothing less.
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: It soon became apparent that there was a much more
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: complicated relationship between Ruby McCollum and Dr.
• 47:24
  Speaker 36: Adams.
• 47:25
  Speaker 27: Do you know how many times this defendant called on Dr.
• 47:28
  Speaker 27: Adams during the three and a half years that you
• 47:30
  Speaker 27: said you had known her?
• 47:32
  Speaker 28: That is hard to say because she came in the
• 47:33
  Speaker 28: office quite often.
• 47:34
  Speaker 27: What do you mean by quite often?
• 47:36
  Speaker 28: Daily.
• 47:37
  Speaker 7: Daily?
• 47:38
  Speaker 27: Daily. Now, during these daily visits you spoke of, did
• 47:43
  Speaker 27: you ever see any arguments?
• 47:45
  Speaker 6: I have heard.
• 47:46
  Speaker 27: Heard what?
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: I have heard of an argument.
• 47:48
  Speaker 27: How many times?
• 47:50
  Speaker 9: We object.
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: What was it that Thelma Curry overheard Ruby and the
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: doctor arguing about? Why had Ruby been coming to the
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: doctor's office every day?
• 47:59
  Speaker 27: The entire relationship between the defendant and Dr. Adams is
• 48:02
  Speaker 27: certainly admissible.
• 48:03
  Speaker 44: The objection is sustained.
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: I can only imagine the... situation that Ruby McCollum was in,
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: all of the tragedy that had taken place around her,
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: and all the eyes in the courtroom and many other
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: eyes around the state were interested and plugged into the
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: words that she was about to say.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: Most Negro spectators had come from a distance to hear
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: what Ruby McCollum was going to tell. Six had come
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: from as far as Fort Lauderdale. Jacksonville was well represented.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: Local Negroes were conspicuously absent. Zora Neale Hurston.
• 48:43
  Speaker 27: What is your name?
• 48:44
  Speaker 23: Ruby McCollum.
• 48:46
  Speaker 31: She was a very nice-looking woman, best I remember. So
• 48:53
  Speaker 31: I'd say she was just a nice belt, nice-looking woman.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: The very boldness of her act and the mystery surrounding
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: it have made her a heroine to some. Zora Neale Hurston.
• 49:07
  Speaker 27: How much family did you have?
• 49:08
  Speaker 23: Well, there were four children, one boy and three girls.
• 49:12
  Speaker 27: What were their ages?
• 49:14
  Speaker 23: The boy was 18, the next girl was 11, and
• 49:17
  Speaker 23: the next one was six years old and the baby.
• 49:20
  Speaker 23: was a year old.
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: She does testify at the trial, but she is silenced
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: on so much that she wants to say and she
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: attempts to say, but is not allowed to say.
• 49:36
  Speaker 44: The court has ruled the objection is sustained.
• 49:47
  Speaker 32: African-American women who spoke out about sexualized violence and rape
• 49:52
  Speaker 32: were incredibly courageous, incredibly courageous. They risked everything to testify.
• 49:59
  Speaker 6: The Suwannee Democrat never mentions Ruby's testimony, never mentions that
• 50:04
  Speaker 6: she had had an illicit love affair with Dr.
• 50:06
  Speaker 7: Adams.
• 50:08
  Speaker 30: There's just some things you don't talk about polite company.
• 50:12
  Speaker 30: And they pretty much covered the gamut with the Ruby
• 50:14
  Speaker 30: McCollum case.
• 50:15
  Speaker 17: In my mind, part of the trial, the main purpose
• 50:17
  Speaker 17: of the trial, was about protecting Dr. Adams' reputation.
• 50:23
  Speaker 8: My dad and I had a difference of opinion about Ruby.
• 50:28
  Speaker 8: He was never convinced that Dr. Adams had had relationships
• 50:33
  Speaker 8: with Ruby, which I find amazing.
• 50:37
  Speaker 27: And did you become pregnant by Dr. Adams after you
• 50:40
  Speaker 27: began to have sexual relations with him?
• 50:43
  Speaker 23: Yes, I did. I became pregnant in 1950, and the
• 50:48
  Speaker 23: baby was born in 1951. Now she's a year old.
• 50:52
  Speaker 24: The first time I saw the baby, I said to
• 50:58
  Speaker 24: my mother, and she told me to shut up. But
• 51:02
  Speaker 24: I said, that baby look white.
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: It's one thing to carry on an illicit sexual affair
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: behind closed doors, but to have the truth confirmed in
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: flesh and blood is a completely different matter.
• 51:16
  Speaker 6: Frank Cannon, her attorney, wants to submit this child, this
• 51:20
  Speaker 6: biracial child, as evidence.
• 51:22
  Speaker 27: At this time, the defendant has present the child that
• 51:25
  Speaker 27: is testified about by this witness in the balcony of
• 51:28
  Speaker 27: this courtroom. We object to the statement.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: Up in the balcony.
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: Ruby McCollum's sister-in-law held up Loretta at that very moment
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: for all of the courtroom to see. And that really
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: becomes an act of defiance.
• 51:42
  Speaker 47: Judge Adams instructed the jury.
• 51:44
  Speaker 27: Not to look.
• 51:46
  Speaker 7: He told me not to look up in an altar
• 51:48
  Speaker 7: or nothing. I mean, and I didn't look, because he
• 51:52
  Speaker 7: told me not to, and I didn't. Some of the
• 51:54
  Speaker 7: rest of the jurors did look.
• 51:56
  Speaker 9: People saw the baby.
• 51:59
  Speaker 6: The evidence is right there in front of them.
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: That there was no denying that this child, flesh and blood,
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: was the product of the sexual relationship between Ruby McCollum
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: and Doc Adams.
• 52:12
  Speaker 9: I mean, she looked just like Doc Adams.
• 52:16
  Speaker 17: Loretta being held up in that courtroom on that day,
• 52:20
  Speaker 17: just imagine that beautiful little girl looking down at her mother,
• 52:25
  Speaker 17: not really knowing what's going on, and the judge telling
• 52:29
  Speaker 17: everybody not to look at the child because that's confirmation.
• 52:34
  Speaker 32: White men were not really segregationists. They were what one
• 52:39
  Speaker 32: African American called a nighttime integrationist. They were interested in
• 52:45
  Speaker 32: integration only under the cover of darkness and particularly with
• 52:48
  Speaker 32: black women.
• 52:49
  Speaker 6: To have a prominent white doctor, a man in the community,
• 52:52
  Speaker 6: people respected him from all over, a candidate for high
• 52:58
  Speaker 6: political office, to see that he had fathered a child,
• 53:02
  Speaker 6: a biracial child, it was a shock.
• 53:04
  Speaker 17: They didn't want to think that Dr. Adams was a
• 53:08
  Speaker 17: man that was asleep with a black woman.
• 53:11
  Speaker 6: It was something that the white establishment was probably not
• 53:14
  Speaker 6: ready to comprehend.
• 53:17
  Speaker 8: Dad could not accept that Dr. Adams had fathered a
• 53:22
  Speaker 8: child by Ruby, whereas there's just no doubt in my
• 53:25
  Speaker 8: mind that he did.
• 53:27
  Speaker 6: A black man wanting to have sex with a white woman?
• 53:32
  Speaker 6: He'd be hanging from the nearest tree. It was a
• 53:34
  Speaker 6: double standard. That's just how things had always been done.
• 53:38
  Speaker 9: Ruby had had one child for Dr.
• 53:41
  Speaker 35: Adams.
• 53:42
  Speaker 20: In the black community, the rumor was that Ruby was
• 53:45
  Speaker 20: pregnant again.
• 53:47
  Speaker 27: Now, I will ask you if you were pregnant at
• 53:49
  Speaker 27: the time you were in Dr. Adams' office over here
• 53:52
  Speaker 27: across the street.
• 53:53
  Speaker 31: Yes, sir.
• 53:54
  Speaker 27: By whom?
• 53:55
  Speaker 23: By Dr.
• 53:56
  Speaker 31: Adams. She just said she had one by him, you know,
• 54:00
  Speaker 31: and that she was pregnant at the time. And that
• 54:05
  Speaker 31: they'd give her some kind of shot down at Rafer
• 54:09
  Speaker 31: to keep her from having a baby. To me, she
• 54:16
  Speaker 31: sounded like she was telling the truth.
• 54:20
  Speaker 7: I mean, you know.
• 54:21
  Speaker 6: The Rue McCollum case, it's always about the money. about
• 54:25
  Speaker 6: the unpaid doctor's bill.
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: Perhaps people would think that the whole town of Live
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: Oak must have been absolutely insane to have accepted this
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: version of events. But that's absolutely not true. The people
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: of Live Oak are and were very good people. They
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: simply had a reality that had been constructed for them.
• 54:54
  Speaker 17: It wasn't just Live Oak that had these things going on.
• 55:00
  Speaker 17: It was just Live Oak that got in the spotlight
• 55:03
  Speaker 17: when Ruby McCollum shot Dr.
• 55:05
  Speaker 48: Adams.
• 55:07
  Speaker 27: The case of Dr. Adams and Ruby McCollum is not rare.
• 55:11
  Speaker 27: A lot of white men, as you call it, get
• 55:13
  Speaker 27: messed up with nigger women. You men of the jury
• 55:16
  Speaker 27: know men who are doing the same thing.
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: The entire South had constructed its own reality.
• 55:24
  Speaker 27: Loretta Adams, the fruit of the body of Dr. C.
• 55:28
  Speaker 27: Leroy Adams was right here in this courtroom but prevented
• 55:31
  Speaker 27: from being exhibited to the jury. The state has sought
• 55:35
  Speaker 27: to keep all evidence from reaching your ears. It is
• 55:38
  Speaker 27: a matter of conscience.
• 55:42
  Speaker 35: When the law says one thing and the social mores
• 55:44
  Speaker 35: say another, people may take things into their own hands.
• 55:48
  Speaker 33: Everybody knew that Ruby had shot Dr.
• 55:50
  Speaker 9: Adams.
• 55:51
  Speaker 33: It was done in the waiting room in front of
• 55:53
  Speaker 33: all these people, so you couldn't ask for her to
• 55:55
  Speaker 33: be turned, you know, completely free. Daddy certainly didn't believe
• 55:59
  Speaker 33: that Ruby deserved to die, so he argued for a
• 56:02
  Speaker 33: second-degree murder conviction rather than the death penalty.
• 56:08
  Speaker 44: You have the authority. to render any one of five verdicts.
• 56:15
  Speaker 44: First-degree murder. First-degree murder with recommendation to mercy. Second-degree murder. Manslaughter,
• 56:27
  Speaker 44: or a verdict of not guilty. Judge Hal Adams, instructing
• 56:32
  Speaker 44: the jury, December 20, 1952.
• 56:38
  Speaker 47: My dad, he was the alternate jury, and I think
• 56:40
  Speaker 47: he felt blessed that he would not have to go
• 56:42
  Speaker 47: into the back to make the decision whether or not
• 56:46
  Speaker 47: Ruby was guilty or not.
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: The jury was not just passing judgment on the crime
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: of murder. It was passing judgment on everything that Ruby
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: McCollum had come to represent.
• 56:55
  Speaker 39: The courtroom crowd, which had dwindled in size in the
• 56:58
  Speaker 39: closing hours of the trial, took the verdict without any
• 57:01
  Speaker 39: display of emotions.
• 57:07
  Speaker 44: We, the jury, find the defendant, Ruby McCollum, guilty of
• 57:14
  Speaker 44: murder in the first degree. So say we all. Verdict
• 57:19
  Speaker 44: is read by Judge Adams.
• 57:21
  Speaker 39: The sentence under Florida law for such a verdict is
• 57:25
  Speaker 39: death in the electric chair.
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: Florida had not executed a woman since 1848. I kind
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: of went there for her.
• 57:35
  Speaker 7: I kind of found her.
• 57:38
  Speaker 20: All white jury, mostly farmers, mostly uneducated people, all they know,
• 57:48
  Speaker 20: hate a nigger.
• 57:52
  Speaker 9: It wasn't no.
• 57:52
  Speaker 20: Justice to kill this nigger for killing our doctor.
• 57:58
  Speaker 31: I hate to say it, I think most of the juries,
• 58:01
  Speaker 31: when they went, that's what they needed, what they got.
• 58:04
  Speaker 7: To do before they ever had to try it. You know,
• 58:08
  Speaker 7: she was guilty. Before they ever heard the trial.
• 58:14
  Speaker 16: It was all routine. Swanee Democrat.
• 58:19
  Speaker 8: Ruby's to blame for a lot of her trial going
• 58:23
  Speaker 8: the way it did. Did I feel sorry for her?
• 58:27
  Speaker 8: I feel sorry for anyone who gets angry enough to
• 58:31
  Speaker 8: kill someone.
• 58:32
  Speaker 9: But that's the consequences. She would have been found in
• 58:36
  Speaker 9: some libel. The claim was a burnt libel.
• 58:38
  Speaker 22: He had made all my family upset.
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: When Ruby McCollum was sentenced to death, she became the
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: only woman waiting for execution in the state of Florida.
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: Would that sentence be carried out?
• 59:02
  Speaker 13: After Ruby's trial, She is locked up in the Suwannee
• 59:05
  Speaker 13: County Jail. Her attorneys start the process of launching an
• 59:08
  Speaker 13: appeal and new legal assaults on the McCollum wealth begin.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: The attorney whose prosecution placed Mrs. Ruby McCollum in the
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: shadow of the death chair, A.K. Black, has resigned as
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: state attorney for Suwannee County, Florida. He quit his post
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: to represent Mrs. Flory Adams, white, widow of the slain Dr. C.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: Leroy Adams, who has filed a $ 100, 000 suit against Mrs.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: McCollum and the estate of her late husband, Sam McCollum.
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: Zora Neale Hurston.
• 59:41
  Speaker 8: Dad did want to watch out for her. He was
• 59:44
  Speaker 8: like that.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: He had a big heart.
• 59:46
  Speaker 8: Yes, he could be very, very firm, but he had
• 59:49
  Speaker 8: a big heart for people that he thought were not
• 59:52
  Speaker 8: being treated fairly, you know, under the circumstances that their
• 59:58
  Speaker 8: husband being murdered.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 13: The Pittsburgh Courier contracted with Zora Neale Hurston to produce
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 13: a series on the life of Ruby McCollum, which they
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 13: published during the spring of 1953. Zora Neale Hurston's articles
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 13: in the Pittsburgh Courier makes it seem like she has
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 13: been in constant contact with Ruby McCollum.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 6: When the Pittsburgh Courier finds out that Zora Neale Hurston
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 6: has not actually interviewed Ruby, they fire her. Zora Neale
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 6: Hurston is in need of money. She wants to get
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 6: this story completed. So she contacts one of her friends,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 6: William Bradford Huey. He agrees that he'll stop by Live
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 6: Oak and see if he can complete the interviews.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 37: Huey thought that he was going to be successful, that
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 37: it really wasn't going to be that much trouble.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 6: He's told by law enforcement that he has to get
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 6: permission of Circuit Judge Al Adams.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 44: I don't want a dead man smeared. I don't want
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 44: this case commercialized or sensationalized. I want it ended in
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 44: a quiet, orderly manner.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 40: Before Ruby McCollum goes to the electric chair, she'll talk
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 40: with a reporter.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 37: When Huey got into a story, he would get involved,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 37: and he would get emotional, and he would get personally involved.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 37: And he was so outraged at the way Ruby was
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 37: being treated and at the way that he was being
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 37: treated that he just determined he was going to see
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 37: this thing through. Seeing it through meant that Ruby was
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 37: going to get an appeal.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 40: I had to help Ruby get a new trial to
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 40: keep her alive. William Bradford Huey.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 30: He considered himself maybe the best reporter in America of
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 30: the 20th century.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 37: With Huey, one of the things you never want to
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 37: forget about is the element of personal ego and stubbornness
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 37: and pride.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 30: I'm the best goddamn reporter you will ever meet.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 7: That's what he said.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 6: William Bradford Huey is contacted by Mr. Laverne Blue.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 38: I owe my life to Ruby. She was the first
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 38: one to discover that he was a monster and she
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 38: killed him and she rendered us all a service. And
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 38: I think this community ought to erect a monument to her.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 38: Laverne Blue.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: William Bradford Huey discovers in conversations with folks at Blue
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: Cross that they had had a problem with with the
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: Suwannee County Hospital, which of course had been co-founded by
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: Doc Adams.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 49: Up until August 3rd, 1952, the Suwannee County Hospital was
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 49: a headache to us and an unwarranted expense to our subscribers.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 49: Since that date, Suwannee County has become a bright spot
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 49: on our map and a hopeful area for our subscribers.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: H.A.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 49: Schroeder, Executive Director of Blue Cross in Florida, quoted by
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 49: William Bradford Huey.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: All those patients that he had been treating at no
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: cost were in reality being claimed by Doc Adams as
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: tenants on his farm who he needed to provide health
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: care for.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 37: He should have gone to prison. Instead, she just shot him.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 5: But then after you go back and look at all
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 5: the stuff they brought out, well, then maybe they should
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 5: have just turned her loose and give her a pat
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 5: on the back.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 7: I don't know.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 6: William Bradford Huey begins working closely with Frank Cannon, her attorney.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 36: He and my dad got along just extremely well. They
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 36: were constantly in touch with each other, and they were
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 36: just a grand help to each other.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 33: It became the dominant feature in our life.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 40: It took over everything that we did.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 9: And if Mr.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 36: Huey hadn't done all the publicity, gotten the magazine articles
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 36: and things, this probably would have just wound up another case.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: In the summer of 1954, the Florida Supreme Court ruled
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: in favor of Ruby McCollum's appeal.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 50: In a cause wherein State of Florida was plaintiff, Ruby
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 50: McCollum was defendant. On the 20th day of July, A.D., 1954,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 50: the said judgment of the Circuit Court is hereby reversed,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 50: and a new trial ordered. The Honorable B.K. Roberts, Chief Justice,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 50: this 5th day of August, 1954.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 16: The court ruled that Circuit Judge Hal W.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 39: Adams erred in his conduct of the trial by allowing
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 39: the jury to inspect the scene of the shooting in
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 39: the absence of the defendant and in his own absence
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 39: part of the time.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 8: That was the one area that they said we needed
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 8: a new trial. They threw out all that work.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 13: In 1982, Brad Rogers interviewed William Bradford Yui about the
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 13: legal strategy. This audio is not an actor reading Yui's words.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 13: It is the voice of Yui himself.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 43: With a new trial coming up, first thing Cannon did
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 43: was to file what's called the suggestions of insanity. Once
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 43: the defense raises that question of insanity, the judge must
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 43: appoint two psychiatrists.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 16: In his testimony, Dr.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 39: McCullough said that in the time he last saw the woman,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 39: she had lost somewhere between 60 and 80.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 16: Pounds and refused to eat.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 39: He said that she seemed to be afraid that someone
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 39: was trying to poison her and would not eat food
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 39: unless it was brought to her by her brother and
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 39: that she reached the state where he had to taste
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 39: it himself before she would eat. He testified that he
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 39: was informed that she remained on a cot in the
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 39: corner of her cell lying on the springs. She felt
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 39: that her mattress was poisoned and she covered herself from
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 39: head to foot with a blanket to keep out the
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 39: gas fumes she thought were being put in her cells.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 39: She also kept two plugs in her nose to keep
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 39: out this imagined gas. Spontaneous crying and marked refusal to
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 39: cooperate were other factors discussed. Swanee Democrat, October 1st, 1954.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 40: Three years ago, she had been in the high cotton,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 40: possessed by the two big men in the community. Now
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 40: the two big men were decomposed in their graves, and
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 40: Ruby was the shabby remnant which survived. William Bradford Huey.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 50: The court found the woman unable to carry on a
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 50: rational defense.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 35: That gives a court the ability to hold a person indefinitely.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 50: Ruby McCollum was ordered to the criminal section of the
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 50: state mental hospital by Circuit Judge Hal W. Adams, the
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 50: Suwannee Democrat.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 6: William Bradford Huey comes to Ruby McCollum's sanity hearing, sees
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 6: her walk out of the courtroom. It's the only time
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 6: he gets to see her. As she's walking out of
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 6: the courtroom, he is served with papers showing that he's
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 6: been in contempt of court.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: They're going to put him in the same cell that
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: they just took Ruby McCollum out of.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 13: When Yui first heard about the sanity hearing, he tracked
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 13: down one of the doctors and shared his views on
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 13: Ruby's mental state. Judge Adams considered this tampering with a witness.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 25: I'm the only man, only reporter, who has ever been.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 5: Tried for contempt of court.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 43: For some action occurring 30 miles.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 6: From the courtroom.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 30: Huey became part of the story, and that's the cardinal
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 30: sin for a reporter, is to become part of the story.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: This contempt charge against Huey is going to result in
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: a situation that's going to prevent him from publishing his book,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: Ruby McCollum, Woman in the Swanee Jail, in the state
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: of Florida for decades.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 6: The Ruby McCollum book was a sensation, but it was
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 6: a mark upon Suwannee County and upon Live Oak, and
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 6: that's how most people see it even today.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 30: He considered that book a journalistic masterpiece.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 7: Those are his words.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 13: In 1982, Brad Rogers asked Huey who won the battle
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 13: between him and Judge Adams.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 48: There's one winner, and that's the people who hate hypocrisy.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 9: I wrote the book because I hate apocalypse.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 13: The winner was not Ruby McCollum, a woman Huey discussed
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 13: with casual disregard.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 48: Ruby had a good education. She was ambitious. Much of
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 48: what happened to her, she brought it on herself. Anyway,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 48: she was just guilty as a doctor.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 28: Dr.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 9: Adams didn't rape Ruby McCollum.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 7: Dr. Adams screwed Ruby McCollum the first.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 9: Time in her own bed in her own home.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 43: The woman herself was guilty of all sorts of things,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 43: including the.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 9: Crime of murder.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 48: I don't think that there would have been any great,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 48: terrible injustice had Ruby McCollum been electrocuted by the state
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 48: of Florida.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 13: If that was the case, why did William Bradford Huey
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 13: write the book?
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 48: The book was written just because.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 23: Nobody knows anything about me except I am Ruby.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 4: It must have been very difficult For Ruby, before the murder,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: she had been someone. She had been someone special. And
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 4: then suddenly after the murder, she becomes a non-entity.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 39: When, in the opinion of the hospital authorities, she might
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 39: regain her faculties, she was to be brought back forthwith
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 39: and tried for the crime.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 35: That's still sweeping the case under the rug because you
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 35: never have to have a trial.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 9: You never have to have a trial.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 35: Once she goes away, they say, well, she never got
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 35: to be competent.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 20: They did use Chattahoochee as a way of punishing people
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 20: that didn't get the death penalty.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 7: Dr.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 9: Adams was dead.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 8: His life was over. At least she got to live.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 19: That's the worst travesty of the entire case, the fact
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 19: that she's sent to Chattahoochee. Decades of investigations of that
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 19: institution demonstrate.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 7: That it was an awful place to be.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 4: Was she insane at the time that she shot Doc Adams?
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 4: I think a really good question to ask is how
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 4: you define sanity. What Ruby did was perhaps challenging the
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 4: definition of what sane and insane meant. What Ruby did
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 4: was challenge a lot of definitions.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 13: If it had not been for Frank Cannon, Ruby McCollum
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 13: would have likely died in Chattahoochee.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 36: It was one of these things that daddy just worked
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 36: at and it just consumed him and it consumed all
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 36: of us in many ways. He was very tenacious about
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 36: what he did and he stayed with it through the years.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 3: In 1972, the Florida Supreme Court decides that Ruby McCollum
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: is not guilty by reason of insanity. And with that judgment,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 3: she is no longer living under the shadow.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: Of this murder charge.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 12: I do remember when Ruby McCollum was brought back from Chattahoochee.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 12: I certainly wanted to see her, and I did see
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 12: her when she was brought back.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 45: First when I did see her, I had to peek
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 45: around the corner first before I go in there and
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 45: introduce myself. I was just scared. I ain't never been
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 45: through nothing like that. You know, nobody had done killed somebody.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 25: I would say she was very sharp. Considering what she
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 25: had gone through and always had the same smile, I'd
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 25: always look for that.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 45: Once I peeped around the corner, seen around, I just
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 45: went up to her and introduced myself, which she remembered me.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 45: She was happy to be out.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 47: And I just remember her taking a lot of pride
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 47: in her appearance. Even if she just had on a
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 47: simple house dress, she wanted that to look nice. She
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 47: wanted her hair brushed. She wanted things to be a
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 47: certain way. She would get up, and she would go
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 47: into the kitchen, and she would take two eggs from
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 47: the fridge, crack them open, put them in the glass,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 47: and drink them. Put the glass in the sink, and
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 47: that was it.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 6: She was a sweet, kind person.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 45: I couldn't believe what they say she did, because it
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 45: didn't seem like it.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 47: I just loved to hear her talk, because she had
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 47: this slow, very precise way of talking, and just almost like, okay,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 47: get it out, you know.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 44: Kind of.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 47: She would talk so slow, and my mother talked slow
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 47: just like her. They both had that slow draw about
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 47: their speech. And I was happy to have grandmother in
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 47: the house, of course, because you know what? You can't
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 47: get away with mom and dad. You can get away
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 47: with grandma.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: After being released from Chattahoochee, she gives a few interviews.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: But in those interviews, she doesn't discuss what happened with Dr.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 40: Adams.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 3: She claims that she has no memory of those events.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: She can't even acknowledge that he is the father of
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: her child.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 47: But as far as her being in her right mind,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 47: I believe she was in her right mind. She knew
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 47: everyone and everyone that was around her. right up until
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 47: the point where she was in New Horizons. She couldn't
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 47: speak because she had had a few strokes. So when
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 47: I went in, I told her who I was. I
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 47: told her this was her great-grandson. His name was Kai.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 47: And although she couldn't sit up and verbally speak to me,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 47: she held her hand out and grabbed his leg. So
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 47: that let me know that she knew who I was
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 47: and what I was saying to her. She knew that
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 47: she wanted to go home. She knew that Ocala was
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 47: not her home.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 22: Talk about she want to go home. You know, when
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 22: somebody want to go home, go home, that means she
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 22: ain't gonna live long.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 13: Ruby Jackson McCollum lived as a free woman for 18
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 13: years after her release from Chattahoochee. She died in 1992,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 13: 40 years after her husband and Dr. Clifford Leroy Adams.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 3: The ghost of Ruby McCollum still roams the streets of
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 3: Live Oak.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 12: To me, Live Oak, Florida, is the best place in
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 12: the world to live.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 14: Live Oak is a very wonderful place to live.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 7: You can raise kids.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 14: You feel safe around here.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 9: Wouldn't swap it for any place.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 18: I think we've been pretty progressive over the years in
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 18: our culture, in our educational and social events today.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 7: The blacks and whites are very.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 37: We get along good.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: Well, it depends on who you talk to. Those are
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: the people that everything is good for them.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 15: I've seen race relations change during my lifetime radically for
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 15: the better, and I hope they'll continue to change for
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 15: the better.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 12: You don't have to scratch far below the surface still
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 12: today to find those that are very prejudiced. I can
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 12: go to several coffee shops in town And there's still
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 12: some strong feelings.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 14: I just wish that Live Oak could open their minds
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 14: and hearts to living a better way.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 11: There are certain people who have turned a deaf ear
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 11: to this case because.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 9: They feel like justice wasn't done properly.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 8: My dad's final thoughts, he wonders if Ruby did get
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 8: a fair trial.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 3: When Zora Neale Hurston says that the truth about this
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: case lies on the other side of silence, she was
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 3: absolutely correct.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 12: I think change had to happen. I do not think
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 12: that we could continue the way it was in the
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 12: early 50s. I think probably the Ruby McCollum case may
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 12: have brought it to a forefront as far as Fuente County.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 12: It put us in the national spotlight for a while,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 12: not in a good light, but at least it was
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 12: the end of one era and probably the beginning of
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 12: a new one.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 4: By turning a lens on Live Oak, we don't need
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 4: to look at Live Oak. We need to look at
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 4: what Live Oak perhaps represents.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 13: I began by looking for the truth, and on the way,
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 13: found a town still trying to grapple with the legacy
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 13: of an event that happened over 60 years before, an
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 13: event camouflaged by decades of lies, myths, and silence.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: A lot of people don't like to talk about racism,
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: but racism is a lie. If you're going to do
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: something about it, let's sit down and talk about it.
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 4: How do we define ourselves as a nation? Do we
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 4: continue to sweep under the rug unpleasant, difficult questions of
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 4: race and class? At least we can talk about it.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 17: The Rune McCollum case is an opportunity to talk about
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 17: race in a different kind of way.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 25: It's very seldom that you can get any member of
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 25: the family to sit and talk about the situation.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 11: Did your mother ever come back here to the house
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 11: after she got up and tried to hit you?
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 7: No, I never did let her come back.
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 51: I felt like that would hurt her, really, to come
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 51: back and not be able to stay because I always
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 51: felt like that if she was here, there might have
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 51: been some type of a, threat on her or something.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 7: Maybe yeah, maybe no. But just to be safe we
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 7: never did. Do you feel that she was in her
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 7: white line?
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 47: When?
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 16: August 3rd, 1952.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 51: Well, that's hard to say, because like I said, I
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 51: wasn't here. But I've heard the story that probably he
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 51: drugged her, that Adams probably.
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 7: Drugged her and whatever.
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 51: And If you know anything about addicts, an addict loves
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 51: the dealer because that's his source. And that could have
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 51: been possible. I don't really know that because I wasn't here.
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 51: But I think as far as he was concerned, I
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 51: think he had an ultimate.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 7: Goal in mind.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 35: What do you think his goal was?
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 7: To get richer.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 24: Was he involved with your father.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 7: Financially at all?
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 51: My dad had given him $ 5, 000 in.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 9: Money for election.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 16: What was your father's reaction when Loretta was born?
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 7: I don't know.
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 9: I wasn't.
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 51: And I couldn't say that there probably wouldn't have been
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 51: a big reaction to that at the time anyway because
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 51: most of us were real light when we were born anyway.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 51: So it probably wasn't the first offhand thing but maybe
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 51: later on maybe he realized you know what was going
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 51: on because she definitely favors Adams. She definitely favors him.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 13: Our meeting with Sam was coming to an end. It
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 13: was my time to speak to him. I found I
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 13: didn't have a question, just something I wanted to say,
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 13: something I felt in my heart since I first read
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 13: about Ruby McCollum. I'll never believe that your mother had
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 13: a relationship.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 34: Willingly with Dr.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 5: Adams.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 26: I believe he forced her.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 24: That's just how I feel about it.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 13: The moment I spoke the words, I regretted it. I
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 13: felt uneasy inserting my beliefs into Sam's world.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 51: Well, I guess if you really know anything about men
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 51: and women's relationships, being a doctor, I'm sure that he
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 51: could have tempted her in some way or another, even
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 51: on examinations. This is why nowadays, Doctors don't examine females
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 51: by themselves.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 7: They always have to have a system.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 13: Yeah, you're so true.
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 28: Yeah, so right.
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 51: During that time, they didn't. You just had a little
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 51: country doctor. He'd come in and he'd examine a lady
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 51: just like he examines men. And everybody took his word
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 51: at that.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 7: Because he was supposed to be.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 16: A.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 41: God.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 7: A god in the community.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 13: A god in the community. And with those words, we
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 13: were done.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 51: Y'all have a good one.
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 6: You have a great one.
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 7: Thank you so much.
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 47: Thank you for talking with us.
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 9: Okay.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 22: Thank you.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 7: Please.
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 27: Thank you.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 13: Sam had shared his truth with me and something else
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 13: had happened. Something I had not realized was so important.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 13: I had shared my truth with him. When Ruby McCollum
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 13: was silenced, Her story was taken over by others. She
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 13: became what others wanted to see in her. The truth is,
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 13: none of us can ever speak for Ruby. But we
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 13: can speak about her. Only then can old wounds heal.
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 13: Only then can we find closure with the past. Only
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 13: then can we recognize that none of us belong to
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 13: anyone except ourselves.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 28: Amen.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 9: © transcript Emily Beynon