[ambient music] [cassette player clicks] [voices on cassette]: BEN CRUMP: April 19, 1980.

City of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Three Klansmen drove down East 9th Street and emptied two shotguns at four elderly Black women standing on a street corner and a fifth Black woman a few blocks away.

REPORTER: Viola Ellison, Lela Evans, Opal Jackson, and Katherine Johnson were shot.

Fannie Crumsey was injured from flying glass.

All survived the attack, but their battle had just begun.

BEN CRUMP: To add insult to injury, the criminal justice system would soon fail them and let the Klansmen off the hook.

Even though these five Black courageous women were denied justice in the criminal courts, they took it upon themselves with their legal team to bring a civil action to say, that won't be the end of the story.

♪ ♪ RANDOLPH MCLAUGHLIN: OK, we ready to roll?

CAMERAMAN: Yeah.

RANDOLPH MCLAUGHLIN: All right, let's see what we got.

Wow.

So these are the case files.

I haven't seen these files since 1982.

And this is in my handwriting.

This is a police report dated April 19 at 20:45 hours.

♪ ♪ You see the trestle down there?

CAMERAMAN: Yeah.

RANDOLPH MCLAUGHLIN: They set the cross down there, then they went around to I guess it's 10th Street back here.

And they drove around because they knew there were social clubs.

As you can see on the facade of that building, that was the Whole Note.

That was a social club, and there were a couple other clubs right near it.

And the women were walking from the clubs and they were walking here.

One of them saw the car come down, and what she described, Miss Jackson describes it, as this ball of flame coming at her.

That's what she saw.

And literally, they came-- this is how close they were when they were shot.

[melancholy music] ♪ ♪ CONNIE JACKSON ROLLINS: All of those ladies were her best friends, and they had been for years.

♪ ♪ - She said they had just came out from drinking and had them a good time, and they were just standing there.

And next thing you know, a car just was flying down the street.

And out of nowhere, she heard one of the other ladies say, "get down."

And that's when they started hearing the shots.

♪ ♪ RANDOLPH MCLAUGHLIN: The Klansmen shot the ladies down there, drove up, and Mrs. Crumsey was bent over tending to her garden right in this area.

And the Klansmen came through, stopped, and emptied their shotguns again.

DISPATCHER (ON PHONE): OK, what is your name?

FANNIE MAE CRUMSEY (ON PHONE): Fannie Crumsey.

DISPATCHER (ON PHONE): OK, Ms. Crumsey, I'll send you a car.

FANNIE MAE CRUMSEY (ON PHONE): Yes, ma'am.

FANNIE MAE CRUMSEY: My two grandchildren were sitting on the steps.

They were lulled in when them Klansmen come and shot.

And that scared me to death.

I thought they had shot my child, and I thought they had shot me.

MISSY TONEY: I feel she protected me everywhere, anywhere I went.

But when this happened, I guess reality set in.

RANDOLPH MCLAUGHLIN: Because she was bent over, glass hit her in the face.

So the bullets never hit her, but if you look on the wall, the pellet marks on the facade of the building are about the height of my head.

So had she been standing when those Klansmen came by, they would have taken her head off.

Because look at how many holes there are in that wall.

♪ ♪ NATE CRUMSEY: I was downstairs in the kitchen, and that's when I heard boom, boom.

And when I came out, we're looking around like, what?

What?

They say they done went up the street.

- Later on, we found out it was the Klansmen.

It's the KKK.

- Racism and bigotry, far from being on the decline, are actually on the rise.

MAN: So this Klan violence and Klan organizing had started spreading all over the country during the late '70s, early '80s.

RANDOLPH MCLAUGHLIN: Generally, the Klan emerges like this in times of economic uncertainty, or times when they perceive that Blacks are getting too much.

They are advancing at their expense.

So you had, like, several Klan groups operating in Chattanooga, burning crosses, threatening people, and eventually engaging in the most heinous act of violence, shooting in cold blood five elderly women who were doing nothing but trying to get home on a Saturday night.

[dramatic music] ♪ ♪ - This was the all Black area, and no Black people dared to go out of their area.

We thought this was our safe haven.

♪ ♪ I knew all this was going on, but I never thought it would happen in our little area here, especially not with my mom.

♪ ♪ RANDOLPH MCLAUGHLIN: The Klansmen were arrested immediately and prosecuted.

REPORTER: William Church is a self-imposed wizard of the Justice Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, but Deputy Police Chief Tom Kennedy said that the shootings of Saturday night should not be tied directly to the Klan, but instead, were the works of an individual.

TOM KENNEDY: They've been arrested and charged.

They'll have their day in court.

♪ ♪ SONYA ROLLINS: She said the streets during the court process, you could barely get in there.

Said they had police everywhere.

She was scared to just even go to court.

♪ ♪ RANDOLPH MCLAUGHLIN: Marshall Thrash admitted he had shot it, but he didn't intend to hurt anybody.

OK, you empty two shotguns into the bodies of five Black women, and you tell me you didn't intend to hurt anybody?

You're out of your mind.

He gets a nine-month sentence.

♪ ♪ The head of the Klan, Bill Church, and his little assistant, Larry Payne, they were acquitted of all charges.

All charges.

I mean, Church is driving the car while Marshall Thrash is shooting people, and that's not aiding and abetting the assault?

I mean, come on, it's crazy talk.

♪ ♪ CROWD: (CHANTING) We want justice!

We want justice!

We want justice!

We want justice!

REPORTER: We want justice.

It was a cry heard often as Chattanooga fire and police units responded to a rapid succession of fire bombing, looting, and vandalism calls throughout the night.

REPORTER: Chattanooga, Tennessee has been placed under a dusk-to-dawn curfew.

- The city has been rocked for three nights with gunfire, looting, and firebombing.

REPORTER: Eight policemen were wounded.

No one was hurt seriously.

REPORTER: The trouble followed a verdict by an all-white jury in the trial of three Ku Klux Klansmen accused of shooting four Black women.

REPORTER: The women who were shot expressed the dismay of many Blacks.

- And I don't like it, I don't like it, I don't like it.

REPORTER: The victim says she considers the Black retaliation justified.

- For like, I think it's justified, because, like, it wasn't justified when them people rolled down the street and shot us.

It had been three Black men shot down three white women, they would never reach the jailhouse because they would have been hung before they got there.

RANDOLPH MCLAUGHLIN: To say it was a hostile environment is putting it mildly.

Jesse Jackson had to fly down there to kind of calm things down.

REPORTER: Reverend Jesse Jackson says he has been monitoring the trial of the three Ku Klux Klan members since its beginning, and was very disappointed with the jury's verdict.

REVEREND JESSE JACKSON: It is clear to me that unlike 1880, Blacks in 1980 are not going to give the Klan a free ride.

REPORTER: He says justice is needed, but violence would only be disruptive to all parties involved.

- It was after all that that we came in and sued.

[melancholy music] ♪ ♪ BETTY LAWRENCE LEWIS: I'm just standing here reminiscing.

All of these thoughts are coming, flooding back.

You know, the memories of 40 years, right?

I was what you would refer to as the briefcase carrier.

That's what they would call it.

Like, I was the junior person on the team and the only female member of the team.

Yeah, this case touched us.

It touched us as African-Americans because we knew that this sort of violence was going on.

And even worse, these women were fortunate that they lived through this.

And they could have sat back and, you know, go back into their life and ignore this.

But no, they decided to do something about it, which took courage.

CCR is the Center for Constitutional Rights, and they wanted to hire me.

Shortly after I arrived, Randy sort of took me under his wing.

He says, you know, I'm going to do this case in Chattanooga.

And he said, would you like to come along?

RANDOLPH MCLAUGHLIN: Growing up in New York City, I got in high school in mid '60s.

And we saw these great lawyers, whether it was Thurgood Marshall, whether it was William Kunstler, lawyers fighting for social justice and to end segregation.

And I said, I want to be one of those lawyers.

I want to do that work.

♪ ♪ CCR was the legal arm of the National Anti-Klan Network, which is a group of activists and organizers from across the country who had developed an organizing strategy to combat the Klan.

And we waited for the right case to come along.

And then Chattanooga happened.

♪ ♪ George Key, who was the head of the NAACP in Chattanooga, contacted us and said, "I'd like to talk with you all about maybe bringing a legal action here."

So we went to Chattanooga, met with Mr. Key, and he took us to meet the women.

DAVID COOK: In perhaps one of the most historically brave moments in our city's history, they found a way to go after the Klan civilly, not criminally, but civilly.

BEN CRUMP: We have to understand the difference between criminal law and civil law.

The only people who can hold people accountable under the criminal law is government actors, the prosecutors, district attorney, state attorney, who can bring a case to arrest somebody, charge somebody, and have somebody convicted.

Only people.

And when the government fails us with the prosecution of crimes, we have the ability to bring a civil action under the Seventh Amendment, where we ourselves can bring a civil action to get some measure of justice.

RANDOLPH MCLAUGHLIN: In a civil case, no one's going to jail.

But in a civil case, you're seeking to get damages or compensation for the injuries that the person sustained.

In our case, you can also seek to get an injunction to prevent the defendant from engaging in those kind of acts in the future.

♪ ♪ When I met the ladies for the first time, and I do this for every civil rights case, I always tell the client, we have two choices.

One choice, we can do this case just for you to get you damages to compensate you for what happened.

Or we can do that, and we can make this a test case to see if we can figure out ways to stop Klan violence.

And the women, to a person, said, "I want both."

And the risks they took to their lives, to their futures, to their family by signing on to this thing was tremendous.

Because the Klan was still around.

Bill Church was still roaming around and violence was still possible.

But they said, no, we're not going to-- no.

They wanted justice for what had happened to them.

♪ ♪ [voices on tape]: ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ JANICE SANFORD: My grandmother was one that stood on what she believed in.

I remember her specifically saying, it's my duty to protect these kids.

And that's always stuck with me.

♪ ♪ NATE CRUMSEY: She didn't discuss the case with us too much, but she didn't let us go to the playground or places that we used to go because she was afraid of retaliation, that they may come back and do it again.

[dramatic music] RANDOLPH MCLAUGHLIN: When we were getting ready to try the case, we hired a group called the National Jury Project to do an opinion poll of the potential jurors.

We found, one, that many of the rural residents, white residents, felt the Klan was a good thing.

Felt that Blacks had gotten enough, that they were opposed to Black, out-of-town civil rights lawyers trying cases like this in Chattanooga.

♪ ♪ And in fact, the opinions that we saw in the public opinion poll, they were demonstrated in the jury selection.

The jury had five whites, one Black woman.

♪ ♪ We saw the case as a precedent for how you could combat racially-motivated violence.

Suing private parties for racially-motivated violence, that's unusual.

That doesn't happen that often.

Because there aren't that many federal laws that deal with that.

We found this statute called The Ku Klux Klan Act.

It had been buried, and it was passed in 1871, right around the time reconstruction was taking off in the South.

President Grant sent a message to Congress saying, "law enforcement throughout the South basically are Klansmen, when they go to lynch people."

Grant said, "I don't have the power under current law to do anything about this."

And he said, "I'm asking for federal legislation."

BEN CRUMP: The 1871 KKK Act was passed because the Southerners who had lost the Civil War still had not acquiesced to this notion that Black people were free.

We needed Congress to act, and what they produced was this unprecedented law at the time.

RANDOLPH MCLAUGHLIN: And that statute created a right to file a lawsuit in federal court by the victims of Klan violence.

♪ ♪ BETTY LAWRENCE LEWIS: I knew that our case, in certain respects, was extremely important and landmark because people like Payne and Church, they would get away with something like that.

They would get away with it in the criminal setting.

And I know that the act was passed way back when, just to prevent that specific thing from happening.

RANDOLPH MCLAUGHLIN: Here was a theory of the case.

The Klan was organized to replicate what the old original Klan did, and it was designed the racial animus to emulate the historical Klan through harassment, physical assault, and intimidation.

This is what I-- and I went through the facts.

♪ ♪ This is the ambulance record for Katherine Johnson.

She sustained, I think, over 100 shotgun pellets to her legs.

They used birdshot as opposed to buckshot.

The bigger the pellet, the bigger the hole.

So if you're shooting deer, you use buckshot because it's going to really take the deer down.

If you're shooting birds, then you use birdshot because it's a smaller pellet and won't make as big a hole.

They use birdshot.

Why birdshot?

Birdshot, once it enters you, it can't be removed.

It's too small.

So eventually, what happens with birdshot is that the pellet will just push its way out through your skin, and that's extremely painful.

So this woman had over a hundred of these that were pushing their way through her skin.

Some of them were still in her body when we tried the case.

♪ ♪ What we did was to structure this approach to litigation by marrying the damage action for the women and a class action for all Black residents of Chattanooga.

All of them.

Protect them against future violence like this.

In order to get an injunction, you have to prove to the judge that this defendant has a likelihood of engaging in acts, in our case, of violence in the future.

What's this?

OMG!

♪ ♪ William Church's press conference.

That's what this is.

♪ ♪ We used that to get the injunction, because Church claimed that he had quit the Klan.

♪ ♪ [press conference on tape]: ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ REPORTER: What kind of activities do you plan on?

WILLIAM CHURCH: I see a war coming between Klan against Klan, and I see a racial war coming.

And just being prepared for activities such as these.

RANDOLPH MCLAUGHLIN: There was certainly a need to prevent these terrorists from continuing to engage in these types of activities.

♪ ♪ BETTY LAWRENCE LEWIS: And then the jury deliberated and came back with the verdict.

BEN CRUMP: There was no court of law that they had precedent to turn to.

And I can only imagine how many times they would have been told by legal scholars that you don't have a chance.

RANDOLPH MCLAUGHLIN: Remember, the Klan had won the criminal trial, so we didn't know what to expect or what was going to happen.

I'll never forget the day that verdict came out.

It's very formal.

The clerk gives the note to the judge.

He opens the note.

You could hear a pin drop, it was so quiet.

"With respect to William Church, we find him liable for damages.

With respect to the Justice Knights of the KKK, liable.

Larry Payne, liable.

Marshall Thrash, liable."

I'm like, oh my god.

We actually won?

We were hugging each other.

The lawyers were beaming.

The women were crying.

Relief for us and the women.

BETTY LAWRENCE LEWIS: And the judge issued the injunction.

We were happier.

It was precedent setting.

♪ ♪ DAVID COOK: I first learned about the shooting that took place in 1980 within the last two years, so many of us in the city were unaware of this story.

[applause] REPORTER: Opal Lee Jackson and her friends were shot while waiting for a taxi nearly 40 years ago.

She's the only victim still alive.

The 86-year-old still remembers bullets flying at her.

- We looked up and seen a ball of fire, just like in broad daylight.

[melancholy music] SONYA ROLLINS: Even though my grandma, she's here, but she hasn't recovered.

♪ ♪ Back then, they wouldn't afforded a lot of pain meds.

They weren't given... - Yeah.

- ...a lot to treat, you know, their ailments.

And they didn't have nobody to help them get through that.

They just was out of the hospital and thrown back into the street.

♪ ♪ [voices on tape]: CONNIE JACKSON ROLLINS: They were awarded, but as far as them getting the money, and I thought she said maybe $50.

They sent her $50 and-- - She said they sent her $500.

- $500?

- Yes.

- OK. BEN CRUMP: There are times when the verdict amount will represent an amount that is greater than the assets of the defendant.

RANDOLPH MCLAUGHLIN: There were efforts to collect on the judgment after the case was won.

But when you sue individual Klansmen, it's unlikely that you're going to see any money at the end of the day because it's unlikely that the Klansmen will have any money.

So damages are hard to come by in these cases.

[voices on tape]: ♪ ♪ MISSY TONEY: I do recall my grandmother just really getting touched and upset by that.

And that she was like, no, no, somebody gotta pay for this.

RANDOLPH MCLAUGHLIN: They were very reserved, the women, very reserved.

Except for Mrs. Crumsey.

She was feisty.

She was an organizer.

She would travel.

She became part of the National Anti-Klan Network and would travel around the South giving speeches, going to rallies.

JANICE SANFORD: She fought for our rights.

She fought.

You know, most people wouldn't want to pursue it, wouldn't want to go no further.

Even when the trial was over, with them just getting a little time instead of making it a civil trial, she could have just stopped right there, but she didn't.

She fought.

[rousing music] ♪ ♪ NATE CRUMSEY: We didn't know that what she had done as far as stepping forward and going against the Klan the way she did would ever, ever lead to what is going on today.

- A federal law used to prosecute members of the Ku Klux Klan in Chattanooga for a 1980 drive-by shooting is being used again.

SCOTT MCCOY: The case in Chattanooga became an excellent precedent model.

If you establish that precedent, other attorneys pay attention.

And they can see, here's another tool in our toolbox that we can use to try to achieve justice.

And so they go out and they use it and they develop their cases, and that's what happened.

BEN CRUMP: Lawyers around the country saw what was possible and took this strategy to their own fights in Mississippi, Virginia, and everywhere racists dared to commit acts of racially-motivated violence.

Precedent set by the Chattanooga 5.

REPORTER: The country's oldest group of Ku Klux Klansmen is threatened with financial ruin.

BEN CRUMP: We know that the Ku Klux Klan has evolved, and now they're using different names to mask this white supremacy or these notions of superiority over people of different ethnicities.

Thank God to these five Black women for giving us a precedent, an example, a trail that they blazed for future civil rights litigants to be able to follow.

- Jews will not replace us.

ANDERSON COOPER: In Charlottesville, Virginia, jury selection is now underway, in a civil trial against the organizers of the Unite the Right rally.

REPORTER: The civil lawsuit cites an 1871 law known as the Ku Klux Klan Act.

- For what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, what happened on January 6, 2021.

- Treason, treason, treason, treason REPORTER: The Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers are accused of violating the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act.

- What happened in Buffalo, New York, at the Tops supermarket, where a young White supremacist went and shot 10 innocent Black people.

We cite back to the Civil Rights Act of 1871.

REPORTER: The alleged shooter wearing full body armor and tactical gear, targeting people of color.

GAYLE KING: What does justice look like for them?

- It looks like holding not only this individual who committed this awful act of hate accountable, but also holding those who curate the hate.

Those who are at the root of the hate, holding them accountable as accomplices, they make-- We must remember, America is a capitalistic society.

And if there's anything that America understands, it is money.

And so what we have to endeavor to do is to make it financially unsustainable for anybody to kill Black people unjustly.

We have to sue them in civil court.

And we have to hold them accountable, even if that means bankrupting them all, until they know there will be some consequences to their actions.

ROBERTA KAPLAN: None of the defendants in our Charlottesville case showed up on January 6.

They were all sympathetic, for sure, but they were too afraid to show up because they knew that if they showed up, that would just make things worse for them.

Now, the goal here with these big judgments is to deter a lot more people than that.

- There was a conspiracy to commit racially motivated violence.

One of the things that we always said about our case that we brought under the KKK Act is, we're so glad that it's there, but we're really sorry that it has to be relied upon.

It's a statute that really should be a relic of our past and unfortunately is very much a reality of our present.

- We can get really depressed right around now because of what happened on January 6 and what's happening now.

And I say, I said, look, we've been in a struggle in this country ever since Jamestown.

I'm very realistic.

I don't think we're going to change the world or the country by a judicial decision.

But I believe in incremental change.

And every case that you win, if it's connected to the people and the people can use it, is one step along the freedom journey.

So these cases are an effort to-- what King talked about.

He says, "the arc of history bends towards justice."

Well, it's not like some mystical force is up there, pulling the universe down.

We've got to do that.

We've got to pull that arc.

And if we don't do the work, there'll be no justice for anyone.

[somber music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ TIM KELLY: These incredible new murals will revitalize 10th Street, just in time for Juneteenth, which we're proud to, proud to say.

[applause] [chatter] [soft music] ♪ ♪ [cheerful conversations] - How you doing?

- God put it in.

[chatter] - See, you look the same.

Look how beautiful you are.

[chatter] - Yeah, I see.

Uh huh.

I didn't know it was upside of all of him.

[laughter] - There you go, mama.

- There he is.

- Yeah, look at that.

[chatter] [soft music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - These five Black women were extraordinary.

They have given us legal precedent for which to go fight to make a better world for all of our children.

And we all, as a society, are the better for their willingness to take a stand.

They provided hope for America, that justice may be delayed, but it will not be denied, as long as we're willing to fight for it.

[soft music] ♪ ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Support for Reel South is provided by the ETV Endowment and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Additional funding for this program is provided by: