BlacKkKlansman (2018)

Harry Belafonte: Jerome Turner

Photos 

Quotes 

• Jerome Turner : [addressing the Black Student Union]  He was 17, I was 18, we kind of looked at Jesse and called him slow, today you'd call him mentally retarded. They claimed Jesse raped and murdered a white woman by the name Lucy Fryer. They put Jesse on trial, and he was convicted by an all-white jury, after they deliberated for only *four* minutes.

  [students gasp] 

  Jerome Turner : ... I was working across the street at the shoeshine parlor, and after the verdict, the mob grabbed Jesse, put a chain around his neck and dragged him out of the courthouse. I knew I had to hide... where I was, the shoe parlor had a window up in the attic, and I could see the crowd, they marched Jesse through the streets, they stabbed him, and beat him, and finally in a bloody heap, they held him down in the street - and cut off his testicles.

  [students exclaim in horror] 

  Jerome Turner : ... Police and city officials were out there watching him, they cut off his fingers, and threw coal oil all over his body. They lit a bonfire, and raised and lowered him over these flames over and over, and over again... The man, a photographer by the name of Gildersleeve, he came and took pictures of the whole thing, those pictures were later sold as postcards.

  [students gasp as others hold up large copies of the photos]