problem of islands as we give context to the events set -- the events surrounding the murder of isaiah nixon. it is to think about the extent to which what happened to nixon was an aberration, right? i think there is a way in which we might frame is murder as that, as the kind of outcome of two deranged individuals' crazy racism. but i think it is important for us to work to give context to all of these incidents of violence, right? and maybe kind of challenge the thesis a little bit about these problems that were aberrations to the american creed. that the problem of violence -- we can talk about race violence or other forms of violence being more central to our collective history than we other times -- oftentimes are willing to admit. and there is this interesting problem of complicity, that it is certainly the case that two men approached isaiah nexen and killed him, literally. but these men were part of a community. there were witnesses, literally and figuratively, to their violent action. these men had the choice, they had a myriad of choices to hold these men to account or let them go.

so it is the 1948 election that will be the focus, with isaiah nixon. as we know, like snipes, he too was killed for voting. here, as you dig into this case, and you say, ok, who was isaiah nixon? and you think about what you know, what you read, even in high school, and maybe read "invisible man" by ralph ellison, maybe you read other literature, whether fiction or theiction, about subservient role that whites reated blacks with, sort of not knowing they were there. and understand that most of these men and women, when they died, they did not make the papers. it was not known, it was tragic and their families. but the world at large did not take note. and they are buried in some cases in unmarked graves, and in some cases in ways that they can never be identified. i want to show you what we discovered when we went down to terrell county to dawson, georgia and met with the james bridger family, the man who was killed for driving the car. we met with his sister, sarah, who was with him the day that -- rushed, took them to the hospital, for which he never

that is going to be the 1948 murder of isaiah nixon and the town of alston. montgomery county, it is about three hours from here. he was shot dead for voting. and he voted in 1948. i will come back to this in a little bit and talk about the extraordinary period of time in georgia history between 1946 and -- more probably, 1944 and 1948, the highlights of which were two statewide races for governor in 1946 and 1948. 2 or 3 black men were killed for voting in that time. that we know of. i will open the floor. why would white people go to such lengths to stop black people from voting? sot do you think was troubling to white people that then or anytime they would murder someone for voting? yes sir? >> at that point, politics was a way to voice one's opinions. there was a power structure in the south. black people voting would most likely obstruct that. >> i agree with that. at the time, politics, all the mayors were white men. if you have black men voting, they could change that. they cannot let that happen. people would have to give up their power, because they