OUR STORY

One of the two central characters of this true story is Jimmie Lee Kirkpatrick, who in 1965 made a decision that changed history and swept him into one of North Carolina's most volatile civil rights cases played out at the explosive intersection of football and race. Jimmie Lee was raised in an all-Black, close-knit community on the outskirts of Charlotte, in Mecklenburg County. His father left the family when Jimmie was 11 years old. His mother was employed providing domestic work for an affluent white family - she raised their white children while Jimmie's great-grandparents raised him. It was a time when there were white and Black water fountains and public restrooms, and negative consequences for crossing societal lines. Like his dad, Jimmie was a gifted athlete and was a sensational running back – one of the best in North Carolina. He became deeply conflicted when a school-boundary changed and presented him with a choice for his senior year: His dilemma: stay with friends and teammates at all-Black Second Ward High, or move to affluent white Myers Park High School that offered many more opportunities. Almost 50 years later a Charlotte Observer newspaper series “Breaking Through” (2014) revealed untold connections between Jimmie Lee's undefeated 1965 football season at Myers Park, a high-stakes courtroom drama, and the midnight bombings of four civil rights leaders' homes in Charlotte - all the result of Jimmie having not been selected to play in the iconic Shrine Bowl football game. To this day when Jimmie Lee returns to Charlotte, ħe explains, “I live in two worlds. I see my white friends and my Black friends, but rarely together.” Among those who read the Observer series was De Kirkpatrick, a forensic psychologist and  former white classmate of Jimmie Lee' at Myers Park High School. The two weren't friends in high school, but, because of their last name, had jokingly called each other “Cuz.” Now, they made plans to talk for the first time in nearly 50 years. For many of those years, Jimmie had been in search of his genealogy, a complicated family history, and his own identity. In a shocking phone call, he shared with De what he had discovered – that their connection went back further than high school, to a Kirkpatrick plantation in Mecklenburg County on the eve of the Civil War. “Your great great-grandfather owned my great-great-great grandfather.”

This truth stunned De. To learn that his paternal ancestors were also planter-class slave owners was a life changing moment that sparked a journey for both men at age 65 into the reality of their shared history. “Put aside your guilt and I'll put aside my anger,” Jimmie Lee eventually told  De, “and we have a chance to learn from each other.” Their story continues, as they have become brothers seeking to understand their past. A story rooted in the South, it is also an American story -- a story of slavery's legacy, present-day anger, and the hope that by learning from each other, they can heal the deep, hidden wounds that most Americans have never faced.