The Changing Same

In the Florida Panhandle lies the town of Marianna, Florida, where one resident runs a particular marathon in hopes of lifting the veil of racial terror caused by the town’s buried history. Lamar Wilson discovers a book, “Anatomy of a Lynching: The Killing of Claude Neal.” Intrigued, he starts to read it and finds that his hometown of Marianna is the scene where this horrific event took place. On October 26, 1934, Claude Neal was brutally lynched by a mob of white men who stormed the county jail where Neal was held after being accused of the murder of a 20-year-old white woman, Lola Cannady. The spectacle lynching was the worst act of torture and execution of 20th century America, yet there are no physical markers to remind anyone of this. Now, annually, out of a sense of duty to shine a light on the past and the love for his town, Lamar is motivated to run the 13 miles retracing the same route Claude Neal took that fateful night. Black people ask him to stop because they don't want trouble. White folks dog whistle, they don’t like it. But with the help of three other residents, he works towards trying to heal a community that has paid a price for silence and denial for too long. (Pan African Film Festival)