Documentary screening from UGA alum on Walton County lynching hosted by Champ Bailey

Andrew Shearer, Athens Banner-Herald
Updated ·2 min read
A still image from the documentary "Unspoken" shows newspaper clippings from a 1946 lynching in Walton County. The feature-length film will screen at the University of Georgia on Thursday, April 13, 2023.
A still image from the documentary "Unspoken" shows newspaper clippings from a 1946 lynching in Walton County. The feature-length film will screen at the University of Georgia on Thursday, April 13, 2023.

An unsolved 1946 lynching in Monroe, Georgia is the subject of "Unspoken," a feature-length documentary directed by University of Georgia alumna Stephanie Calabrese. The film will screen for free at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at 285 S. Jackson St. within the Jackson Street Building of the UGA College of Environment and Design.

After the movie, a Q&A session will be led by former Bulldog All-American and NFL Hall of Famer Champ Bailey with Calabrese and film cast members Pastor Nathan Durham and Elizabeth Jones, a UGA alumna and current historic preservation graduate student.

Filmed entirely on an iPhone, "Unspoken" examines the Moore's Ford lynchings, in which two Black couples were murdered by a mob of white men on a dirt road near Moore's Ford Bridge, located in Walton and Oconee counties between Monroe and Watkinsville.

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Calabrese, a resident of Monroe, chose to shoot "Unspoken" with her phone because its small size made it easier to capture candid moments, and she found that one-on-one interviews with minimal equipment was the most effective way to capture stories and honest perspectives among neighbors. Composer Kwame Brandt-Pierce also used an iPhone to create the film's original score.

The victims of the Moore's Ford lynchings were World War II veteran George W. Dorsey, his wife Mae (Murray) Dorsey, Roger Malcolm and his wife Dorothy (Dorsey) Malcom, who was seven months pregnant. Despite the efforts of the FBI in 1946 and a reopened investigation in the 1990s, the case was sealed in 2017 and remains unsolved.

“I am honored to moderate this important discussion about the movie and its impact with Stephanie at my alma mater, the University of Georgia,” Bailey noted in a news release. “Having been raised in a small town in south Georgia, I'm proud to support conversations aimed at reconciliation inspired in-part by the film and encourage people to join us at the event."

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Documentary on unsolved Walton County lynching to screen at UGA