Director Nancy Buirski on the lessons of 'The Rape of Recy Taylor' and the courage it takes to speak out
On Recy Taylor's way home from church one night in Abbeville, Ala., a group of white men accosted her on the street. They forced the 24-year-old wife and mother into their truck, and six of them took turns raping her. This was in 1944, and though the incident was reported to police immediately, the assailants were never brought to justice.
Nearly 70 years later in 2011, the state of Alabama issued an apology to Taylor for not prosecuting her attackers. She was 91 years old.
"It is apparent that the system failed you ...," said Henry County Probate Judge Jo Ann Smith to several of Taylor's relatives at a news conference at the county courthouse in March of that year.
This real-life miscarriage of justice, brought about by racism, is the foundational point of Nancy Buirski's documentary "The Rape of Recy
