www.mattkprovideo.com/2025/04/30/least-of-my-brothers-april-25-2025-at-san-antonio-college/

Jesus said: “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matt. 25:40)

On April 27, 2025, at noon I showed my documentary “The Least of My Brothers” at the RTF Building at San Antonio College. This is the intro before I showed the film, and then I took questions from the students and teachers who showed up.

This is the promo video I made for the event (a re -edit of a much earlier promo)

imdb listing:

www.imdb.com/title/tt1825162/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_in_0_q_least%2520of%2520my%2520broth

Wikipedia page on Vidor, Texas.

This is iPhone video of the intro and Question and Answer session after I showed the documentary:

Transcript of the introduction:

Welcome to our kickoff event of the 2025 multicultural conference as part of Fiesta
this is a documentary screening of a film called
The Least of My Brothers
and the filmmaker is here with us today
This is Matthew Kordelski
He is a graduate of the film program at Rowan University in New Jersey and the 2D animation program at Austin Community College
He runs his own production company for films motion graphics animation podcasts and commercial videos
He has an animated YouTube channel about dogs I love it
It’s very fun Um
He spent 5 years researching the murder of Bill Simpson which is what this film is about Bill Simpson was the first African-American to desegregate the sundown town of Vidor Texas He did not find the answers he thought he would find In this documentary he demonstrates that close examination and inquiry often helps us discover that there is more than meets the eye
So without further ado
Matt Kordelski any questions for our filmmaker today
yeah You know it’s funny You and I had earlier a minute ago were talking about Orson Wells
And one time Orson Wells was giving a talk and nobody showed up and the announcer said “Orson Wells has done this,he’s done that, he’s done that, he’s been an actor a writer a playwright.”
And Orson Wells comes on and goes
“I wish there was as many of you as there are of me”

But anyway uh anybody ever heard of the story of Vidor Texas and what happened there
you have from me or from Do you heard of it uh no I mean I heard about it when it happened It was a shocking horrific crime in the National Navy Okay Not too far from where I would live at the time Anybody heard of a Sundown Town oh yeah
All right
A little bit of backstory
This was made in the early 1990s In the early 1990s for good or for bad was the golden era of trash media
I’m going to say a man’s name that not so long ago if you said this guy’s name in San Antonio you would provoke a riot
Howard Stern he was the king of trash radio
You remember that okay Um he was the king of trash radio
Just there was no rules Whatever you could do to get attention he did it
Jerry Springer on TV was the same thing and all these guys They set the bar pretty low in terms of quality but they set the bar pretty high in terms of ratings
It was completely insane
People you would neve, r have on your TV show Ku Klux Klansmen, Nazis neo-Nazis

and the host did not want to make it a civil discussion They deliberately would get a Klansmen and somebody from Lewis Farrakhan’s group and hoping they’d fight It was insane Now into this environment they decided to desegregate the white housing complex in Vidor Texas
not long after that uh an African-American man moved in and then he got tired of the harassment and the day he moved out he was murdered I heard that and I came to a presumption that surely somebody from the clan killed him I spent five years digging and digging and digging I’ll let we’ll talk about this afterwards I did not find the answer I thought he would But the theme of this festival is more than meets the eye Keep an open mind Don’t make a snap judgment on just because that’s a bad guy who’s done a history of bad things Maybe they didn’t do that thing But hey we’ll talk about it afterwards Thank you for coming

Transcript of the Q&A

All right. Thank you for sharing your video

We can now go to a Q&A.

Can you feel like asking the filmmaker?

And I actually want to start if it’s okay.

Yeah.

Anything that’s. You must have
had to talk to a lot of residents.

Her?
Yes.

Including some pretty despicable racists
and others.

Yeah. Yes.
So how do you.

That was my first song.

As I was watching this again was.

How do you engage with someone who

you’re totally opposed to in terms
of what they stand for?

And you saw the movie documentary
to see some of to talk to them.

How do you measure?
It was a lot of discipline.
I had to try in my usual.
I mean, I was talking to Klansmen
and I was on phone calls

with neo-Nazis and, you know, racist
people, and I promised I’d be fair.

And then I think I was I mean, I couldn’t
it would have been the easiest thing

in the world to cut this, to make it
look like maybe the Klan did it.

There’s enough circumstantial.

What if I if I could have done that,
I promised them I would,
and they were kind of looking like rosy.

Yeah. But, yeah, I just get.
I need to buy me a little light and start
reading about different races, different ethnic groups.

In other questions, friends.
I mean, at some point, somebody, one of your one of your sources
that you recorded said,
well, there’s no violence here against black people.
It’s it’s just threats. The threats are pretty bad.

I mean, that’s not but,
you know, like to stand on, my true.

It’s not, it’s not.
And, if you’re right, it’s
like one thing I was surprised, making is,
was when I was talking to Bill Haley,
somebody got help.

You got trouble for making threats,
but they were rather nonsensical threats.

Somebody said, I’m going to get a load of
dynamite and blow up the housing complex.

You go up and saying that
even though he never had

the dynamite, there’s no evidence
he was really going to do this.

But threat of force.

Now, I’m not a lawyer.

I support you, but yeah, you’re right
that that’s no excuse.

I mean, pretty frequently
that you can’t yell fire in a theater
and you can’t threaten to blow up
in front of a solid point.

That’s pretty bad, too.

And by other companies, I mean the bad guy
here seems to be the media.

You know, the media come in and they’re,
you know, how they’re married or whatever.

But it would be better if we heard, like, you know, actual news clips that would substantiate that.

The one sort of negative thing
that we have about me
is the evidence that we have is the, the, you show the put the plan to
I fair harassment and current affairs

and you know and and
and they came up empty

and they wouldn’t let me use any of that footage.

But and so,
I mean, that’s pretty bad, but,
you know, if if the enemy is the media,
it seems like we need

to have those headlines or whatever
or clips or descriptions,

you know, specific incidences,

the media, you know, pushing a dishonest.

Okay.
You’re you’re right about that.

00:02:54:41 – 00:02:59:00
And I, I thought I made the point
that I’m not saying there was no racist

00:02:59:00 – 00:03:03:23
so racism or trouble there, but I’m saying
that I think the media exaggerated

00:03:03:39 – 00:03:06:07
and that that provide evidence
for the media.

00:03:06:07 – 00:03:09:33
Oh, yeah, but I couldn’t
I mean, there’s you can argue all day.

00:03:09:50 – 00:03:11:41
So the TV should have stayed away.

00:03:11:41 – 00:03:13:52
They shouldn’t have covered. It was good.

00:03:13:52 – 00:03:14:53
Is that the solution?

00:03:14:53 – 00:03:16:50
No, I mean, I, I wrestle with that, like.

00:03:16:50 – 00:03:18:04
Okay, you make a very good point.

00:03:18:04 – 00:03:21:08
No, I been let me back up and say
I thought it was a film.

00:03:21:20 – 00:03:23:42
And I said in the beginning,
oh, yeah, I heard all about this.

00:03:23:42 – 00:03:25:16
No, I had not heard anything about it.

00:03:25:16 – 00:03:28:50
What I thought we were going to hear about
is the same as next up in YouTube.

00:03:28:50 – 00:03:30:14
And there on the screen behind you.

00:03:31:35 – 00:03:32:51
Jasper was.

00:03:32:51 – 00:03:33:54
So that was Jasper.

00:03:33:54 – 00:03:35:47
That’s Jasper. Okay, so I was confused.

00:03:35:47 – 00:03:36:50
Did you have the time in me?

00:03:36:50 – 00:03:38:22
This everybody, when he got the joke

00:03:38:22 – 00:03:41:34
that Ross just moved away from fighter
to get away from the Klan.

00:03:41:36 – 00:03:44:34
I got
I think we got a stage town. Ha ha ha.

00:03:44:34 – 00:03:45:51
Jasper and I made it.

00:03:45:51 – 00:03:48:06
People got the joke. I mean,
and he really did do that.

00:03:48:06 – 00:03:50:55
That really did happen.
Yeah, yeah. Oh. He didn’t.

00:03:50:55 – 00:03:53:44
So you you opened my eyes here to you.

00:03:53:44 – 00:03:55:43
Okay. You know, you think about.

00:03:55:43 – 00:03:58:43
Do we know what happened to the old lady
with that?

00:03:59:31 – 00:04:00:49
I don’t think she’s still alive.

00:04:00:49 – 00:04:03:23
She never paid. Who was a paper dancer?
They knew.

00:04:03:23 – 00:04:07:31
They they you had to pay X amount of money
to these people that you bother,

00:04:07:31 – 00:04:10:30
but they you. She was never gonna pay
to take your judgment.

00:04:10:30 – 00:04:12:44
I don’t know how she tried to compensate.

00:04:12:44 – 00:04:13:56
Right, exactly. Exactly.

00:04:13:56 – 00:04:15:53
And they knew that? Yes.

00:04:15:53 – 00:04:18:04
So. But, So the the, the,

00:04:19:15 – 00:04:21:46
the two black women on the fourth
for the family

00:04:21:46 – 00:04:25:22
who moved into the white thing,
did they really have trouble?

00:04:25:27 – 00:04:27:20
They they couldn’t
find any employment. Right.

00:04:27:20 – 00:04:29:26
Nobody would give a job. Applications.

00:04:29:26 – 00:04:32:19
What are you doing? Applying that.
There was some tension there between.

00:04:32:19 – 00:04:35:20
I agree, but I would point out that
that’s what they say happened.

00:04:35:20 – 00:04:38:24
I couldn’t corroborate that, but I one.

00:04:38:24 – 00:04:39:02
Why would they lie?

00:04:39:02 – 00:04:41:09
I can’t figure I mean,
if somebody was offering them a job,

00:04:41:09 – 00:04:44:50
you know, they, they say that’s what
happened at a reasonably they’re lying.

00:04:44:50 – 00:04:46:28
They never did find work environments.

00:04:46:28 – 00:04:48:01
And we told them,
why are you even applying?

00:04:48:01 – 00:04:51:01
This is our

00:04:51:23 – 00:04:52:18
yeah.

00:04:52:18 – 00:04:53:12
Your question.

00:04:53:12 – 00:04:53:51
Yeah, yeah.

00:04:53:51 – 00:04:57:33
And this shows
the nuances and complexities like,

00:04:57:49 – 00:05:01:34
you know, they’re they’re they’re
there was there was tension

00:05:01:34 – 00:05:04:34
by the there, there, there could have been
I mean, there were threats.

00:05:05:20 – 00:05:09:25
There is this woman, apparently
may not have been able to find a job.

00:05:10:44 – 00:05:11:13
So, I

00:05:11:13 – 00:05:14:29
mean, there could have been something
there, but.

00:05:14:29 – 00:05:17:40
And what I found out after I made the move
as we cut this, like, five

00:05:17:40 – 00:05:20:52
times, is by the fifth or sixth version
I made, I kept was working.

00:05:20:52 – 00:05:21:59
It was like two hours long.

00:05:21:59 – 00:05:24:35
I could cut you down and blah, blah, blah.

00:05:24:35 – 00:05:26:18
The two women who left Vidor

00:05:26:18 – 00:05:29:23
Ironically, Bill Simpson left fire
because he feared violence.

00:05:29:23 – 00:05:31:58
Sure. And he met with violence
his first night out.

00:05:31:58 – 00:05:33:54
And the two women who left fire,

00:05:33:54 – 00:05:36:54
I heard they moved to a housing complex
in Houston and got robbed.

00:05:37:32 – 00:05:39:47
Oh, wow. Like they were.
They were a target.

00:05:39:47 – 00:05:43:10
I heard they they they won
with being the victim of urban violence

00:05:43:10 – 00:05:44:31
because they were killed.
They werent killed but

00:05:44:31 – 00:05:50:00
They robbed the the
the other personal
thing I was gonna mention, is that I,

00:05:51:00 – 00:05:53:41
I saw well, reporters is Darlene Dorsey.

00:05:53:41 – 00:05:55:15
Is she here in San Antonio?
I’ve heard that.

00:05:55:15 – 00:05:58:40
Yeah, she
she is now Darlene Dorsey Pickens.

00:05:58:40 – 00:06:00:57
And she used to work at a TV station.

00:06:00:57 – 00:06:05:34
I used to work,
so I know her so online as I was watching,

00:06:05:40 – 00:06:09:11
so, like, I should I looked up Darlene
Dorsey invited me to this.

00:06:09:36 – 00:06:11:06
Yeah, because I spoke to her on the phone.

00:06:11:06 – 00:06:13:33
I never need to get her on camera.

00:06:13:33 – 00:06:14:04
I’m gonna.

00:06:14:04 – 00:06:15:52
I think I took a picture, a screenshot.

00:06:15:52 – 00:06:17:55
I’m hoping it comes out of the same
when I.

00:06:17:55 – 00:06:20:11
I follow her friends on Facebook.

00:06:20:11 – 00:06:23:11
Okay, I’m going to second
guess what I saw you,

00:06:23:31 – 00:06:26:18
you know, on this documentary
and see what she says.

00:06:26:18 – 00:06:27:55
Yeah. Dorsey, I heard she moved to San Antonio
00:06:29:50 – 00:06:31:04
Anyone else?

00:06:31:04 – 00:06:32:02
Two questions.

00:06:32:02 – 00:06:33:51
What inspired you
to make this documentary?

00:06:33:51 – 00:06:34:45
And how did you.

00:06:34:45 – 00:06:37:11
I never got the hint that you were biased…
00:06:37:11 – 00:06:38:53
through out the documentary?

00:06:38:53 – 00:06:41:37
So how did you maintain

00:06:41:37 – 00:06:44:24
the professionalism of this?

00:06:44:24 – 00:06:45:35
It wasn’t in your head. What if.

00:06:45:35 – 00:06:50:23
I mean, I heard the story and back,
and then, I suppose this is still true.

00:06:50:23 – 00:06:53:11
It is really true. In the 1990s,
it was scandal of the week.

00:06:53:11 – 00:06:54:02
It was outrage of the week
00:06:54:02 – 00:06:56:22
The whole country got worked up over something,

00:06:56:22 – 00:06:57:25
that’s all you’re talking about.

00:06:57:25 – 00:06:59:02
And you move on to something else
you to do.

00:06:59:02 – 00:07:01:19
You young people, is that still true today?
00:07:01:19 – 00:07:02:47
Somewhat. Okay.

00:07:02:47 – 00:07:05:05
Well it happened and I just
everybody assumed

00:07:05:05 – 00:07:07:31
they’re going to make a movie,
that we’re going to make a TV movie.

00:07:07:31 – 00:07:10:07
It was going to be a documentary
and nobody did it.

00:07:10:07 – 00:07:11:16
And I thought, well, I should.

00:07:12:17 – 00:07:14:41
And it took me 5 years

00:07:14:41 – 00:07:17:39
Anybody here RTF Majors?

00:07:17:39 – 00:07:21:00
Well, anyway, nowadays
you could make a whole movie

00:07:21:00 – 00:07:23:51
like this on your phone,
and it would probably look better.

00:07:23:51 – 00:07:26:10
Sound better

00:07:26:10 – 00:07:26:58
There is parts of this movie that make me cringe

00:07:26:58 – 00:07:29:29
Oh, this is awful.
I want to do better, blah blah blah.

00:07:29:29 – 00:07:32:29
I was using BetaCam SP, huge TV camera

00:07:33:05 – 00:07:35:29
and I was working for video companies.

00:07:35:29 – 00:07:37:03
And on the weekends
I would take the camera,

00:07:37:03 – 00:07:39:30
go do some work to find people.

00:07:39:30 – 00:07:40:33
You know, I didn’t live in Vidor

00:07:40:33 – 00:07:45:12
I was living in Austin
So I had to drive to Vidor. Meet people,
Interview them. Come back

00:07:45:12 – 00:07:49:38
and I cut it together and there was like
a two hour version and everybody hated it.

00:07:49:38 – 00:07:51:53
I cut down,

00:07:51:53 – 00:07:54:02
cut out a lot of the repetition.

00:07:54:02 – 00:07:58:59
And at one point there’s amazing new
technology of Mini DV Cameras came out.
Remember those?

00:08:00:13 – 00:08:02:04
Well anyway, it was picture quality

00:08:02:04 – 00:08:05:04
pretty much equivalent to a BetaCam SP
and I see what the consumer would buy it.

00:08:05:18 – 00:08:06:14
So I reshot.

00:08:06:14 – 00:08:09:28
So if you know some of the interviews,
the people are older

00:08:09:32 – 00:08:12:26
and the camera style is a little different.
I did that in Mini DV

00:08:12:26 – 00:08:15:10
And, I mean, I, I wish it was way

00:08:15:10 – 00:08:19:59
they talk about how you can bump something up to 4K,
but now I had I made professional

00:08:21:04 – 00:08:25:35
During MOST of this, I’d say about 75, 85% of this.

00:08:25:36 – 00:08:29:53
I still thought I was going to find
something

00:08:30:29 – 00:08:34:19
to blame this on the Klan or neo-Nazis
or a white person from Vidor

00:08:35:44 – 00:08:37:03
75% of the way through.

00:08:37:03 – 00:08:39:30
I still thought the Klan did it

00:08:39:30 – 00:08:45:16
Even though I found no evidence

00:08:45:37 – 00:08:47:45
Absence of evidence is not
evidence of absence.

00:08:47:45 – 00:08:50:30
I still couldn’t
shake that loose from my head.

00:08:50:30 – 00:08:52:06
What about that to the very end?

00:08:52:06 – 00:08:56:07
And then realize that there’s two black guys
spending their lives in jail?

00:08:56:08 – 00:08:59:32
They never said anything about
“the Klan put us up to this”

00:08:59:32 – 00:09:01:00
And, before.

00:09:01:00 – 00:09:02:26
Yeah, that’s what I can.

00:09:02:26 – 00:09:05:33
I talked to
there’s people who wouldn’t appear on camera, but

00:09:05:33 – 00:09:09:20
would talk to me on the phone of the FBI guy
Ron Kelly

00:09:09:20 – 00:09:12:02
He wouldn’t appear on Camera
But he talked to me on the phone.

00:09:12:02 – 00:09:13:30
Judge William William Justice.

00:09:13:30 – 00:09:14:40
He’s the one who started all this.

00:09:14:40 – 00:09:15:50
When you desegregated the housing complexes

00:09:15:50 – 00:09:18:25
you know, he talked to you on the phone
a couple times.

00:09:18:25 – 00:09:21:38
I spoke to the author of a book
called Sundown Towns I spoke to.

00:09:21:42 – 00:09:23:39
Mayor Woods of Vidor on the phone.

00:09:23:39 – 00:09:26:39
She didn’t want to appear in it
but she spoke to me and a couple.

00:09:26:45 – 00:09:28:32
And then the pastor of the church,

00:09:28:32 – 00:09:30:55
one of the churches Bill SImpson went to
he talked me on the phone.

00:09:30:55 – 00:09:34:29
I kind of realized
I’’m wrong. Its NOT the Klan.
They didnt do this.

00:09:36:04 – 00:09:36:22
Do you think

00:09:36:22 – 00:09:39:22
they still contributed to the general

00:09:40:07 – 00:09:41:53
cultural violence and environment?

00:09:41:53 – 00:09:43:37
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

00:09:43:37 – 00:09:45:18
They stoaked it.

00:09:45:18 – 00:09:47:49
If the Klan had not gone to Vidor

00:09:47:49 – 00:09:51:48
would the Bat Lady and certain other people
still be obnoxiously rude, yes,

00:09:51:48 – 00:09:54:42
but that they’re still there,
they’re like stoking the hostility.

00:09:54:42 – 00:09:59:00
Yes, I think they
they really got people riled up

00:09:59:18 – 00:10:03:06
and getting on TV got them riled up and,
you know, bringing up it was violent.

00:10:03:06 – 00:10:04:20
Do You guys know the history of the Klan.

00:10:04:20 – 00:10:08:35
The Klan was originally this rather small thing
in Tennessee.

00:10:09:13 – 00:10:13:07
And then there was a play based on the
memory of the Klan called The Klansman,

00:10:13:25 – 00:10:16:42
that got turned into a silent movie
called “BIRTH OF A NATION”

00:10:17:35 – 00:10:20:27
And they
you had to get in trouble for saying this,

00:10:20:27 – 00:10:24:57
but a nationwide craze, flew
by flying cosplayers.

00:10:25:10 – 00:10:28:09
They saw the movie BIRTH OF A NATION
and the Klan took off again.

00:10:28:31 – 00:10:29:36
Then it kind of faded away.

00:10:29:36 – 00:10:32:00
Then it came back
during the civil Rights movement,

00:10:32:57 – 00:10:33:33
and then it kind of

00:10:33:33 – 00:10:36:58
faded away
and it bumped up a little bit in the 90s.

00:10:36:58 – 00:10:39:47
I couldn’t tell you what the
with the response of it.

00:10:39:47 – 00:10:42:54
But did the Klans being there stir the pot?

00:10:43:00 – 00:10:46:50
get people excited,
get somebody who was quietly racist to be loudly racist?

00:10:46:50 – 00:10:48:22
Yes, absolutely.

00:10:48:22 – 00:10:49:01
Absolutely.

00:10:49:01 – 00:10:52:01
And the Klan is always,

00:10:53:02 – 00:10:54:55
you know, it’s all blacks.

00:10:54:55 – 00:10:57:30
Go back to your country,
go back to your country.

00:10:57:30 – 00:11:00:16
We’re all guilty of that.
Absolutely.

00:11:00:16 – 00:11:02:29
Especially white people.
Oh, I go back to your country?

00:11:02:29 – 00:11:04:00
Fine, go back to France, Go back to Russia

00:11:04:00 – 00:11:07:00
Native Americans,
you know, and it’s it’s like,

00:11:07:11 – 00:11:11:23
how hypocritical are we too
because this was not our.

00:11:11:41 – 00:11:14:35
Our land and boundary delineation.

00:11:14:35 – 00:11:16:07
You know, it. Was already here.

00:11:16:07 – 00:11:20:12
Yes.
You know so it was,it was kind of ridiculous.

00:11:20:12 – 00:11:22:10
I completely agree.

00:11:22:10 – 00:11:24:47
And there’s different versions
and there’s one

00:11:24:47 – 00:11:28:10
I had one with the history of the Klan.
I had another one with the history of Vidor.

00:11:28:10 – 00:11:30:28
And I cut it out because it was boring People thought, but,

00:11:31:53 – 00:11:34:40
they,

00:11:34:40 – 00:11:35:47
One of the Grand Dragons lived there. There was a metal pipe.

00:11:35:47 – 00:11:36:23
Lived there.

00:11:36:23 – 00:11:38:25
And I found his house , there was still

00:11:38:25 – 00:11:41:25
believe it or not,
the metal pipe that he would light the cross on

00:11:42:13 – 00:11:44:39
If you go to my YouTube channel,
there’s a lot of deleted footage.

00:11:44:39 – 00:11:47:30
If you’re interested, look up,
“The least on my brothers” YouTube channel.

00:11:47:30 – 00:11:49:47
Theres things that I cut out because I thought it was slower.

00:11:49:47 – 00:11:52:34
But yes, if I think it goes, of course
they’re neo-Nazis.

00:11:52:34 – 00:11:54:45
There was that one group?

00:11:54:45 – 00:11:56:04
They weren’t neo-Nazis.

00:11:56:04 – 00:11:57:23
In so much as he never said

00:11:57:23 – 00:12:01:30
anything about Hitler or Germany
or Germany, National Socialism,

00:12:01:53 – 00:12:06:25
but there’s no denying what he wanted for
America was a heck of a lot.

00:12:06:25 – 00:12:08:07
Like, what did Hitler wanted for Germany.

00:12:08:07 – 00:12:10:06
So from that point of view, He WAS a Neo-Nazi

00:12:11:16 – 00:12:13:00

00:12:13:00 – 00:12:16:00
So you were shooting this for five years?
Yes.

00:12:16:47 – 00:12:18:04
So what kept you going?

00:12:18:04 – 00:12:21:20
And was it that you were trying,
as you said, you were trying to prove

00:12:21:20 – 00:12:24:20
that the Klan did it, or like,
they were like,

00:12:25:41 – 00:12:26:53
I wanted to make a movie.

00:12:26:53 – 00:12:31:57
I want yeah, I can tell you,
I’m some great crusader on a horse

00:12:32:09 – 00:12:33:59
I wanted to make a movie

00:12:33:59 – 00:12:36:16
So I started,
but I didn’t want to spend five years.

00:12:36:16 – 00:12:37:40
I never meant to spend five years.

00:12:37:40 – 00:12:40:37
I thought it would maybe be six months,
but I couldn’t find people.

00:12:40:37 – 00:12:41:36
I didn’t have time to edit.

00:12:41:36 – 00:12:45:12
I didn’t have access to editing equipment
which which was a thing back then.

00:12:45:12 – 00:12:45:50
It’s not today.

00:12:45:50 – 00:12:47:27
You can do it all on your phone,

00:12:47:27 – 00:12:52:02
but back then I to get access to an AVID,
get access to BetaCam Cameras
00:12:52:02 – 00:12:53:21
That was not an easy thing to do.

00:12:57:13 – 00:13:00:42
Is that what kept you going
was that you were trying to prove

00:13:00:42 – 00:13:02:35
that the Klan was responsible

00:13:02:35 – 00:13:03:38
Yes. Yeah.

00:13:03:38 – 00:13:06:52
So one, I wanted to crack open the case
and show what really happened.

00:13:06:52 – 00:13:07:21
You know, I was right.

00:13:07:21 – 00:13:10:40
I wanted to finish my movie,
I wanted to, so I did everything.

00:13:11:11 – 00:13:17:47
And what was interesting
was I was starting to lean towards thinking:
“You know what? The Cops were right”
It really was just a drive by.

00:13:18:28 – 00:13:21:06
And I still thought that Vidor was a racist town.

00:13:21:06 – 00:13:24:06
I interviewed somebody
who was still living in the complex,

00:13:24:24 – 00:13:28:00
and I was about to pack my camera,
and that’s when I looked up.

00:13:28:02 – 00:13:31:39
And then. the shot, of the little girl’s having a tea party

00:13:32:19 – 00:13:36:18
that was going on
So I quick grab my camera and video-ed that.

00:13:37:26 – 00:13:40:01
And then I put the camera away
and somebody said,
“So what are you doing?”

00:13:40:01 – 00:13:40:55
“Making a movie in Vidor”

00:13:40:55 – 00:13:43:55
That was just a black girl who said,
this is not a racist town.

00:13:44:58 – 00:13:48:56
So I pulled the camera back out,
Miked her up and just interviewed her.

00:13:49:31 – 00:13:52:31
And then like on the drive, home,
I thought: hmmmmmm

00:13:52:44 – 00:13:55:06
That was kind of a turning point.

00:13:55:06 – 00:13:56:44
That’s when I kind of realized that I was wrong.

00:13:56:44 – 00:13:59:44
It wasn’t the Klan and Vidor

00:14:01:04 – 00:14:03:43
And then I can’t I’m not going to say
it’s not a racist town
00:14:03:43 – 00:14:08:06
To this day You hear about black people
not wanting to stop for gas there.

00:14:08:06 – 00:14:10:35
But is that true? Or is that hype?

00:14:10:35 – 00:14:11:44
Yeah, I don’t know.

00:14:11:44 – 00:14:14:11
I played with the idea of making a sequel.

00:14:14:11 – 00:14:17:49
Maybe for a hidden camera on a black guy
Have him go buy gas and see what happens.

00:14:18:10 – 00:14:19:08
I thought about that,

00:14:19:08 – 00:14:21:29
In other words, the exact same thing
A CURRENT AFFAIR did?

00:14:21:29 – 00:14:25:35
OOH! Gut Punch! Well done sir!

00:14:25:35 – 00:14:28:04
Now know you say that. Yes I would. Well.

00:14:28:04 – 00:14:31:04
Oh all right,
I’m doing another question like

00:14:31:40 – 00:14:34:23
okay, I was just going to
just make your own comment.

00:14:34:23 – 00:14:39:06
I think what what makes us feel resonant
all these years later is that,

00:14:40:23 – 00:14:43:16
you know, we live in an era of
are conspiracy theories.

00:14:43:16 – 00:14:46:35
I mean, you know, with social media
and all that, and it shows how

00:14:47:08 – 00:14:51:03
people were even back
then, 30, 40 years ago,

00:14:51:18 – 00:14:54:18
we’re still doing things for,

00:14:56:05 – 00:14:59:05
you know, coming in
from outside to kind of,

00:14:59:23 – 00:15:02:23
you know, start this,

00:15:02:47 – 00:15:05:23
make it look like
things are going on in the town.

00:15:05:23 – 00:15:07:50
The media was feeding on it and all that.

00:15:07:50 – 00:15:10:57
And, doing what,
I guess would we call fake news?

00:15:11:26 – 00:15:14:55
And, you know,
this was all happening back then,

00:15:15:15 – 00:15:24:40
and that leads us to the era here now
where people are very skeptical about about the media
and maybe rightfully so,

00:15:25:24 – 00:15:33:50
Apparently they missed lot of the stuff
that was going on in Vidor was really primarily outside forces.

00:15:33:50 – 00:15:40:45
And, you know, and then the whole thing
about it’s about the death of Simpson is, you know,
the conspiracy theories

00:15:40:45 – 00:15:46:43
It took a long time to unravel that it really was
just, you know, street crime. Right?

00:15:47:36 – 00:15:51:25
Everybody
even think that it was a coincidence

00:15:51:25 – 00:15:54:25
you never even got to sleep in his house

00:15:54:29 – 00:15:55:25
on the night that.

00:15:55:25 – 00:15:57:57
He was going to go to sleep in his house.

00:15:57:57 – 00:15:58:53
He gets killed.

00:15:58:53 – 00:16:02:47
Yes. What a freaking coincidence,
this amazing coincidence.

00:16:02:47 – 00:16:07:08
And that’s why I had first thought for
sure it had to be somebody from Vidor that did this.

00:16:07:36 – 00:16:09:11
Although in hindsight, I think about it.

00:16:09:11 – 00:16:12:10
I spent a lot of time talking to the Klansmen
and reading their literature.

00:16:12:13 – 00:16:17:19
I am NOT ori Klan at all.
I’m just saying from their point of view,

00:16:18:08 – 00:16:21:31
if Bill Simpson had been killed
the day he moved IN to Vidor

00:16:21:31 – 00:16:26:58
I’d say maybe it was the Klan
On the day he moved out? Why would they care?

00:16:26:58 – 00:16:31:00
I mean, I could almost see the Klan
paying for the U Haul to help him move.

00:16:31:00 – 00:16:38:49
I am joking but Yes, yes, it is an incredible irony.

00:16:39:43 – 00:16:42:42
And, you know,
I gave some a little bit of,

00:16:43:17 – 00:16:44:07
not lip service,

00:16:44:07 – 00:16:47:07
but I brought up the conspiracy theories,
like, people think that people think that

00:16:48:06 – 00:16:50:41
that when you get into how the landlady.

00:16:50:41 – 00:16:53:28
How did she get into HUD housing for me,
I looked into that.

00:16:53:28 – 00:16:55:38
It was completely genuine.
It was aboveboard.

00:16:55:38 – 00:16:58:18
She never rented throught HUD before.
You’re right, she didn’t

00:16:58:18 – 00:16:59:56
Nobody wanted to rent to Bill SImpson

00:16:59:56 – 00:17:01:48
Nobody wanted the publicity.

00:17:01:48 – 00:17:03:13
She saw him on TV.

00:17:04:15 – 00:17:05:44
She says,

00:17:05:44 – 00:17:08:49
I did this out of the kindness of my heart
to give the guy a place to live.

00:17:09:32 – 00:17:12:32
Ive talked to some people that,

00:17:12:57 – 00:17:14:11
I to go.

00:17:14:11 – 00:17:16:35
It was partly, that she wanted the money.

00:17:16:35 – 00:17:17:41
She wanted to rent that house.

00:17:17:41 – 00:17:23:16
She had a house to rent, she had an empty rental
property that she couldnt rent anybody because it was in a bad neighborhood.

00:17:23:52 – 00:17:28:04
So instead of that house laying empty shes now getting some H.U.D. money.

00:17:29:55 – 00:17:32:17
Plus the notoriety

00:17:32:17 – 00:17:35:17
Yes. Yes.

00:17:35:31 – 00:17:38:31
She she,

00:17:38:33 – 00:17:40:12
she wouldn’t appear on camera.

00:17:40:12 – 00:17:43:24
Partially because her Hollywood agents
told her not to.

00:17:45:10 – 00:17:48:24
At the time I made this, you know,
you saw the thing where she.

00:17:48:25 – 00:17:51:12
She was in the National Enquirer.

00:17:51:12 – 00:17:53:52
“Landlady taking back the streets.”

00:17:53:52 – 00:17:55:51
She’s cleaning up her neighborhood.

00:17:55:51 – 00:17:57:06
She’s a crusader.

00:17:57:06 – 00:18:00:06
No, she wanted to increase the value
of a rental property.

00:18:00:11 – 00:18:03:27
And there was talk of making either
a movie or a TV show about her.

00:18:04:28 – 00:18:06:40
And Delta Burke was going to play her.

00:18:06:40 – 00:18:09:40
Oh, wow. And,

00:18:10:08 – 00:18:12:45
No, no, it was
it was going to be Delta Burke.

00:18:12:45 – 00:18:15:31
If it was a TV show
It was going to be Kathy Bates if it was a movie
00:18:16:33 – 00:18:19:54
And for, you know, for whatever reason,
that didn’t happen.

00:18:22:18 – 00:18:27:42
You guys didnt ask about this,
(I thought somebody would,)
I’ve toyed with the idea of making a sequel

00:18:27:42 – 00:18:30:42
“Vidor Today”
I might do that one day.

00:18:31:00 – 00:18:33:56
There actually been

00:18:33:56 – 00:18:35:33
three sequels to my movie

00:18:35:33 – 00:18:39:11
That I didn’t make
I got paid for some of it.

00:18:39:58 – 00:18:43:03
The story, the, the billboard,
the fall. Is it.

00:18:43:05 – 00:18:46:12
“This is Vidor, where
you can get away with murdering a woman.”

00:18:46:37 – 00:18:47:49
Did anybody hear that story

00:18:49:00 – 00:18:49:40
that had

00:18:49:40 – 00:18:53:41
absolutely nothing to do with racism,
with the Klan, the Kathy page?

00:18:54:37 – 00:18:56:22
This young woman in VIdor.

00:18:56:22 – 00:18:58:54
Was killed in mysterious circumstances.

00:18:58:54 – 00:19:01:27
The circumstantial evidence

00:19:01:27 – 00:19:05:03
points to the ex-husband
just incredible amount of circumstantial evidence.

00:19:05:03 – 00:19:06:37
But they can’t prove it.

00:19:06:37 – 00:19:07:43
The father was so angry.

00:19:07:43 – 00:19:09:47
Is is so obviously the ex-husband.

00:19:09:47 – 00:19:11:55
Why aren’t the Vidor cops
doing anything about this?

00:19:11:55 – 00:19:13:59
He put up those billboards.
to embarrass them.

00:19:13:59 – 00:19:14:15
He’s.

00:19:14:15 – 00:19:16:50
I think somebody from
the police took a bribe.

00:19:16:50 – 00:19:18:40
I don’t believe.
I just think they couldn’t prove it.

00:19:18:40 – 00:19:21:32
It’s one of these things that we know
is that guy.

00:19:21:32 – 00:19:23:31
We can’t prove it.

00:19:23:31 – 00:19:26:25
So there was a been a couple of things
like,

00:19:26:25 – 00:19:29:36
Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack
did the Cathy Page story.

00:19:30:05 – 00:19:33:14
The Cathy Page story
also kind of inspired

00:19:33:21 – 00:19:36:21
the Movie
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”

00:19:36:48 – 00:19:38:21
I remember them going back five years ago

00:19:39:24 – 00:19:43:03
that the writer said
he was driving from Florida to California.

00:19:43:03 – 00:19:44:12
He saw billboards here.

00:19:44:12 – 00:19:47:01
You know, why is nothing
being done about this murder.

00:19:47:01 – 00:19:51:26
He saw a billboard. He got the idea.
and he wrote a completely fictitious story
insired by that billboard.

00:19:52:21 – 00:19:53:42
Another sequel

00:19:53:42 – 00:19:59:10
Somebody approached me,
Anthony Griffith black NAACP lawyer that represented the Klansman

00:19:59:10 – 00:20:00:30
He wouldn’t talk to me on camera.

00:20:00:30 – 00:20:01:55
He talked to me on the phone.

00:20:01:55 – 00:20:05:21
Well, someAfrican-American podcasters contacted him

00:20:05:21 – 00:20:08:33
and they did something I didn’t do,
but they talked him into doing it.

00:20:09:08 – 00:20:14:01
So there’s his story is on the internet,
and they’re using clips from my movie in that one.

00:20:14:01 – 00:20:17:26
And there was a TV series or like,
it’s on Netflix or on one of those,

00:20:17:37 – 00:20:20:26
Got Saved Texas by Richard Linklater

00:20:20:26 – 00:20:22:26
and one of the episodes
is A History of racism,

00:20:22:26 – 00:20:24:36
and they use a lot of
footage from, from the movie.

00:20:26:04 – 00:20:31:12
I also had a lot of problems, you guys arent RTF Majors
But I didnt have that much footage of The Klan,

00:20:32:06 – 00:20:33:55
There’s only,

00:20:33:55 – 00:20:37:05
I went just did internet
searches on pictures of the Klan

00:20:37:06 – 00:20:40:06
He knows a lot of that,
I Photoshopped it

00:20:40:32 – 00:20:42:19
I’m going to confess that I was a bad boy.

00:20:42:19 – 00:20:43:45
One of the shots in a burning cross.

00:20:43:45 – 00:20:46:02
I faked that

00:20:46:02 – 00:20:48:58
I got 2 wooden dowels
glued together and set it on fire,

00:20:48:58 – 00:20:50:42
because I just needed a shot
of a burning cross

00:20:50:42 – 00:20:52:48
I don’t do anything for you
about the Olympics.

00:20:52:48 – 00:20:55:18
How did you feel in that moment
setting it on fire?

00:20:55:18 – 00:20:56:29
I did in my backyard.
I didn’t feel good about it.

00:20:56:29 – 00:20:57:34
I do in my backyard.
I didn’t feel good about it.

00:20:57:34 – 00:20:59:29
And I also felt journalistically dubious.

00:20:59:29 – 00:21:01:51
But Im not lying
I mean, It did happen.

00:21:01:51 – 00:21:04:46
I just didnt have a shot of it
as, like, one of the early versions.

00:21:04:46 – 00:21:06:05
I said “FAKE”

00:21:06:05 – 00:21:09:43
Some of the words on the screen ok we get it

00:21:09:43 – 00:21:11:28
Cough. Doris and unrelated news.

00:21:11:28 – 00:21:14:09
At one time you shared stock footage
that you were clear to specify.

00:21:14:09 – 00:21:15:35
This is stock footage.
Yes.

00:21:16:38 – 00:21:17:19
And I don’t I don’t

00:21:17:19 – 00:21:20:44
know why I didnt do that on the cross,
but I think that and,

00:21:21:04 – 00:21:24:47
there was I, for a very short
time, was talking to Hollywood

00:21:25:09 – 00:21:26:42
and, like, turning this into a “MOVIE movie”

00:21:26:42 – 00:21:29:08
Oh, man. This is it.
This is my dream come true.

00:21:29:08 – 00:21:32:16
And then Waco happened, like,
oh, we’re going to follow that story.
We’ll get back tto you

00:21:32:16 – 00:21:33:31
Maybe we’ll do something with this.

00:21:33:31 – 00:21:39:07
And, any aspiring screenwriter s in the room,

00:21:39:07 – 00:21:41:02
Every made for TV movie, every one.

00:21:41:02 – 00:21:50:21
Not every movie,
every major TV movie is the story of a woman trying to save her family
through the strength of her heart.

00:21:50:21 – 00:21:53:06
And I like that may be a recurring theme,
but I say no.

00:21:53:06 – 00:21:55:45
It’s ever since they told me
that I can’t look at a made for TV movie without going

00:21:55:45 – 00:21:57:33
oh my God, that is it.

00:21:57:33 – 00:22:00:24
So they either wanted to do the story
of the two black women who moved out,

00:22:00:24 – 00:22:02:15
or the story of the mayor of Vidor

00:22:03:38 – 00:22:06:16
and I was talking to both of those people,

00:22:06:16 – 00:22:09:50
the 2 women who moved out and the mayor of
Vidor about doing the movie and,

00:22:10:42 – 00:22:14:15
the mayor didn’t want to do it
because of the bad publicity.

00:22:14:29 – 00:22:16:38
The two women wanted to do it,
but andthen the movie never happened.

00:22:16:38 – 00:22:19:15
So, what are you going to do

00:22:19:15 – 00:22:21:54
Anything else I want to talk about,

00:22:21:54 – 00:22:24:46
you know,

00:22:24:46 – 00:22:27:46
I can talk a little about this,
anyone else?

00:22:28:02 – 00:22:29:19
What do you think?

00:22:29:19 – 00:22:30:53
I think it was the head of the Klan.

00:22:30:53 – 00:22:33:26
He didn’t want to speak about the bus?

00:22:33:26 – 00:22:36:25
Because he was guilty as sin!

00:22:37:37 – 00:22:39:50
He did drive through that neighborhood.

00:22:39:50 – 00:22:42:49
Not HIM but HIS Klan group

00:22:42:49 – 00:22:45:34
His Klan group did go through that neighborhood.

00:22:45:34 – 00:22:46:42
Did drive through the complex.

00:22:46:42 – 00:22:50:01
There was somebody with a machine gun
that is a “threat of force.”

00:22:50:01 – 00:22:53:56
That’s intimidation by third force
actually pointing a gun

00:22:53:56 – 00:22:57:08
at somebody and saying,
I’m going to shoot you is a worse crime,

00:22:57:51 – 00:23:01:00
but you driving it through, holding a gun,
that’s a crime too.

00:23:01:27 – 00:23:03:51
That’s intimidation by “Threat of force.”

00:23:03:51 – 00:23:06:26
I dont know about HIM

00:23:06:26 – 00:23:09:25
but his group absolutely did that.

00:23:09:27 – 00:23:13:59
And that’s why he wouldnt talk about it because
it could come back in court later on

00:23:15:20 – 00:23:17:06
He was pleading the 5th

00:23:17:06 – 00:23:18:10
He did that.

00:23:18:10 – 00:23:21:40
And then, the voice over in,
what was the lady’s name?

00:23:21:40 – 00:23:24:27
Lynn Marie Garsee

00:23:24:27 – 00:23:26:08
Garsee Yes.

00:23:26:08 – 00:23:29:08
Did you does your voiceover
saying that she had

00:23:29:21 – 00:23:32:43
kind of orchestrated multiple interviews
for you?
Yes.

00:23:33:24 – 00:23:34:58
I went to the bathroom.

00:23:34:58 – 00:23:38:14
Did this version have the interview
with the woman whose leg got shot off?

00:23:39:12 – 00:23:39:35
It was.

00:23:39:35 – 00:23:42:24
She got me that interview

00:23:42:24 – 00:23:44:42
No TV network in the world, you get that?

00:23:44:42 – 00:23:46:48
She kept saying no .
Lynn Marie Garsee got me that

00:23:46:48 – 00:23:47:22
Copy that.

00:23:47:22 – 00:23:50:22
And she got me.

00:23:51:09 – 00:23:52:50
Oh, she got me around the neighborhood.

00:23:52:50 – 00:23:55:40
The shots at Bill Simpson’s house.

00:23:55:40 – 00:23:57:43
She she pointed out that at the house,

00:23:57:43 – 00:24:01:11
and she stood there and,
she got me…..

00:24:01:11 – 00:24:01:40

00:24:01:40 – 00:24:05:11
I think there was an
she gave me some other phone numbers.

00:24:07:11 – 00:24:10:11
As far as her getting caught

00:24:10:50 – 00:24:13:50
lying on TV.

00:24:15:04 – 00:24:17:28
Remember the part
where the the TV crew went to her house

00:24:17:28 – 00:24:20:28
to talk to her about this, and she said
people had warned her, not to talk

00:24:21:04 – 00:24:23:01
I can’t prove this.

00:24:23:01 – 00:24:24:39
I think she was just exaggerating.

00:24:24:39 – 00:24:28:06
She probably should like the attention
she was at that point in time.

00:24:28:06 – 00:24:30:00
She was about to be famous.

00:24:30:00 – 00:24:33:08
It was sort of making her story
into a TV show or a movie,

00:24:33:23 – 00:24:36:53
and she said, people came to me
and threatened me not to talk

00:24:37:26 – 00:24:39:21
Who came to you? What are you talking about?
When did this happen?

00:24:39:21 – 00:24:41:59
I think she was
making herself dramatic.

00:24:41:59 – 00:24:43:31
I think from that.

00:24:43:31 – 00:24:45:29
But I think that’s what happened.

00:24:45:29 – 00:24:47:59
Okay, so you don’t think that
she said that you believe.

00:24:49:23 – 00:24:51:22
No, I do not, I do not.

00:24:51:22 – 00:24:55:30
They could easily set him up in Vidor

00:24:55:30 – 00:24:59:35
Like she got him the house
so that the Klan know where to go
in order to get him?

00:24:59:35 – 00:25:03:03
Anyway, It woldnt that hard to figure out
where he went,

00:25:03:03 – 00:25:06:03
But no, I do not think she had anything
to do with that.

00:25:06:19 – 00:25:09:31
She set herself up as a saint.
“I got Bill Simpson a place to live.”

00:25:09:50 – 00:25:13:13
One of the one of the attorneys
for East Texas Legal Services

00:25:13:13 – 00:25:15:53
said they talked to her
right after the shooting,

00:25:15:53 – 00:25:18:28
and they said, did you hear about
what happened to Bill Simpson?

00:25:18:28 – 00:25:20:57
She said, yeah, isn’t that terrible?

00:25:20:57 – 00:25:23:45
How am I going to get my next month’s
rent?

00:25:23:45 – 00:25:28:03
Nobody would tell me that story on camera

00:25:29:08 – 00:25:31:41
Anybody else?

00:25:31:41 – 00:25:31:57
All right.

00:25:31:57 – 00:25:34:57
Matt I hate to cut you off

00:25:35:31 – 00:25:35:54
on time.

00:25:35:54 – 00:25:40:55
To see the deleted scenes, look up YouTube
“The Least of my brothers.”

00:25:40:55 – 00:25:44:28
And thank you for sharing such a
challenging but important film