Documentary
Writer and Director: John Cork
Producers: Jude Hagin, Hilary Saltzman
A compelling documentary that revisits the 1952 murder case in which Ruby McCollum, a black woman, fatally shot a white doctor, state Senator-elect Clifford Leroy Adams in Florida. The film compiles research and interviews about the murder and subsequent court trial of Ruby McCollum in which she testified that Adams, the son of a powerful political family, had forced her into a long sexual relationship that resulted in an unwanted child, and that she shot him in self-defense. The slaying and ultimate trial stirred race relations in the southern town, and brought to light a left over legacy from the slavery era of a white man’s right to a black woman’s body, known in today’s lexicon as “Paramour Rights.”