by Leslie Lytle, Messenger Staff Writer

The Nov. 14 screening of the documentary “A Binding Truth” opened a door leading viewers into the dark legacy of two men, one black and one white, who discover they are alike not because opposites attract, but because for both men, the truth is the only path out of the darkness. Casual acquaintances as high school classmates, the lives of Jimmie Lee Kirkpatrick and De Kirkpatrick diverged for 40 years. The circumstance that reunites them harks back to their high school days but leads them centuries deeper into the past. Jimmie Lee Kirkpatrick and De Kirkpatrick share far more than a last name.

In 1965, all-white Myers Park High School stole the star running back from all-black Second Ward High School, a Charlotte, N.C., desegregation effort. Myers Park was not disappointed. Voted best player in the city, Jimmie scored 19 touchdowns his senior year. But the all-white Carolinas all-star team shut Jimmie out. Litigation followed and the bombing of four black civil rights workers’ homes. Jimmie found himself at the center of a lawsuit he was not named in. He saw a college scholarship to Purdue as a way out. “I didn’t want to integrate anything ever again,” he confessed.

Jimmie described the culture of his youth as one where “black people’s only relationship with white people was working for them.” At Purdue, as in high school, his only relationship with white people was sports. The only Blacks on campus were “exploited” athletes who were excluded from student social life. A knee injury forced a decision: Jimmie left football and Purdue. The radical Berkley environment suited him, what Jimmie calls “my hippie period.” He played in bands and embraced music as “the center” of his life. No one knew he was a former college football star.

De Kirkpatrick, meanwhile, applied to and was accepted at Harvard. His admissions essay recounted the racial strife forced to the foreground by the Shriner Bowl’s rejection of his high school classmate Jimmie Lee. The segregationist separate bathrooms and drinking fountains he grew up with “never made sense,” De insisted. Rejecting the influence of his racist father and white supremacist uncle, De engaged in civil rights protests and marches, and embraced the rich multiculturalism displayed in his mother’s catering business. He earned a doctorate in psychology and married.

Jimmie married, moved to Oregon, and became a teacher and school administrator. “When I moved out west, I thought my story had run its course,” Jimmie said. But Jimmie’s story was far from over.

In 2021, the Charlotte Sports Foundation announced the Jimmie Lee Kirkpatrick Award, an annual $10,000 scholarship given to a senior playing football in Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools. De read about the scholarship, tracked Jimmie down, and the two men got together for dinner. Jimmie had been researching his family history. De accepted Jimmie’s invitation to visit the plantation cemetery where De’s family was buried — and Jimmie’s family, as well.

De grew up with the narrative his family had been dairy farmers, a small slice of truth. “Slavery was never part of the conversation,” he said. But, in fact, his ancestors were among the top cotton producers in the state and owned a good number of slaves. At the cemetery, grand granite memorials marked the graves of De’s ancestors. Jimmie’s ancestors were buried in unmarked graves in the bordering woods. “Profound neglect was the headstone,” De said.

More research by both men followed, with Jimmie tracking down the document where his enslaved ancestors were willed to De’s. “There was a time I was angry,” Jimmie admits. “But the more I learn, the more I understand today’s issues.” “Surprise and anger drove my research,” De said. As a psychologist, he calls his mission “an autopsy of dead slave holders,” describing those who epitomized slavery as “God’s plan” as a “dysfunctional family” that whipped, sold, and raped its family members.

“We need to be having a conversation about fear,” De insisted. “Fear is the driver of white supremacy. People are threatened by the emerging truth.”

Asked about the suppression of literature and concerns that learning about slavery will make children “feel bad about themselves,” Jimmie said, “Students can handle a lot when taught the right way. The power of friendship is you don’t need to feel uptight about saying the wrong thing.”

Committed to carrying the torch forward from the darkness into the light, Jimmie and De have established the Kirkpatrick Foundation, a counter effort resisting silencing the discussion about slavery. De called their mission, “good trouble coming.”

The Roberson Project for Slavery, Race, and Reconciliation and the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Centers sponsored the screening and Q&A. “A Binding Truth” has not yet been officially released. PBS will broadcast the documentary in the near future.