THE TRUE EVENTS THAT INSPIRED THE UPCOMING MAJOR MOTION PICTURE
A HARROWING TRUE STORY OF THE MODERN KU KLUX KLAN AND AN ACT OF GRACE THAT SHOOK A COMMUNITY IN THE DEEP SOUTH
In 1996, the town of Laurens, South Carolina, was thrust into the international spotlight when a white supremacist named Michael Burden opened a museum celebrating the Ku Klux Klan on the community’s courthouse square. Journalists and protesters flooded the city center, while hate groups rallied to the establishment’s defense, dredging up a long history of racial violence in this formerly prosperous mill town.
What came next is the subject of an upcoming major motion picture starring Forest Whitaker, Garrett Hedlund, Tom Wilkinson, Andrea Riseborough, and Usher Raymond. Shortly after his museum opened, Michael Burden abruptly left the Klan at the urging of a woman he fell in love with. Broke and homeless, he was taken in by Reverend David Kennedy, an African American preacher and local civil rights leader.
In this spellbinding Southern epic, journalist Courtney Hargrave further uncovers the complex events behind the story in Andrew Heckler’s upcoming film, Burden, which won the prestigious Audience Award at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Hargrave explores the choices that led to Kennedy’s and Burden’s friendship, the social factors that drive young men to join hate groups, the intersection of poverty and racism, and the difference one person can make in confronting America’s oldest sin.
THE TRUE EVENTS
THAT INSPIRED THE UPCOMING
MAJOR MOTION PICTURE
A HARROWING TRUE STORY OF THE
MODERN KU KLUX KLAN AND AN ACT
OF GRACE THAT SHOOK A
COMMUNITY IN THE DEEP SOUTH
In 1996, the town of Laurens, South Carolina, was thrust into the international spotlight when a white supremacist named Michael Burden opened a museum celebrating the Ku Klux Klan on the community’s courthouse square. Journalists and protesters flooded the city center, while hate groups rallied to the establishment’s defense, dredging up a long history of racial violence in this formerly prosperous mill town.
What came next is the subject of an upcoming major motion picture starring Forest Whitaker, Garrett Hedlund, Tom Wilkinson, Andrea Riseborough, and Usher Raymond. Shortly after his museum opened, Michael Burden abruptly left the Klan at the urging of a woman he fell in love with. Broke and homeless, he was taken in by Reverend David Kennedy, an African American preacher and local civil rights leader.
In this spellbinding Southern epic, journalist Courtney Hargrave further uncovers the complex events behind the story in Andrew Heckler’s upcoming film, Burden, which won the prestigious Audience Award at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Hargrave explores the choices that led to Kennedy’s and Burden’s friendship, the social factors that drive young men to join hate groups, the intersection of poverty and racism, and the difference one person can make in confronting America’s oldest sin.
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