Booker Wright's Last Interview

Booker Wright's final interview is a poignant and courageous moment in American civil rights history. In 1965, Wright, an African-American waiter in Greenwood, Mississippi, appeared in the NBC News documentary Mississippi: A Self Portrait, produced by Frank De Felitta. In this interview, Wright candidly discussed the racism he endured while working at a whites-only restaurant:

“Some call me Booker. Some call me John. Some call me Jim. Some call me [n-word]. All that hurts, but you have to smile. Always learn to smile. The meaner the man be, the more you smile—although you're crying on the inside.”

This unflinching honesty had severe repercussions. After the broadcast, Wright was ostracized by customers, lost his job, was severely beaten by police, and his own restaurant, Booker's Place, was firebombed. Tragically, in 1973, he was murdered by a Black customer, Lloyd Louis Cork, who is serving a life sentence for the crime.

Decades later, Wright's granddaughter, Yvette Johnson, and Raymond De Felitta, son of Frank De Felitta, revisited this story in the 2012 documentary Booker's Place: A Mississippi Story. The film explores the impact of Wright's interview and the societal context of the time.

For a deeper understanding, you can watch the original interview segment from Mississippi: A Self Portrait here: