TRANSCRIPT: Malinda Edwards (ME) and Mildred Betts (MB)

ME: Mama did tell me everything by the time I was 12. She said, ‘You need to know what happened to your father.’ 

That night she sat in the room and watched him dress. She says she watched every stitch of clothing that he put on. And he kissed her goodbye. But, the next day, he didn’t come back. She’s like, ‘Where is he? Where is he?’ She didn’t know where he was for months.  

And then she said, ‘We found him washed up in the river.’ And she had to identify the body. The jeans he put on, she had sewn them up herself and she remembered the thread. She remembered the color of his underwear and his shirt and his tee shirt. And she told me, ‘When you get married, don’t you let your husband go out the door without knowing what he has on every day, ‘cause you don’t know if he’s coming back.’

Was it hurtful when you read that the men that did this were not prosecuted for their crime?

MB: I couldn’t believe that they were not being accountable for their actions. And, right  now, they’re still not. 

ME:  At that moment, I took a vow. I said, ‘With every breath that’s in me, I am going to make these men’s life miserable until somebody helps me.’

Only thing I accomplished was that his death certificate was changed to murder. People now know he was slain by people with no heart, no feeling.

MB: You know, I’m very proud of you, Melinda, ‘cause you was persistent. And that you did what you did for our family.  

ME: I want to let the Klan know one thing and that is: you may have thought you snuffed out a life, removed it from this earth, but you didn’t. You made this man bigger than life. Now, he is taught in universities that he couldn’t even attend. This man is on monuments. You didn’t destroy Willie Edwards Jr. You destroyed our hopes and our dreams and our love, but you didn’t remove the man.