Southern Rites Page #2

and then on and off my whole high

school career until 12th grade.

Justin Patterson was my first everything,

everything.

(laughs)

Yeah.

My best friend was Justin Patterson,

but we all called him Pat.

That's Justin. That's me.

We started in kindergarten together,

and we grew up, did a

lot of things together,

met a lot of different people,

played basketball, and...

(sighs)

... when he died, it just...

it just changed everything.

That top says, "RIP Pat,"

and it has his name, Justin Patterson,

his birthday, January 23rd, 1989,

the day he died, January 29th, 2011.

And it got his last...

his last Facebook status, "Why me?"

Why me?

Laub:
What happened the day

that you found out that he died?

Keyke:
My mama woke me up maybe around

6:
00 and told me, "You

know, Justin got shot."

And I was like, "Okay, he

okay?" She was like, "No."

I said, "What do you mean no?"

And she's like, he died

about 3:
00 that morning.

And I just...

in shock, I couldn't really get

up, I just stayed in bed for hours.

Neesmith:
I ain't never been scared.

I ain't bragging or nothing, but the...

the person I'm scared

of ain't been born yet.

I ain't never been scared of nobody,

you know, really scared,

because if you had a problem with somebody,

you know, you could walk up

to them and talk about it.

But see... but now, you can't do that.

You can't talk a problem out

if you and somebody have a disagreement.

You can't do it no more, that's

what I'm telling you about,

the way this country's getting

or the people in this country.

I remember when a head shake...

a handshake was a man's

bond and that was it.

A handshake was the best...

the best guarantee about

anybody you could ever get.

If that man shook your hand, that was it,

that was the deal, it was done.

This is an old, old book right here.

It's like as old as the hills.

And that was one of the best men ever been

on the face of this earth right there.

My daddy.

Didn't play with him.

And the craziest girl

in the world right there.

Miss Danielle.

I raised Danielle

knowing she was

black when I got her.

That didn't matter to me, I raised her.

I lost people I thought was my friends

because of that, because

she was black, I was white.

We'd go uptown and people

would talk about me.

"You know, there's that"... this

is what would be said there...

"There's that... there's that

white man with that black girl."

You know, it just...

but it didn't matter to me.

After two or three months,

I loved this little girl

just like she was mine.

Just like if I was her

birth parent, and I wasn't.

Woman:
Danielle, hey.

- (baby coos)

- Neesmith:
Hey, doll baby.

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