Jeffrey Morgan–an alumnus of SHOOT’s 2007 New Directors Showcase on the strength of his first documentary, Lillie & Leander: A Legacy of Violence–now finds himself on the festival circuit with another feature, over a decade in the making, which was sparked in part by Lillie & Leander.
Welcome to Jay debuted on August 31 at the Tallahassee Film Festival where it won the Audience Award for best documentary. Morgan–whose background includes some 23 years at Deutsch New York as an agency producer and eventually as EP/director of its in-house production studio Steelhead/Great Machine before he left to direct independently–served as director, producer, cinematographer and editor of Welcome to Jay, which introduces us to Jay, Florida, known as a “sundown town,” meaning it’s considered a place where Black people could find themselves in peril if they went there, particularly at night.
Morgan first heard about Jay while filming Lillie & Leander, a documentary in which a woman delves into the murder of her great-great aunt at the turn of 1900. During the course of the investigation, the woman stumbles upon an explosive secret that hints at her own family’s involvement in decades of racially charged murders. While filming Lillie & Leander in Escanbia County, Fla., Morgan learned about nearby Jay’s reputation. And that memory was stirred some years later when he read about Gus Benjamin, a Black teen who in 2010 attended a party in Jay–and ended up dead from a gunshot wound in the back. Robert Floyd, a young white man, was arrested and put on trial for second degree murder. Morgan gained permission to gain camera access to the courtroom in order to chronicle the seven-day murder trial in 2011 and went on to gather interviews in Black as well as white communities about the racial history of the area, including a shockingly similar murder that took place in 1922–except the murder victim was white and the alleged murderer was Black.
Morgan navigates a parallel course covering both deaths–nearly 90 years apart–and sheds light on Jay’s history and the roots of racial tension. In doing so, Welcome to Jay provides food for thought on race relations throughout the country–and the importance of learning from our history. In the case of Jay, the murder in 1922 led to the exodus of Black families from the town. Census figures had some 175 Black residents in Jay in 1920. Ten years later, there were none. Morgan sought out and connected with descendants of some of those Black families who lived in Jay back in the day. Their family histories started to peel away the layers covering up the racism that took hold in Jay and helped us to understand that the death of Benjamin in 2010 tore off the figurative scab and reopened a wound with a deep, dark past.
Morgan–a Native American and Mexican American–said that the value of telling such stories has arguably grown more significant than ever before. When he started out on Welcome to Jay, he fully knew that the story of both murders was important. But in recent years, there’s been a movement–including in Florida–to sanitize American history in the educational system, making documentaries like Welcome to Jay all the more essential.
Morgan shared, “If you don’t know the past, how do you get to the future?” He went on to cite a quote widely attributed to Mark Twain: “History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes.”
Thus it’s vital, continued Morgan, that we reckon with our history and tear down the “walls of secrecy” that exist in varied places. Morgan recalled feeling that “the past was present” as he looked into Benjamin’s death.
With the momentum gained at the Tallahassee Film Festival–Morgan chose that fest since it was the closest in geographic proximity to the town of Jay–the effort is now on to try to secure distribution for Welcome to Jay. Towards that end, the plan is for the true crime/historical documentary to continue on the festival circuit and generate interest.
The feature documentary took a decade-plus to make given the research required, the fundraising needed, and cobbling together enough time to bring it to fruition. On the latter score Morgan left his Deutsch gig–which he loved–to freelance commercial direct and finish Welcome to Jay. Among the funding sources for the film was The Better Angels Society Lavine Fellowship from a nonprofit founded by famed documentarian Ken Burns to promote the production of historically significant films. The organization selects five films annually to tell underrepresented stories about American history.
“We started filming in 2011,” recalled Morgan. “The last thing we shot, we locked picture in July of this year.” The extended span of production time also stemmed from the fact that it was difficult for some people to talk about race on camera.” Trust had to be built, he explained, meaning that “some of the interviews took years.”
On the music front, Morgan reached out to a valued colleague, Jim English, to write and perform the original score for Welcome to Jay. Morgan first met English at Deutsch NY and they’ve worked together ever since. English was recently hired by ad agency Hill Holliday as a music creator and producer.
Morgan said he feels “grateful to everyone who participated in the film. For some, it was a brave thing to come forward and tell the history they knew–or of their experience that tragic night in 2010. I’m grateful that people trusted me to tell the story.”
Behind Welcome to Jay was Sandy Hollow Productions, a documentary production company run by Morgan and producer Alice Brewton Hurwitz, the woman who investigated the death of her great-great aunt in Lillie & Leander: A Legacy of Violence, which premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.
In addition to helping Welcome to Jay gain exposure, Morgan is currently pursuing commercialmaking opportunities as a freelance director–with an eye toward possibly connecting with an established production house for more formal representation in the spot/branded content market.
