HESTER: Pauline, it’s Jack. Your son Jack has been ’rested . . . ’rested and put in jail.

PAULINE: ’Rested?

REBECCA: Good Lord.

DR. GREY: What for?

HESTER: They say he done brushed against a white woman on the street. They had er argument and she hollowed out he’s attacking her. A crew of white men come up and started beating on him and the policeman, when he was coming home from work, dragged him to the jailhouse.

PAULINE: My God, my God! It ain’t so! He ain’t brushed up against no lady. My boy ain’t! He’s he’s a gentleman, that’s what he is.

HESTER: And, and Pauline, that ain’t the worse, that ain’t the worse. They, they say there’s gointer to be a lynching tonight. They gointer break open the jail and string him up!

PAULINE: String him up? My son? They can’t do that — not to my son,