Seventy years ago, a small Christian community in rural Georgia became an unlikely battleground in America’s fight over civil rights. Koinonia was founded on a radical idea: that black and white families should live, work and worship together as equals. For the people of nearby Americus, that belief was heresy. What followed was years of boycotts, gunfire, cross burnings and isolation.

Lenny Jordan grew up in the middle of it. As a child he learned to distinguish the sound of a passing car from the sound of one slowing to shoot. His father, Clarence Jordan - farmer, preacher - refused to compromise his principles, even as the Klan targeted his family and the community was boycotted.

This autumn, our Southern correspondent Rebecca Jackson travelled with Lenny back to the farm. There he confronts the scars of a childhood spent in the crosshairs - and asks what it means to cling to your convictions when your country feels like it is slipping backwards.

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