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Downloaded from
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[melancholy music]
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♪ ♪
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Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX
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- A postcard is an extension
of our experience.
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A postcard allows us
to continue to relive
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that experience.
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It also allows us to
disseminate that experience.
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People use social media today
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to show other people
what they are doing
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in their everyday life.
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"Look what I draw pleasure
from."
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Lynching postcards were used
in the same way.
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♪ ♪
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- In the aftermath
of the Civil War,
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African Americans
have an opportunity
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for freedom and equality.
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But there's a backlash
among white citizens,
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particularly in the South,
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with people who do not want
African Americans to enjoy
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the full rights of citizenship
that other people enjoy.
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♪ ♪
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- You have a shifting
of the racial hierarchy.
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And one way to really solidify
white over Black again
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was using forms
of racial terror.
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And one of the most acute
and profound and widespread
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and visual forms
of racial terror
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was the lynching
of Black bodies.
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- Suddenly, African American
mobility and freedom
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starts to look a lot more
threatening.
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There's a new set of narratives
and stereotypes
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that start being circulated
around Black criminality.
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- But the reality is,
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many of these lynchings
occurred simply because of
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a deep-seated racial animus
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or hatred toward
African Americans.
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- If a Black person
were successful at a business.
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If a Black person vote.
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A crime could involve
any simple everyday act.
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And that act
of simply existing
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in a new white society
could be punished by death.
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- Between 1880 and 1968
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there is an estimated 4,000
lynchings that take place
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in the United States.
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♪ ♪
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- Lynching becomes
a form of leisure
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for many who engage in it.
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The vast majority of people
who lynched Black bodies
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were not members
of the Ku Klux Klan.
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They were in fact
everyday ordinary citizens,
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people who were young
and old, men, and women,
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and children from all
social classes.
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♪ ♪
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- And they're often described
as festivals of violence,
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where ultimately the entire
community comes together
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to participate in what are
called at various times
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picnics or barbecues
and often where
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photographers and the media
are given privileged access
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so they can capture
the violence.
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♪ ♪
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- Kodak invents the amateur
camera at the end
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of the 19th century.
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And with that
we start to see photography
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become even more and more
a part of people's daily lives.
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♪ ♪
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Photographs of lynchings
start to appear
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in a host of different forms.
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- It became very profitable
for photographers
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to take pictures of people
being lynched,
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take pictures of the crowds,
and then sell them
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on the streets.
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People could purchase
the postcard as a piece
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of memorabilia from the event
that they witnessed.
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- Bragging rights, so to speak.
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And this becomes
a big business,
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where there are photographers
who make a fortune
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selling these lynching
postcards.
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♪ ♪
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- The photograph extends
the life of an event.
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Very simply, when we think
about photography,
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we think about time.
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It allowed a viewer
to relive and reexperience
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that sense of power
and control
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over and over
and over again.
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♪ ♪
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They functioned as a form of
ownership over Black people
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even in death.
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♪ ♪
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- Black families were often
under assault,
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and Black women
were often lynched as well.
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- One of the only extant images
we have
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of a Black woman
who was lynched
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was Laura Nelson and her son
in Okemah, Oklahoma.
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♪ ♪
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- Lynching postcards
are traded widely,
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sent through the mail
in the United States.
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It's how people communicate
with their relatives.
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Where you were in relation
to the body
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often becomes a sign
of how influential
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or important you were.
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And people clambered to get
to the front of the mob.
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One could be a celebrity
if captured
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in a lynching photograph.
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- One surviving postcard
is the lynching
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of a man named Will Stanley.
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He had been lynched by a crowd
of about 10,000
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in Temple, Texas,
in July of 1915.
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- And on the back
of the postcard is written,
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"This is the barbecue
we had last night.
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"My picture is to the left
with a cross over it.
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Your son, Joe."
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- That was written
by Joe Meyers,
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who was a local oiler
in Bellmead.
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There's a level of pride
that we see
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in his association
with this lynching.
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He is not shameful of it.
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He does not attempt to hide
his attendance there.
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- He's sharing this as if he
were sharing a postcard
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of the Statue of Liberty
or the Eiffel Tower.
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- It widens the community
of people who can take part
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in a lynching.
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It suggests that white folks
thought that this was a story
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to pass on,
a story to be proud of.
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- The reason those people
are unmasked
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is that there's no fear
that they'll be prosecuted
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for their actions.
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Even though there are
photographs that capture
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the number of participants,
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when coroners' juries
performed their duty
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by looking at the corpse
of those who were lynched,
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they often came
to the conclusion
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that the person had died at
the hands of persons unknown.
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♪ ♪
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This was a euphemism
for the lynch mob.
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But ultimately,
what it meant was,
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no one was to be punished
for these acts of terror
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witnessed on
African Americans.
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♪ ♪
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It is terrorism
in its clearest expression.
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And in some of the most
infamous lynchings,
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including the lynching
of Jesse Washington,
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it's also an example
of the complicity
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of state and local government.
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- Jesse Washington was a Black
teenager from Waco, Texas.
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He was a laborer in 1916
when he was accused
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of the bludgeoning death
of a 53-year-old white woman.
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♪ ♪
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Fred Gildersleeve
was a local photographer
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who had arrived in Waco
about 1905.
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Gildersleeve had told the
mayor that he would
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give him a cut of his profits
should the mayor allow him
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to set up his equipment
previous to the lynching
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of Jesse Washington.
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And it was reported that
the mayor was not worried
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about the injustice
that was occurring
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outside of his office,
but instead he was worried
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that the people who were
burning Jesse Washington
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would damage the oak tree.
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♪ ♪
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- As the lynching
is concluded,
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the city officials,
the mayor and the sheriff
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suddenly begin to recognize
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that what's taken place here
needs to be kept quiet.
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As they're attempting
this cover-up,
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those Gildersleeve photographs
become a hot commodity.
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Everybody wants an example
of what took place in Waco.
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♪ ♪
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- Burning of the Black body
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had become so associated
with the way that Black people
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were lynched in Texas
that other states would say
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so-and-so had been lynched
Texas-style.
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♪ ♪
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- Whether it's of Will Stanley
or Jesse Washington,
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the photograph doesn't tell us
anything about
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what their living was like
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or what their hopes
or dreams were.
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What we're looking at
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is actually an undifferentiated
Black death.
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♪ ♪
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- In the immediate aftermath
of the lynching
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the NAACP recognizes that this
is just the type
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of opportunity they'd been
seeking
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to point to
the barbarity inflicted
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on African Americans
in communities like Waco.
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♪ ♪
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W.E.B. Du Bois, a prominent
African American scholar,
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is editor of their newspaper,
"The Crisis,"
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and recognizes that this
will be a powerful story
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if the NAACP can garner
accounts that indicate
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the complicity of local
officials in the violence.
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- The NAACP published
a supplement to "The Crisis"
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called "The Waco Horror."
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And it was disseminated
to 750 newspapers
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across the country and every
single member of Congress.
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The hope was that if they
could demonstrate
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to audiences
across the country
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and even across the world
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that this was occurring
in the South,
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they could somehow
shake people
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out of their complacency
and push them
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to join the fight
against lynching.
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♪ ♪
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- I think we actually have to
stop and ask
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how difficult a choice
it must have been
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to use these photographs,
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to take these images,
which had been celebrations
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of white supremacy,
and to transform them
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into anti-lynching images
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to indict white supremacy
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and white society at large.
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♪ ♪
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- W.E.B. Du Bois
in publishing the images
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from the Waco horror
was actually building
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on the work of female activists
such as Ida B. Wells.
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- She was the first activist
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to use photography as part
of her anti-lynching campaigns.
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♪ ♪
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Ida B. Wells and the NAACP
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00:11:42,401 --> 00:11:44,270
and later anti-lynching
activists
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would draw on photography
as part of an arsenal
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of evidence to prove that
these crimes were happening,
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to prove how brutal they were.
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♪ ♪
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- Over the last century,
about 200 anti-lynching bills
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have been presented Congress.
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Not one has passed.
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♪ ♪
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- It's often said that
the camera doesn't lie.
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For all the ink
that's dedicated
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to rehabilitating the image
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of communities
where lynchings took place,
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the photographs become
the final testament
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for the ugly brutality
of lynching in America.
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♪ ♪
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- Well, John,
this is a token
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of a great day we had
in Dallas.
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March 3rd a Negro was hung
for an assault
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on a three-year-old girl.
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I saw this on my noon hour.
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I was very much in the bunch.
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You can see the Negro hanging
on a telephone pole.
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♪ ♪
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- I bought this in
Hopkinsville, 15 cents each.
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But not on sale openly.
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I forgot to send it until
just now I ran across it.
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I read an account
of the Night Riders' affairs
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where it says these men were
hung
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without any apparent cause
or reason whatever.
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♪ ♪
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- Say, old boy,
Why didn't you tell me
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00:13:36,549 --> 00:13:38,517
you was coming?
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00:13:38,584 --> 00:13:42,388
Sorry I didn't get a chance
to see you.
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00:13:42,454 --> 00:13:45,491
Say, look at this picture
on the other side
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and see how they do Negroes
in this county.
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00:13:49,962 --> 00:13:51,830
♪ ♪
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- This is where they lynched
a Negro the other day.
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They don't know who done it.
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00:13:58,504 --> 00:14:01,540
I guess they don't care much.
259
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I don't.
260
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Do you?
261
00:14:07,513 --> 00:14:12,418
♪ ♪
262
00:14:15,120 --> 00:14:17,990
[melancholy piano music]
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00:14:18,057 --> 00:14:25,231
♪ ♪