All language subtitles for Lynching.Postcards.Token.Of.A.Great.Day.2021.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

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- A postcard is an extension
of our experience.

A postcard allows us
to continue to relive

that experience.

It also allows us to
disseminate that experience.

People use social media today

to show other people
what they are doing

in their everyday life.

"Look what I draw pleasure
from."

Lynching postcards were used
in the same way.

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- In the aftermath
of the Civil War,

African Americans
have an opportunity

for freedom and equality.

But there's a backlash
among white citizens,

particularly in the South,

with people who do not want
African Americans to enjoy

the full rights of citizenship
that other people enjoy.

♪ ♪

- You have a shifting
of the racial hierarchy.

And one way to really solidify
white over Black again

was using forms
of racial terror.

And one of the most acute
and profound and widespread

and visual forms
of racial terror

was the lynching
of Black bodies.

- Suddenly, African American
mobility and freedom

starts to look a lot more
threatening.

There's a new set of narratives
and stereotypes

that start being circulated
around Black criminality.

- But the reality is,

many of these lynchings
occurred simply because of

a deep-seated racial animus

or hatred toward
African Americans.

- If a Black person
were successful at a business.

If a Black person vote.

A crime could involve
any simple everyday act.

And that act
of simply existing

in a new white society
could be punished by death.

- Between 1880 and 1968

there is an estimated 4,000
lynchings that take place

in the United States.

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- Lynching becomes
a form of leisure

for many who engage in it.

The vast majority of people
who lynched Black bodies

were not members
of the Ku Klux Klan.

They were in fact
everyday ordinary citizens,

people who were young
and old, men, and women,

and children from all
social classes.

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- And they're often described
as festivals of violence,

where ultimately the entire
community comes together

to participate in what are
called at various times

picnics or barbecues
and often where

photographers and the media
are given privileged access

so they can capture
the violence.

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- Kodak invents the amateur
camera at the end

of the 19th century.

And with that
we start to see photography

become even more and more
a part of people's daily lives.

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Photographs of lynchings
start to appear

in a host of different forms.

- It became very profitable
for photographers

to take pictures of people
being lynched,

take pictures of the crowds,
and then sell them

on the streets.

People could purchase
the postcard as a piece

of memorabilia from the event
that they witnessed.

- Bragging rights, so to speak.

And this becomes
a big business,

where there are photographers
who make a fortune

selling these lynching
postcards.

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- The photograph extends
the life of an event.

Very simply, when we think
about photography,

we think about time.

It allowed a viewer
to relive and reexperience

that sense of power
and control

over and over
and over again.

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They functioned as a form of
ownership over Black people

even in death.

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- Black families were often
under assault,

and Black women
were often lynched as well.

- One of the only extant images
we have

of a Black woman
who was lynched

was Laura Nelson and her son
in Okemah, Oklahoma.

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- Lynching postcards
are traded widely,

sent through the mail
in the United States.

It's how people communicate
with their relatives.

Where you were in relation
to the body

often becomes a sign
of how influential

or important you were.

And people clambered to get
to the front of the mob.

One could be a celebrity
if captured

in a lynching photograph.

- One surviving postcard
is the lynching

of a man named Will Stanley.

He had been lynched by a crowd
of about 10,000

in Temple, Texas,
in July of 1915.

- And on the back
of the postcard is written,

"This is the barbecue
we had last night.

"My picture is to the left
with a cross over it.

Your son, Joe."

- That was written
by Joe Meyers,

who was a local oiler
in Bellmead.

There's a level of pride
that we see

in his association
with this lynching.

He is not shameful of it.

He does not attempt to hide
his attendance there.

- He's sharing this as if he
were sharing a postcard

of the Statue of Liberty
or the Eiffel Tower.

- It widens the community
of people who can take part

in a lynching.

It suggests that white folks
thought that this was a story

to pass on,
a story to be proud of.

- The reason those people
are unmasked

is that there's no fear
that they'll be prosecuted

for their actions.

Even though there are
photographs that capture

the number of participants,

when coroners' juries
performed their duty

by looking at the corpse
of those who were lynched,

they often came
to the conclusion

that the person had died at
the hands of persons unknown.

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This was a euphemism
for the lynch mob.

But ultimately,
what it meant was,

no one was to be punished
for these acts of terror

witnessed on
African Americans.

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It is terrorism
in its clearest expression.

And in some of the most
infamous lynchings,

including the lynching
of Jesse Washington,

it's also an example
of the complicity

of state and local government.

- Jesse Washington was a Black
teenager from Waco, Texas.

He was a laborer in 1916
when he was accused

of the bludgeoning death
of a 53-year-old white woman.

♪ ♪

Fred Gildersleeve
was a local photographer

who had arrived in Waco
about 1905.

Gildersleeve had told the
mayor that he would

give him a cut of his profits
should the mayor allow him

to set up his equipment
previous to the lynching

of Jesse Washington.

And it was reported that
the mayor was not worried

about the injustice
that was occurring

outside of his office,
but instead he was worried

that the people who were
burning Jesse Washington

would damage the oak tree.

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- As the lynching
is concluded,

the city officials,
the mayor and the sheriff

suddenly begin to recognize

that what's taken place here
needs to be kept quiet.

As they're attempting
this cover-up,

those Gildersleeve photographs
become a hot commodity.

Everybody wants an example
of what took place in Waco.

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- Burning of the Black body

had become so associated
with the way that Black people

were lynched in Texas
that other states would say

so-and-so had been lynched
Texas-style.

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- Whether it's of Will Stanley
or Jesse Washington,

the photograph doesn't tell us
anything about

what their living was like

or what their hopes
or dreams were.

What we're looking at

is actually an undifferentiated
Black death.

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- In the immediate aftermath
of the lynching

the NAACP recognizes that this
is just the type

of opportunity they'd been
seeking

to point to
the barbarity inflicted

on African Americans
in communities like Waco.

♪ ♪

W.E.B. Du Bois, a prominent
African American scholar,

is editor of their newspaper,
"The Crisis,"

and recognizes that this
will be a powerful story

if the NAACP can garner
accounts that indicate

the complicity of local
officials in the violence.

- The NAACP published
a supplement to "The Crisis"

called "The Waco Horror."

And it was disseminated
to 750 newspapers

across the country and every
single member of Congress.

The hope was that if they
could demonstrate

to audiences
across the country

and even across the world

that this was occurring
in the South,

they could somehow
shake people

out of their complacency
and push them

to join the fight
against lynching.

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- I think we actually have to
stop and ask

how difficult a choice
it must have been

to use these photographs,

to take these images,
which had been celebrations

of white supremacy,
and to transform them

into anti-lynching images

to indict white supremacy

and white society at large.

♪ ♪

- W.E.B. Du Bois
in publishing the images

from the Waco horror
was actually building

on the work of female activists
such as Ida B. Wells.

- She was the first activist

to use photography as part
of her anti-lynching campaigns.

♪ ♪

Ida B. Wells and the NAACP

and later anti-lynching
activists

would draw on photography
as part of an arsenal

of evidence to prove that
these crimes were happening,

to prove how brutal they were.

♪ ♪

- Over the last century,
about 200 anti-lynching bills

have been presented Congress.

Not one has passed.

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- It's often said that
the camera doesn't lie.

For all the ink
that's dedicated

to rehabilitating the image

of communities
where lynchings took place,

the photographs become
the final testament

for the ugly brutality
of lynching in America.

♪ ♪

- Well, John,
this is a token

of a great day we had
in Dallas.

March 3rd a Negro was hung
for an assault

on a three-year-old girl.

I saw this on my noon hour.

I was very much in the bunch.

You can see the Negro hanging
on a telephone pole.

♪ ♪

- I bought this in
Hopkinsville, 15 cents each.

But not on sale openly.

I forgot to send it until
just now I ran across it.

I read an account
of the Night Riders' affairs

where it says these men were
hung

without any apparent cause
or reason whatever.

♪ ♪

- Say, old boy,
Why didn't you tell me

you was coming?

Sorry I didn't get a chance
to see you.

Say, look at this picture
on the other side

and see how they do Negroes
in this county.

♪ ♪

- This is where they lynched
a Negro the other day.

They don't know who done it.

I guess they don't care much.

I don't.

Do you?

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