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♪ ♪
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Official YIFY movies site:
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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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00:00:25,258 --> 00:00:26,993
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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00:06:02,028 --> 00:06:04,230
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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00:06:47,940 --> 00:06:50,343
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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00:08:04,817 --> 00:08:06,452
about the injustice
that was occurring
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00:08:06,519 --> 00:08:08,855
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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00:09:10,182 --> 00:09:12,818
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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00:09:18,591 --> 00:09:22,328
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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00:09:36,042 --> 00:09:37,944
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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00:09:45,184 --> 00:09:48,220
W.E.B. Du Bois, a prominent
African American scholar,
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00:09:48,287 --> 00:09:51,424
is editor of their newspaper,
"The Crisis,"
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00:09:51,490 --> 00:09:54,393
and recognizes that this
will be a powerful story
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00:09:54,460 --> 00:09:59,231
if the NAACP can garner
accounts that indicate
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00:09:59,298 --> 00:10:02,501
the complicity of local
officials in the violence.
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00:10:02,568 --> 00:10:05,871
- The NAACP published
a supplement to "The Crisis"
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00:10:05,938 --> 00:10:07,907
called "The Waco Horror."
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00:10:07,974 --> 00:10:10,576
And it was disseminated
to 750 newspapers
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00:10:10,643 --> 00:10:15,014
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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00:10:17,116 --> 00:10:18,150
to audiences
across the country
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00:10:18,217 --> 00:10:20,353
and even across the world
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00:10:20,419 --> 00:10:22,955
that this was occurring
in the South,
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00:10:23,022 --> 00:10:24,390
they could somehow
shake people
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00:10:24,457 --> 00:10:27,026
out of their complacency
and push them
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00:10:27,093 --> 00:10:28,928
to join the fight
against lynching.
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00:10:29,895 --> 00:10:32,865
♪ ♪
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00:10:32,932 --> 00:10:35,768
- I think we actually have to
stop and ask
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00:10:35,835 --> 00:10:40,573
how difficult a choice
it must have been
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00:10:40,639 --> 00:10:43,376
to use these photographs,
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to take these images,
which had been celebrations
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00:10:49,081 --> 00:10:51,851
of white supremacy,
and to transform them
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00:10:51,917 --> 00:10:54,053
into anti-lynching images
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00:10:54,120 --> 00:10:57,223
to indict white supremacy
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00:10:57,289 --> 00:11:01,660
and white society at large.
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00:11:01,727 --> 00:11:08,667
♪ ♪
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00:11:19,845 --> 00:11:22,415
- W.E.B. Du Bois
in publishing the images
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00:11:22,481 --> 00:11:24,683
from the Waco horror
was actually building
213
00:11:24,750 --> 00:11:29,622
on the work of female activists
such as Ida B. Wells.
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00:11:29,688 --> 00:11:32,658
- She was the first activist
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00:11:32,725 --> 00:11:37,229
to use photography as part
of her anti-lynching campaigns.
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00:11:37,296 --> 00:11:38,697
♪ ♪
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00:11:38,764 --> 00:11:42,334
Ida B. Wells and the NAACP
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00:11:42,401 --> 00:11:44,270
and later anti-lynching
activists
219
00:11:44,336 --> 00:11:47,907
would draw on photography
as part of an arsenal
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00:11:47,973 --> 00:11:53,212
of evidence to prove that
these crimes were happening,
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00:11:53,279 --> 00:11:58,717
to prove how brutal they were.
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00:11:58,784 --> 00:12:05,724
♪ ♪
223
00:12:09,261 --> 00:12:12,064
- Over the last century,
about 200 anti-lynching bills
224
00:12:12,131 --> 00:12:13,999
have been presented Congress.
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00:12:14,066 --> 00:12:17,336
Not one has passed.
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00:12:17,403 --> 00:12:21,240
♪ ♪
227
00:12:21,307 --> 00:12:25,711
- It's often said that
the camera doesn't lie.
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00:12:25,778 --> 00:12:27,813
For all the ink
that's dedicated
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00:12:27,880 --> 00:12:29,582
to rehabilitating the image
230
00:12:29,648 --> 00:12:33,652
of communities
where lynchings took place,
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00:12:33,719 --> 00:12:36,455
the photographs become
the final testament
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00:12:36,522 --> 00:12:40,626
for the ugly brutality
of lynching in America.
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00:12:40,693 --> 00:12:45,297
♪ ♪
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00:12:45,364 --> 00:12:48,100
- Well, John,
this is a token
235
00:12:48,167 --> 00:12:50,202
of a great day we had
in Dallas.
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00:12:50,269 --> 00:12:53,939
March 3rd a Negro was hung
for an assault
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00:12:54,006 --> 00:12:56,976
on a three-year-old girl.
238
00:12:57,042 --> 00:12:59,378
I saw this on my noon hour.
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00:12:59,445 --> 00:13:03,616
I was very much in the bunch.
240
00:13:03,682 --> 00:13:07,520
You can see the Negro hanging
on a telephone pole.
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00:13:07,586 --> 00:13:10,823
♪ ♪
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00:13:10,890 --> 00:13:14,994
- I bought this in
Hopkinsville, 15 cents each.
243
00:13:15,060 --> 00:13:18,330
But not on sale openly.
244
00:13:18,397 --> 00:13:22,701
I forgot to send it until
just now I ran across it.
245
00:13:22,768 --> 00:13:25,070
I read an account
of the Night Riders' affairs
246
00:13:25,137 --> 00:13:27,106
where it says these men were
hung
247
00:13:27,173 --> 00:13:30,543
without any apparent cause
or reason whatever.
248
00:13:30,609 --> 00:13:34,180
♪ ♪
249
00:13:34,246 --> 00:13:36,482
- Say, old boy,
Why didn't you tell me
250
00:13:36,549 --> 00:13:38,517
you was coming?
251
00:13:38,584 --> 00:13:42,388
Sorry I didn't get a chance
to see you.
252
00:13:42,454 --> 00:13:45,491
Say, look at this picture
on the other side
253
00:13:45,558 --> 00:13:49,895
and see how they do Negroes
in this county.
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00:13:49,962 --> 00:13:51,830
♪ ♪
255
00:13:51,897 --> 00:13:55,401
- This is where they lynched
a Negro the other day.
256
00:13:55,467 --> 00:13:58,437
They don't know who done it.
257
00:13:58,504 --> 00:14:01,540
I guess they don't care much.
258
00:14:01,607 --> 00:14:03,375
I don't.
259
00:14:03,442 --> 00:14:07,446
Do you?
260
00:14:07,513 --> 00:14:12,418
♪ ♪
261
00:14:18,057 --> 00:14:25,231
♪ ♪