Lynching Postcards: 'Token of A Great Day'

This short documentary was sad but mad me angry. Things like this needs to be seen and talked about. It should not be erased because this was part of our history. I believe that we live in a time that if people don't like something they try to get rid of it. They use the law and the Supreme Court to erase it. They have tried it with slavery and they have succeeded with abortion. Using the law for things that are personal issues. This documentary was hard to take at times but the truth is a hard pill to swallow at times. I come to live with the fact that I may never know my whole history so I cherish stuff like this.

This is a rotation of 3 appointed taking heads and images, not all of which are postcards. The mixture of represented fact and opinion about the images as a style has become a norm in 'documentary' making but I find it unsatisfactory; it will however prompt me to look for objective sources of fact as to the background for some of the images and compare that to the generic and specific claims made by the talking heads. Horrific subject matter and thought provoking.

They would have you believe people hunted down blacks to kill in public spectacles. But a little research showed discrepancies with this story.

Not every victim was black. Also, how many of these were public executions of criminals and not lynchings at all? Yep, they still did those back then.

For instance: Rainey Bethea, executed August 14, 1936 at Owensboro, Kentucky, was the last public execution in America. He was publicly hanged for rape on August 14, 1936 in a parking lot in Owensboro, Kentucky (to avoid damage to the courthouse lawn by thousands of people who were expected to attend).

But this "documentary" would have you believe it was all about racism. Lynching was a bad thing. I do believe some were lynched. It shouldn't have happened, and I'm glad it was stopped. Death sentences are for courts to decide, not angry mobs. Racism is also bad, but constantly picking at the scab is only going to make it fester.

That's exactly what this drama does, it picks out only what it thinks can be used to promote a story of racism. No real context provided for the photos, just a narration about lynchings being all about racism against blacks. Smh.

I disagree with 2 of the other reviews. The photographs/postcards speak for themselves. I have seen some of them before. This film gives some context to the postcards, as well as shining a light on a part of our history that many would prefer to leave in the dark.

Brief but powerful. The postcards, as well as the Gildersleeve photos and other images, make clear that white people of the time felt justified, if not jubilant, in the lynching of black people.