Documentary Film: Always in Season

Date: 03/12/2020
Time: 6:00 pm-7:30 pm

The documentary film Always in Season will be shown at the Norfolk Library on Thursday, March 12, at 6:00 p.m. Combining observational footage with first-person testimonies and expert insights, the film is the first feature documentary to spotlight recent grassroots efforts to acknowledge the victims of lynching, repair the damage, and reconcile. Narrated by Danny Glover, the film explores the lingering impact of the lynchings of African Americans from over a century and connects this form of historic racial terrorism to racial violence today. The film premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and was awarded the Special Jury Prize for Moral Urgency. A moderated discussion will follow the screening. Suggested for ages 16 and up.

Surrounded by the trailer homes of a predominantly white neighborhood in Bladenboro, North Carolina, Lennon Lacy was found hanging from a swing set on August 29, 2014. Questions about the scene, including the fact that Lennon was wearing someone else’s shoes, convinced his family and others that, rather than committing suicide, the 17-year-old was lynched. The film puts his mother, Claudia Lacy’s pursuit for justice into a wider historical context, inspiring a powerful discussion about lynching, across racial lines.

As the story unfolds, Lennon’s case, and the suspicions surrounding it, intersect with stories of other communities seeking justice and reconciliation. A few hundred miles away in Monroe, Georgia, a diverse group of reenactors, including the adult daughter of a former Ku Klux Klan leader, annually dramatize a 1946 quadruple lynching to ensure the victims are never forgotten and encourage the community to come forward with information that might bring the perpetrators to justice. As the terrorism of the past bleeds into the present, the film asks: what will it take for Americans to begin building a national movement for racial justice and reconciliation?

Watch the trailer here.

 

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