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- American Bloodlines P116
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Episode P116 | Length: 42'
Writer: Sonya Lea
Host/Producer: Carole Harmon
From September 01, 2025, to September 21, 2025
Writer: Sonya Lea
Host/Producer: Carole Harmon
From September 01, 2025, to September 21, 2025
Sonya Lea
American Bloodlines
American Bloodlines, Reckoning with Lynch Culture combines memoir with reportage and cultural criticism to interrogate and complicate the traditional narrative about how lynch culture is created in families, communities and institutions.
Summer 1936, Owensboro Kentucky.
In just four and a half minutes, an all white, all male jury convicts Rainey Bethea, a young Black man, of the rape and murder of an elderly white woman.
Bethea is hanged near the banks of the Ohio River in the last documented public execution in America.
Bethea's story comes to author Sonya Lea, who was born in Owensboro, through her family. She reckons with its truths and the broader implications of systemic racism, not just in the past, but in today's culture, politics and justice systems.
Summer 1936, Owensboro Kentucky.
In just four and a half minutes, an all white, all male jury convicts Rainey Bethea, a young Black man, of the rape and murder of an elderly white woman.
Bethea is hanged near the banks of the Ohio River in the last documented public execution in America.
Bethea's story comes to author Sonya Lea, who was born in Owensboro, through her family. She reckons with its truths and the broader implications of systemic racism, not just in the past, but in today's culture, politics and justice systems.