This documentary may help us understand the flare up of racial tensions in the United States.
Winfred Rembert is a master leather-work artist working on creating 50 leather worked pieces wherein he is trying to explain his life. He worked in the cotton fields until he ran away at 14 from his rural hometown in Georgia as he says you get to know something is wrong about picking cotton all day.
He has spent time in jail a victim a racial discrimination including being held in jail for a year without any charges being laid. Rembert says that being involved in the civil rights movement at 14 meant that white people would be coming after you and they did hanging him up in a tree with a noose around his neck until one the whites in the mob said cut him down as “We got better things to do with niggers”. Can you imagine the horror and psychological damage caused! And indeed Rembert has PTSD and has a terrible time sleeping.
His physician and fellow artist Dr. Shirley Jackson and symbolically holds a funeral for the 4,000 victims of lynching in the United States many whose bodies were never recovered. Dr. Jackson felt that these victims needed to hear the words “Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.” To give them peace and dignity was important for Dr. Jackson. A sombre funeral service may leave the viewer outraged or very sad or possibly both. Given the escalation of racial violence in the United States this is a must-see documentary which you can watch by clicking below. This is about American history and lynching is a terribly ugly part of it.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-documentary/life-after-lynching-in-ashes-to-ashes
https://vimeo.com/channels/staffpicks/438017944ASHES TO ASHES, DR. SHIRLEY JACKSON, LYNCHING, RACISM IN AMERICA, ROBERT K. STEPHEN, WINFRED REMBERTEDIT
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