P116 American Bloodlines
From Writers Radio by The Writers Radio Contributors
September 2, 2025 · 42 min · Season 5 · Episode 116
About this episode
The episode explores the complexities of lynch culture through a historical lens, focusing on the case of Rainey Bethea in 1936.
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 las...
Topics covered
- lynch culture
- memoir
- reportage
- cultural criticism
- racial injustice
- historical narrative
Keywords
- lynching
- Rainey Bethea
- Owensboro
- cultural criticism
- racial violence
- historical narrative
- memoir
Mentioned in this episode
Places: Owensboro Kentucky
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