CJC Alum’s Documentary Reviewed by The New York Times

Jacqueline Olive, M.A.M.C. 2007, was featured in “’Always in Season’ Review: Lynching is Not Just Part of America’s Past” published in The New York Times on Sept. 19.

Olive is the creator of a documentary centering on the case of Lennon Lacy, an African American teen who was found hanging from a swing set in Bladenboro, North Carolina, on August 29, 2014. Despite inconsistencies in the case, local officials quickly ruled Lennon’s death a suicide, but his mother believes Lennon was lynched. The documentary, narrated by actor Danny Glover, tells the story of the mother’s fight for justice and how it intersects with stories from other communities.

Times reviewer Ben Kenigsberg said the film “makes a powerful case that the history of lynching in the American South is not just history – that murders still haunt the present-day sites where they occurred, and that such killings can and do happen today.”

“The most surprising narrative in ‘Always in Season’ deals with the concept of a lynching re-enactment. Since 2005, at Moore’s Ford Bridge in Walton County, Georgia, there has been an annual restaging of the murders that took place there in 1946,” said Kenigsberg. “The troupe isn’t led by white people nostalgic for a time when they could kill with impunity, although Olive initially plays on that expectation. Rather, the performances have been directed by African-Americans whose goal is to push the public to confront what happened at that location.”

“Always in Season” is also the recipient of the 2019 Sundance Film Festival U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Moral Urgency.

Posted: September 24, 2019
Category: Alumni News, College News
Tagged as: Always in Season, Jacqueline Olive, New York Times