“Don’t be calm, be concerned,” rages Reverend William J. Barber II at a rally, voicing the feelings of a community and a grieving mother. Teenager Lennon Lacy was found hanging from a swing set in Bladenboro, North Carolina, in 2014. The circumstances of his death echo the long horror of lynching in America, especially in the South, and intersect with the stories of two other communities seeking justice and reconciliation. In Monroe, Georgia, a diverse group of reenactors promotes healing by annually performing the 1946 quadruple lynching of two African American couples. Through narrated invitations to public lynchings that play over gruesome archival images, the film additionally explores the 1934 murder of Claude Neal and others. These historical accounts construct the backbone of Always in Season’s vital examination of Lennon’s recent death. A call for justice by his family members leads to a federal investigation. The legacy of racial hatred and the practices of the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina and Georgia are delineated as the film traces the night of Lennon’s death, how we remember him and the past, and how we must remain vigilant.  DS

Filmmaker Q&A following screening