EPISODE · Jul 2, 2026 · 1H
Episode #67: Bootjack and Red
from Investigation: Homicide · host investigationhomicide
Some stories don't start in a courtroom or a case file. They start at a kitchen table, in a grandmother's voice, in a story carried quietly across generations because the truth was too heavy and too dangerous to say out loud. In 1937, Roosevelt "Red" Townes and Robert "Bootjack" McDaniels were lynched in Duck Hill, Mississippi. It became one of the most photographed lynchings in American history. For decades, the weight of that story lived in the memory of one family, including a little girl named Jimmie Lee, who would one day pass it on to her granddaughter. That granddaughter is filmmaker Talamieka Brice, and what began as a whispered family story has grown into a documentary, a public memory initiative, and a community movement asking one of the hardest questions we can ask: how do we tell the truth about the past while still making room for healing? Tonight Therese Apel and Sara Perkins sit down with Talamieka to talk about the case that has lived inside her since childhood, the grandmother who first handed her this story, and the work she's now doing to bring transparency, remembrance, and justice to the memories of Bootjack and Red. This is Investigation: Homicide. Produced by Daniel Anderson at Audio Alchemy Productions.
What this episode covers
Some stories don't start in a courtroom or a case file. They start at a kitchen table, in a grandmother's voice, in a story carried quietly across generations because the truth was too heavy and too dangerous to say out loud. In 1937, Roosevelt "Red" Townes and Robert "Bootjack" McDaniels were lynched in Duck Hill, Mississippi. It became one of the most photographed lynchings in American history. For decades, the weight of that story lived in the memory of one family, including a little girl named Jimmie Lee, who would one day pass it on to her granddaughter. That granddaughter is filmmaker Talamieka Brice, and what began as a whispered family story has grown into a documentary, a public memory initiative, and a community movement asking one of the hardest questions we can ask: how do we tell the truth about the past while still making room for healing? Tonight Therese Apel and Sara Perkins sit down with Talamieka to talk about the case that has lived inside her since childhood, the grandmother who first handed her this story, and the work she's now doing to bring transparency, remembrance, and justice to the memories of Bootjack and Red. This is Investigation: Homicide. Produced by Daniel Anderson at Audio Alchemy Productions.
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Episode #67: Bootjack and Red
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