Bowling Green reacts to “By Parties Unknown”

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – At the Capitol, a documentary was shown on one Kentucky account of lynching.

News 40 set up after the documentary ran its course and asked viewers what they thought of the film. Of the people that took time to speak to us, the words “disturbing”, “sad” and “I had no idea” hung in the air. One viewer said “children are born loving, we teach them to hate.” while another said “It’s history, it may not be pretty but it happened, it’s the truth and we need to educate each other so these things don’t continue to happen.”

“By Parties Unknown” is a documentary from the PBS studio of Western Kentucky University and tells the story of Rufus Browder and other black residents of the Russellville area who were victims of white mob violence in 1908.