Thoughts on lynching

After watching the movie, I felt almost clueless.  I still don't understand why people would do this and what purpose could every justify doing something like this.  I had a hard time concentrating on James Allen's words because of the photos.  Lynching was definitely not explained as part of my education.  I had heard the term and I knew it had a bad connotation, but didn't fully know what it meant.  From the movie, I learned that lynching was much more common and public than I had realized.