We Are All Little Rock
Websitehttp://www.videodialog.com/
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Working with the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, Video Dialog Inc. is producing a new documentary film and educational toolkit entitled We Are All Little Rock, exploring the echoes of 1957 and the emergence of a new multi-racial America. The film will be offered for PBS broadcast and distributed with a web-based new teaching guide to schools. Investments in the project will be tax-exempt gifts through our 501(c)3 fiscal sponsor, the Southern Documentary Fund.
Over fifty years ago, the "Crisis at Central High" marked the beginnings of the modern Civil Rights movement. Today, the city of Little Rock – and America – have made much progress but continue to wrestle with the dilemma of race. The creeping re-segregation of schools, neighborhoods and minds continues to entrap not just blacks and whites but newcomers in many hues. The prospects for healing and reconciliation in Little Rock – and America -- will remain dim without a genuine dialogue between past and present that can help stimulate discussion of how societies must work to secure the full benefits of citizenship for all its people. Our film and companion educational resources aims to encourage this dialogue.
The Producers
With a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Producer/Director Dr. Steven Channing brings a distinguished career as historian, teacher, writer and filmmaker to the challenge of creating a fresh look at this classic American story. His regional Emmy award for Alamance recognized the courage of farmer-rebels on the eve of the American Revolution, and the PBS broadcast February One, The Story of the Greensboro Four, highlighted the 1960 Woolworth lunch counter sit-ins. His film on of race and class in Durham: A Self-Portrait helped spark discussion of a city in transition. Dr. Channing also recently produced Change Comes Knocking: The War on Poverty, and Down Home: Jewish Life in North Carolina. He's also proud of his work in Arkansas, including the award-winning Sesquicentennial Minutes for AETN and the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation's 25th Anniversary video.
Script writer John Egerton was a staff writer for two Nashville-based magazines, Southern Education Report and Race Relations Reporter, before beginning a long career as an independent journalist, editor, writer and self-proclaimed "professional South-watcher." He was a contributing editor for Saturday Review of Education and Southern Voices, wrote for Atlanta's Southern Regional Council, and served as writer-in-residence at Virginia Tech and the University of Texas. Among his many books is Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South, which won the 1995 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award.
Contact: Dr. Steven Channing, Video Dialog Inc., 2725 Sevier St., Durham, NC 27701 (schanning@videodialog.com) 919-493-8332; and Dr. David Stricklin, The Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, (501) 320-5710; dstricklin@cals.org