Beginning in 2013, 30 diverse community members, ages 15-65, came together during a 16-week period to engage in Durham’s Civil Rights History through a series of lectures, music performances, research and design workshops. The group then gathered what they discovered into a collaborative mural design. In 2014/2015 these same folks, with the help of the greater community, will paint this 2400 square foot mural in downtown Durham, under the direction of muralist Brenda Miller Holmes. Arising from this process is a multimedia, multi platform educational outreach project directed by award-winning documentary filmmaker Rodrigo Dorfman. The stories documented will be personal and thematic, reflecting a painful past and addressing present issues of race and class in a city that is a state of transition and gentrification. These stories will emerge from the design of the mural and the final “story” will go beyond the mural itself into the lives of the characters who participate in this creative process. The documentary material will also be the cornerstone of our educational outreach materials we intend to create to help bring this story and process to other communities in the South.
Project Director | Brenda Miller Holmes
