Two Short Documentaries Focus on Civil Rights

Beyond Boundaries: Dare to be Diverse Documentary Screening & Discussion Series, part of Ideas Prime presents:

The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement, 2012, USA Directors: Gail Dolgin, Robin Fryday 25 minutes

Far From Home, 2005, USA Director: Rachel Tsutsumi 40 minutes

Panel & Discussion will follow the films

the Films: 

The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement

In this Oscar-nominated short film, 85 year old Alabama barber and civil rights veteran James Armstrong experiences the fulfillment of an unimaginable dream: the election of the first African-American president. Mr. Armstrong links the magnitude of the present paradigm shift with challenges he faced in the past: from his sons’ integration into an all white school to the Bloody Sunday march for voting rights. Produced in association with American Documentary/P.O.V. Gail Dolgin was previously nominated for an Academy Award for the Sundance Grand Jury Prize winning documentary Daughter from Danang in 2002.

Far From Home

While busing may be a rapidly fading memory in most American schools, it continues to be a reality for more than 3,000 Boston students every year. Kandice, an insightful, precocious African American teenager participates in METCO, a voluntary Boston school integration program. Since kindergarten, she has risen before dawn each day to be bused to Weston, an affluent, predominantly white suburb. She serves as the first black class president, plays the college admissions game, and lives up to her family’s tradition of activism. Kandice’s grandfather, a civil rights activist murdered in 1968, helped found the busing program and her mother was among the first black students bused to the suburbs in the late 1960s. Through cinema verite and interviews, the film weaves together Kandice’s current school life with a family history that has been profoundly shaped by racially integrated educational experiences.

Beyond Boundaries: Dare to be Diverse is part of Ideas Prime at the Burchfield Penney and is co-Sponsored by:
the Burchfield Penney Art Center;
Buffalo State Office of Equity & Campus Diversity;
Buffalo State Department of Communication

To view the trailer for Barber of Birmingham, please visit:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vgA0qLy2YY

FREE and Open to the Public

Ideas Prime is a series of screenings, lectures and conversations which create a forum for an exchange of ideas designed to understand how local, global and cultural  issues are interrelated. This screening is free.