The Barber of Birmingham

“Dying isn’t the worst thing a man can do. The worst thing a man can do is nothing.” –James Armstrong

The Barber of Birmingham has been nomination for an Academy Award in the category of  Best Documentary Short Film. This documentary is a portrait of James Armstrong, barber and foot soldier in the civil rights movement. Armstrong owned and operated Armstrong Barbershop in downtown Birmingham, Alabama for over 50 years. From this vantage point, he met many of the leaders of the movement in Birmingham, including Martin Luther King, Jr. who was a client.

Armstrong was active in the civil rights movement from the beginning. He filed a lawsuit in August 1957 which led to the desegregation of Graymont Elementary in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. His sons, Dwight and Floyd, became the first African-American children to attend that school. During the violent confrontation on “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, Alabama, Armstrong was on the front lines as a flag bearer, and continues to be the flag bearer during the annual commemoration of that march. He also participated in protests to integrate the Greyhound Bus waiting room and stores in downtown Birmingham. The second of these protests resulted in jail time for Armstrong. Over the years, Armstrong continued to cut hair, run his shop, and provide customers and visitors with a history lesson and inspiration at the same time.

The Film and Media Archive assisted the filmmakers with research and provided clips from a documentary about voting rights, Streets of Greenwood, by Jack Willis. Armstrong was also interviewed for Henry Hampton’s ground-breaking series, Eyes on the Prize. The full interview can be read here. When Hampton set out to make Eyes on the Prize, he wanted to interview people like Armstrong, activists who were not famous or well-known, but who were instrumental and vital to the success of the civil rights movement.

View the trailer here:

And learn more about the film from the official website or facebook page.

Talk by Documentary Filmmaker Jon Else

Opening title from "Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years"

Talk by Documentary Filmmaker Jon Else
November 18, 2011 – 12 p.m.
Olin Library – Room 142

The Washington University Film & Media Archive is pleased to welcome producer and documentary filmmaker Jon Else to campus this month. Else is visiting the Archive to conduct research for his forthcoming book about the Eyes on the Prize series and its creator Henry Hampton.

On Friday, Nov. 18, at 12 p.m. in Olin 142, Else will discuss his research and share his experiences working as producer and cinematographer for the Eyes series—arguably the most influential documentary series of its time.

Else has produced and directed numerous documentary films including The Day After Trinity: J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb, Yosemite: The Fate of Heaven, A Job at Ford’s part of Henry Hampton’s series The Great Depression, Cadillac Desert: Water and the Transformation of Nature, Sing Faster: The Stagehands’ Ring Cycle, and Open Outcry. He has also served as cinematographer on documentaries for PBS, BBC, ABC, MTV, and HBO.

Else has received a MacArthur Fellowship as well as several Academy Award nominations.  His numerous awards include four Emmys, several Alfred I. DuPont and Peabody awards, the Prix Italia, the Sundance Special Jury Prize, and the Sundance Filmmaker’s Trophy. In addition to writing and filmmaking, Else teaches at the Graduate School of Journalism at UC – Berkeley.

The Nov. 18 brown bag lunch presentation will take place in Olin 142 and is free and open to faculty, students, staff, and the public. For more information and to RSVP (preferred), contact Film and Media Archive at wufilmarchives@wumail.wustl.edu or 314-935-8679.

“The Pruitt-Igoe Myth” Screening at Washington University

Image from "The Pruitt-Igoe Myth"

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth
November 12, 2011 – 3:00 pm
Washington University – Brown Hall

Washington University Libraries Film & Media Archive is sponsoring a screening of The Pruitt-Igoe Myth as part of the St. Louis International Film Festival. The Film & Media Archive previously co-sponsored a well-attended screening on September 15, 2011.

The screening will be on Sat. Nov. 12, 3:00 p.m. at Washington University’s Brown Hall. With director Chad Freidrichs and several of the film’s subjects. Please join us for a free screening of this thought-provoking documentary.

For more information, contact the Film & Media Archive. For reviews and background information on the film see the filmmaker’s website.

Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, Civil Rights Leader from Alabama, Dies at 89

Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth in "Eyes on the Prize"

Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, a major figure in the Civil Rights movement, and a key interviewee in Henry Hampton’s series Eyes on the Prize, died on October 5 at age 89. Shuttlesworth was instrumental in the Birmingham Crusade protest which riveted the nation in 1963.

The full transcript of Blackside’s interview with Rev. Shuttlesworth is available online, along with all interviews conducted for Eyes on the Prize I and II.

Rev. Shuttlesworth had been fighting segregation and racism in Birmingham, Alabama for many years before 1963. He was a member of the Alabama chapter of the N.A.A.C.P and a co-founder of The  Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) along with Martin Luther King, Jr.

In Shuttlesworth’s interview with Blackside, he vividly describes the times, his experiences, and the reader has a visceral sense of what it must have been like to live through those experiences. He was the target of violence and intimidation more than once, and he describes the charged climate in Birmingham at that time in his interview.

And of course you must remember that there were bombings…over 35 or 40 bombings in Birmingham, Alabama. We thought about changing the name to “Bombingham” instead of that. We always said that Birmingham’s heart was hard and black like the coal is mined, hard as the ore and the steel is made, it’s a magic city, but it was a tragic city…yet, we lived it and we survived under that. There had to be a change.

Rev. Shuttlesworth came to national attention with a protest in Birmingham he called, Project-C. C stood for “confrontation,” and reflected a call to action as opposed to conciliation. After an unsuccessful protest in Albany, GA, SCLC decided to try to desegregate the downtown shopping district. Shuttlesworth described the decision-making process in his interview,

SCLC needed something and I said, Birmingham is where it’s at, Gentlemen. You all must come to Birmingham and let’s do this, coming out of Albany, which was what many people considered not a victory. They needed a victory. Dr. King’s image at this time was slightly on the wane because he had not projected…we had threatened in literature to fill the jails. We did it in Birmingham…and we invited Dr. King in Birmingham to confront segregation. Massively nonviolent, with our bodies and our souls.

The campaign began as a series of marches and sit-ins which resulted in mass arrests. The goal was to continue to fill the jails and draw attention to their cause. As the campaign ran out of adult protesters, Shuttlesworth turned to younger Civil Rights activists including very young people in high school. Tensions escalated and the official response of the City of Birmingham, driven by Eugene “Bull” Connor was brutal.

Connor’s method of dealing with the protesters was to turn fire hoses and attack dogs on the protesters. These violent and turbulent images were recorded and broadcast by the media and had a national and global impact. Much of this footage was gathered by Hampton and included in Eyes on the Prize. Despite pressure to end the marches and protests, Shuttlesworth continued the campaign. The images of violence and brutality inflicted on young people via Bull Connor’s orders had a profound effect on the nation’s conscience, and galvanized the movement as Shuttlesworth had predicted. These events helped focus the nation’s attention the issue of segregation and led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Shuttlesworth’s bravery and determination stand out in his interview. After surviving a bombing at his house in 1956, he described the experience,

It blew the floor out from under my bed…The springs that I was lying on we never found them. There I was lying on the mattress. I knew the relevance of Moses’ statement when he said, “Underneath the everlasting arm.” The roof came down…This is a strange thing, I knew that the bomb was meant for me. I knew what it was, and instantaneously, at the same time I had a sense of presence that I wouldn’t get hurt. I knew that. You can know something you never read. And I might say to you at that moment all fear was taken from me. I never feared anything since that time…I lived and walked out of that movement, I walked out from this instead of running away from the blast, running away from the Klan, I said to the Klansman police that came, he said, “Reverend, if I were you, I’d get out of town as fast I could.” I said, “Officer, you are not me, you go back and tell your Klan brethren that if God could keep me through this, then I’m here for the duration.” I think that’s what gave people the feeling that I wouldn’t run, I didn’t run, and that God had to be there. I think that’s what helped build the Birmingham movement.

For more information on this interview, or any other that appeared in Eyes on the Prize, please contact the Film and Media Archive.

Home Movie Day, October 15, 2011

Come join us for Home Movie Day!

October 15, 2011

Noon – 3 p.m.

West Campus Conference Center

7425 Forsyth Blvd., Clayton, MO

Washington University Film & Media Archive hosts the annual Home Movie Day, an international event that invites the public to share their Regular 8mm, Super 8mm, 16mm, VHS and DVD home movies. In addition to screening home movies, the event provides an opportunity to learn how to care for home movies.

Contact the Film & Media Archive (wufilmarchives@wumail.wustl.edu or 314-935-8679) for information about including your home movies in the program.

Brian Palmer – Improvisation as Strategy: Scenes from an Iraq Embed: An Exhibit

Photo by Brian Palmer

Washington University Libraries presents a special joint exhibit featuring the photography and words of independent journalist, Brian Palmer, “Brian Palmer – Improvisation as Strategy: Scenes from an Iraq Embed,” and a special exhibit from the Libraries’ Department of Special Collections, “Documenting War.” The exhibits will be featured in the Grand Staircase Lobby in Olin Library and in the Ginkgo Reading Room, and they will run through the end of October.

The exhibit features Brian Palmer’s photography and contains journal excerpts from his time as an embedded journalist during the Iraq War. These photographs give the viewer a visceral sense of what it was like to be a marine in Iraq from 2004-2006, and Palmer’s journal entries give us insight into the everyday life of a journalist in an extreme situation. Palmer also captures many portraits of Iraqi civilians and shows the human interactions between two colliding cultures. This exhibit is a companion to the documentary film, “Full Disclosure” which will be screened on October 12, 2011, 7 p.m – Wilson Hall 214.

“Documenting War” is an exhibit of war-related materials co-curated by the Film and Media Archive, University Archives, Rare Books, and the Modern Graphic History Library.

This material from the departments of Special Collections, highlights the experiences and impact of war on soldiers, artists, and journalists. The Film and Media Archive’s contributions come from the Insignia Collection and the William Miles Collection. The Insignia Collection features materials from the series “Reporting America At War,” which covered journalists’ experiences and conflicts in documenting the trauma of war. Other items from the Modern Graphic History Library show artistic interpretation of experiences in war, including work by artist, Robert Weaver. Rare Books contributed artists’ books that have war as their subject and, University Archives contributed materials from the Dan Bartlett Collection, including actual artifacts from World War I.

For more information, contact the Libraries’ Film & Media Archive at 314-935-8679.

Full Disclosure: A Documentary Film By Brian Palmer

Photo by Brian Palmer

Full Disclosure

October 12, 2011

7 p.m. – Wilson Hall, 214

The Center for the Humanities and University Libraries will host independent journalist and filmmaker Brian Palmer for a presentation of his documentary film, Full Disclosure, at 7 p.m. on Oct. 12 (Wilson 214) . The event is free and open to the public, with a reception in Olin Library’s Ginkgo Reading Room immediately following the screening.

In conjunction with the screening, an exhibition of Palmer’s photography and journal excerpts, “The Ethics and Aesthetics of Embedding,” will be featured in the Grand Staircase Lobby in Olin Library.

Also on display will be an exhibit of war-related materials from the Libraries’ Department of Special Collections in a special exhibit,” Documenting War.” This exhibit is co-curated by the Film and Media Archive, University Archives, Rare Books, and the Modern Graphic History Library, and will run till the end of October.

Full Disclosure, shot by Palmer during his time as an embedded journalist with a U.S. Marine combat unit in Iraq, concentrates on the daily activities of the American troops and the effects on the troops themselves as well as Iraqi civilians. Palmer made his first trip to Iraq as journalist and photographer in 2004. Armed only with a pen and a camera, he felt that his essays and photographs did not sufficiently capture the experience. So when he returned in 2005 and 2006, he brought a video camera.

“I tried to probe deeper into the stories of the Marines and the Iraqi men and women I met,” Palmer says. The film also explores the filmmaker’s conflicting role as an impartial journalist sometimes mistaken for a Marine.

“My presence affected everyone’s behavior. Although I didn’t carry a gun, I looked intimidating in my black helmet, desert camouflage bulletproof vest, and combat boots,” he says. “Small children cried and ran away if I came too close.”

Palmer has written for Mother Jones, The Huffington Post, Pixel Press.org, and ColorLines, among others, and produced video projects for various outlets including PBS and MTV. He is a Fellow at NYU’s Center on Law and Security and the recipient of a Nation Institute grant for reporting in Bangladesh in 2010. Palmer received a Ford Foundation Knowledge, Creativity, and Freedom grant in 2008 to complete Full Disclosure. He is an instructor at The School of Visual Arts in New York City and an adjunct instructor at Baruch College, City University of New York.

For more information, contact the Libraries’ Film & Media Archive at 314-935-6154.

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The Pruitt-Igoe Myth

Valerie Sills, interviewee and former resident of Pruitt-Igoe. Photo by Evie Hemphill.

Washington University’s Film and Media Archive and the George Warren Brown School of Social Work co-sponsored a screening of the award-winning documentary The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, followed by a panel discussion, on September 15, 2011. Screenings of the film have been very popular and over 600 people attended the event.

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, directed by Chad Freidrichs, takes a new look at the Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex. The Film and Media Archive and University Archives provided archival assistance to the filmmakers.

A synopsis of the film from the filmmaker’s website:

“It began as a housing marvel. Two decades later, it ended in rubble. But what happened to those caught in between?”The Pruitt-Igoe Myth explores the social, economic and legislative issues that led to the decline of conventional public housing in America, and the city centers in which they resided, while tracing the personal and poignant narratives of several of the residents of the notorious Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex in St. Louis.”

This film looks at the hopeful beginnings of Pruitt-Igoe, follows the history through to the implosion of the buildings, and then revisits the site today showing an overgrown area of urban wilderness. The interviewees, including several former residents of Pruitt-Igoe, recount their stories giving a vivid picture of what it was like to live in the housing complex. The film also expands beyond Pruitt-Igoe to show the transformation of urban American after World War II.

For more photos from this event, please see our Facebook page.

Before the screening of "The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, Washington University, Graham Chapel. Photo by Evie Hemphill.

Panel discussion after the screening of "The Pruitt-Igoe Myth." From left to right: Edward F. Lawlor, Dean of Social Work. Valerie Sills, interviewee and former resident of Pruitt-Igoe. Bob Hansman, Associate Professor, Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts. Michael Willis, Founder and President, Michael Willis Architects. Jack Kirkland, Associate Professor, Brown School. Photo by Alison Carrick.

James E. McLeod

We were greatly saddened to hear about the passing of Vice Chancellor for Students and Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, James E. McLeod. Dean McLeod was a great supporter of the Film and Media Archive and was instrumental in helping the Henry Hampton Collection find a home at Washington University. James McLeod was a friend of Henry Hampton’s and deeply aware of the historical importance of the collection. He was on the board of the Film and Media Archive and his generosity and insight will be greatly missed. The contributions he made to the University and the Film Archive will continue to be felt for years to come.

In an article published in The Record, Chancellor Wrighton is quoted as saying,

“Washington University has lost one of its greatest citizens and leaders.”

“No single individual has had a greater impact on the vitality and the quality of student life at this university,” Wrighton says. “Jim was truly a man of wisdom, compassion and steadfast loyalty to the university. He enjoyed deep and lasting respect from all who were fortunate to interact with him.”

James McLeod is survived by his wife of 44 years, Clara the departmental librarian for the Ronald Rettner Earth & Planetary Sciences Library of Washington University Libraries; a daughter, Sara, of Atlanta; his father, the Rev. James C. McLeod of Dothan; a brother, Jeff McLeod of Birmingham; and two sisters, Alice Head and Mary Parker, both of Dothan. He was preceded in death by his mother, Earline McLeod.

There will also be a memorial event to honor McLeod’s life and service at 1:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 9, in the Athletic Complex Field House.

Hands On The Freedom Plow

Image from The University of Illinois Press

A new book, Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC, covers the vital but often overlooked role of women in the civil rights movement. Co-edited by Judy Richardson, former Blackside producer and current senior producer at Northern Lights Productions, this book gives voice to fifty-two women who were part of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and on the front lines of the sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, and voter registration efforts to name just a few campaigns.

The book gives us first-hand accounts of the women who were engaged in many of the pivotal events of the civil rights movement, and also addresses the role of women not only in society but within the movement as well. The book gives the reader a “behind-the-scenes” look at a vibrant organization and revisits the debates that occurred within an organization that was as varied as the individuals doing the front line work of organizing and fighting against an apartheid system in the South. The topics of self-defense and nonviolence, the role of white people in SNCC, and the role of women, are all revisited and discussed through the eyes of women who were active in the movement.

As the editors write in the introduction,

“Though the voices are different, they all tell the same story–of women bursting out of constraints, leaving school, leaving their hometowns, meeting new people, talking into the night, laughing, going to jail, being afraid, teaching in Freedom Schools, working in the field, dancing at the Elks Hall, working the WATS line to relay horror story after horror story, telling the press, telling the story, telling the word. And making a difference in this world.”

Many of the women interviewed for this book were also interviewed by Blackside for Eyes on the Prize. Judy Richardson, a producer on that series, brought a unique perspective to the production, both as a woman and as someone who had been active in the movement. Henry Hampton, and the producers of Eyes on the Prize, set out to document the civil rights movement with the voices of activists who were not nationally known. Women’s voices often got lost in the recounting of events, so this book and Eyes on the Prize, both assure that these accounts are heard, and that women are recognized for their major contribution to the civil rights movement within SNCC.

Casey Hayden and Mary King were two women in SNCC who raised the issue of sexism within the movement, thereby sparking a discussion on the role of women both as activists and in the larger society. The paper, Sex and Caste: A Kind of Memo, co-authored by King and Hayden, was an early feminist text that became very influential within the modern feminist movement in America. They both tell their stories in Hands on the Freedom Plow, along with many others, including Diane Nash, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Rutha Mae Harris, Prathia Hall, Victoria Gray Adams, and many others.

Some interview transcripts are available online (linked were available). One of the editors of the book, Martha Prescod Norman Noonan, was also interviewed by Blackside for the series, This Far By Faith. To access the other interviews, please contact the Film and Media Archive.