The Daily Gamecock

Acclaimed filmmaker to visit USC to talk Reconstruction, Civil Rights

In partnership with the History Center, Stanley Nelson Jr. will discuss his life work, screen a clip from his new film and talk with audience members on Friday night.

“This is a wonderful opportunity to spend an evening with one of the nation’s leading documentary filmmakers,” Dr. Pat Sullivan, director of the history center and event director, said. Nelson’s work documents the Black Panther Movement to Freedom Riders and even Jonestown, but his latest film, “Tell Them We Are Rising,” explores the history and future of historical black colleges and universities.

"The University’s Moving Image Research Collection has been an important archival source of news footage for Nelson’s new film,” Sullivan said. The footage used heavily features students from nearby Benedict College and Allen University — whose students were active in the Columbia Civil Rights Movement.

The screening and following Q&A ends Nelson’s week-long tenure as visiting artist at the School of Visual Art and Design, where he worked closely with film and media arts professor Laura Kissel on research for his upcoming film.

Nelson is also in town for the Media and Civil Rights History Symposium, which is sponsored by the School of Journalism and Mass Communications. The symposium has hosted a semester-long film series highlighting all of Nelson’s activist documentaries at The Nick, and Nelson will conclude the series with a screening of his new film Thursday night.

“The [film] series has fostered important dialogues that bridged the 'town/gown' divide, which seemed especially important in the current political environment,” Sullivan said. And while the film series has focused on strengthening the relationship between the university and Columbia residents, the event Friday is aimed at educating and inspiring students and faculty.

“[Nelson] has done more than any other filmmaker to illuminate the people and events that comprise the movement for racial justice that took root in the South and transformed the country, providing a fresh opportunity to discuss that history and what it means today," Sullivan said.

The conversation could not have come at a better time. 2017 marks the 151st anniversary of Reconstruction, a time of freedom for African Americans before decades of Jim Crow and segregation.

"Reconstruction is a time in this country where there was a vision of equality for black and white people,” Nelson said in an interview with Margaret Dinette, a university public relations representative.“People have turned it around as a negative, when it's a time of positive progress in history. At this point, it's important to remember where we've been in order to plan for where we're going in the future."

“Tell Them We Are Rising” sheds light on the history of historically black colleges and universities, which flourished during Reconstruction, but also focuses on their future.

"I think as the higher education landscape has changed so have HBCUs and their missions,” Nelson said. “You have several that announced they're starting to partner with tech companies to open new programs and campuses."

The event, which begins at 7 p.m. and is free, will be held in Booker T. Washington Auditorium. 


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