Director Sharon La Cruise Discusses the Film, “Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock.

Film maker Sharon La Cruise. From PBS.

Last week’s Friday Video was a preview of the upcoming film Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock.  Today on the University of Arkansas campus director of the film, Sharon La Cruise, will preset the film and answer questions.

Yesterday Ozarks at Large’s Antoinette Grajeda spoke with La Cruise about the making of the film including her research in Little Rock, her quest to discover why Daisy Bates was not initially seen as potential leader of the movement, Bates’s life as a social and political radical, and a her role in the desegregation of Central High.

“Daisy Bate’s life” La Cruise says, “is the classic example that life really is like ten percent of what happens to you and ninety percent of how you handle it.  Because that is how she lived her life because she could have had many options as far a path she could have went down considering where she came from and what she went through.  And she made a decision to do good with her life.  I’m hoping she’ll be inspirational to young adults….”

To listen to the entire interview go here and click on the link.

In case you missed the Friday Video here it is again.  Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock will be airing nationally on February 2nd at 9:00 pm on the PBS series, Independent Lens.  The presreening will be held today at 2:00 PM at the Reynolds Center on the U of A campus.   The event is hosted in connection with Martin Luther King Jr. week and organized by the University Libraries and Diversity Affairs.

What’s In the Works ~ The McElroy House: Center for Regional Oral History and Folklife Research

After much thought and time spent wondering where to go from here, I have decided to begin the process of creating a small oral history and folklife research center in my hometown. I have included my plans and ideas for the Center listed at the bottom of this post. I welcome any feedback! Continue reading »

The Rural Assembly and the Rural Compact.

Today I came across an organization called The Rural Assembly and I am so excited about their work and I think you will be too. The Rural Assembly is a part of the Center for Rural Strategies, an amazing organization whose fingers are all over most of the rural sustainable movements going on these days.

The Rural Assembly

According to their webpage, “The National Rural Assembly is a movement of people and organizations devoted to building a stronger, more vibrant rural America.” At the core of their work is the Rural Compact: “The National Rural Assembly encourages individuals and organizations to endorse the Rural Compact, a basic statement of principles for building a stronger rural America that improves opportunity for all of us.”
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The Zinn Education Project and downloadable copy of The People’s History for the Classroom.

Social Justice educational publishers and organizations Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change have published a middle and high school history curriculum based on Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. A copy is available for free download here. To download a free copy you must agree to respond to a survey and provide feedback after completing the book. You need not be a middle or high school teacher to download a copy.
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Up the Ridge, a film about remote Appalachian prisons, racism, and the intentional tension between rural and urban

This very important film was produced out of Appalshop’s hiphop radio program, Holler to the Hood.
The film synopsis reads:

Up the Ridge is a one-hour television documentary produced by Nick Szuberla and Amelia Kirby. In 1999 Szuberla and Kirby were volunteer DJ’s for the Appalachian region’s only hip-hop radio program in Whitesburg, KY when they received hundreds of letters from inmates transferred into nearby Wallens Ridge, the region’s newest prison built to prop up the shrinking coal economy. The letters described human rights violations and racial tension between staff and inmates. Filming began that year and, though the lens of Wallens Ridge State Prison, the program offers viewers an in-depth look at the United States prison industry and the social impact of moving hundreds of thousands of inner-city minority offenders to distant rural outposts. The film explores competing political agendas that align government policy with human rights violations, and political expediencies that bring communities into racial and cultural conflict with tragic consequences. Connections exist, in both practice and ideology, between human rights violations in Abu Ghraib and physical and sexual abuse recorded in American prisons.
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