Students interview elders about racism in America’s Hometown
I was asked by the Hannibal Community Partnership for Reconciliation (CPR) to teach middle school students how to interview their elders about racism in Hannibal, Missouri. They had a team of 18 racially diverse students interview both Caucasians and African-Americans about growing up in “America’s Hometown, birthplace of Mark Twain.
A grant was provided by the Disciples of Christ Church, Rev. Minnie Smith opened up the Willow Street Church to have the workshops and interviews, and community members gave donations.
On this project I was an educator as well as a multi-media director; I was the program facilitator as well as the producer for the documentary.
I drove three days from Arizona to Missouri to teach the students about interview techniques, audio equipment and editing software. I brought out a portable studio to make portrait images of the participants. Most importantly, I worked closely with the CPR project task force to do team building and create dialog in the community.
The greatest challenge of making this documentary was creating a meaningful narrative from more than 600 minutes of recorded interviews from 10 interviewees and 18 students.
The solution was to work closely with transcripts to build a compelling narrative, which was divided into stating the problem of racism, showing how the students were able to ask tough questions, and finally the students describing what they learned and their visions for change.
The result is a 20 minute documentary that combines personal stories, vintage photographs, portraits, and images of the participants at work. More importantly the youth are enthusiastic about the project and what they have learned not just technically but about their peers and elders.
The hope is that this documentary will continue to raise awareness in the community between ages and races.
DVDs of the project are sold at the Mark Twain Museum in Hannibal, Missouri.