West Orange Library Kicks-off Film Series during Black History Month

In 2014, West Orange Library will present Created Equal:  America’s Civil Rights Struggle, a series of four film screenings and community discussions to highlight a new set of fascinating and important film documentaries on civil rights history in America.  West Orange Library is proud be one of 473 institutions nationwide selected to offer this series as part of an initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.  The powerful Emmy award recognized documentaries, The Abolitionists, Slavery by Another Name, The Loving Story, and Freedom Riders, include dramatic scenes of incidents in the 150-year effort to achieve equal rights for all. Each film screening and discussion will be moderated by a humanities scholar who is an expert in the field of African American history.  The series is locally sponsored by the West Orange African Heritage Association which has partnered with the library for many successful and inspiring Black and Women’s History Month programs.  We hope the films will inspire the community to reflect, remember, tell their stories, and think about how we can move forward with civil rights efforts. 

The series will kick off in honor of Black History Month at the library on Sunday, February 16 at 2pm.  We will screen the film, The Loving Story, followed by a moderated community discussion with Professor Larry Greene of Seton Hall University. This documentary tells the dramatic story of Mildred and Richard Loving, an interracial couple arrested in Virginia in the 1950s and the landmark case to have their marriage legally recognized which took them all the way to the Supreme Court and changed history.  Professor Greene will introduce and screen the film which should inspire audience members to tell their own stories and discuss civil rights past, present and future.  Larry Greene specializes in the study of the Civil War, African American History, Great Depression and World War II, and the History of the South and has a Ph.D. from Columbia University.

The film series continues with screenings in April, September and November.  On April 6 at 2pm, the library will screen Freedom Riders moderated by Dr. Clement Price of Rutgers University.  Freedom Riders tells the terrifying, moving, and suspenseful story of a time when white and black volunteers riding a bus into the Deep South risked being jailed, beaten, or killed, as white local and state authorities ignored or encouraged violent attacks.  Dr. Price has published widely in the field of African American History and is a Board of Governors Distinguished Service Professor at Rutgers, one of the highest faculty honors at the university.  In September, the series will continue with a screening of The Abolitionists, moderated by Stephanie Steplight Johnson, PhD, Dean of Liberal Arts at Essex County College.   Slavery by Another Name will be shown in November, introduced and moderated by Dr. Joyce Wilson Harley, Esq., Executive Director Division of Administrative Services, Essex County College and an attorney specializing in community development, economic development, and public policy initiatives.  The West Orange African Heritage Organization has been instrumental in helping us schedule this diverse and knowledgeable panel of scholars.

The Library believes the Created Equal Film Series and the dialog generated from it will give the community the opportunity to meet people, share their stories, and exchange ideas.  We hope our audience comes away from these screenings with a deeper understanding of civil rights history, as well as with ideas on how we can continue to evolve.