Deconstructing the Premier of the Black Farmer Documentary

It's been a while since I last wrote an update for you our followers on this page. As you can see, it was once a fundraising page, but now it is used for updates. The two photos here are with permission from Heather Malaika Hicks who attended her first Summit.

November 8 and 9 were special days in Roanoke Rapids, NC as we prepped for the 16th Annual Land Loss Summit. It was a stellar program with people I'd followed over the last few months and years. So, on Friday afternoon Shoun and I showed the first half of the film and then on Saturday we showed the second half of the film. Each slot included a conversation with the attendees about what they saw in the documentary and what they'd recommend for us.

Even though I had seen it all the way through several times with an eye toward micro changes that I'd suggest to Shoun, I also watched it from two perspectives, one because I was there when we filmed the farmers laughing, crying, and pondering those bitter days of the fight for their land, and second as a viewer as if I were seeing it for the first time. Frankly, both were painful.

Seeing it with both sets of eyes and ears was deeply moving. Despite my familiarity with their stories, those stories brought on laughter and then, surprisingly, the stories brought on tears as moments that caught me off guard.

The audience was very friendly at the Summit. They understood the deeper, underlying message of racism in America, living while Black, and even farming while Black. White people seem to be moved differently than are Black people. White people are stunned and experience the burden of disbelief that people are so brutally mistreated. By and large, African Americans say in different ways, "Of course, that's the way things go." They way things generally go.

So, Shoun and I heard compliments. We heard suggestions. We were validated by words of "you have it all there." "Work on two or three things and you have it," or something like that.

So, we anticipated showing it, we showed it, and we learned from showing it, all with a sense of what needs to be done between now and when we formally put it out in the real world.

That we look forward to finishing it. The farmers and families told us their stories. We want to do well with our obligation to do well with their stories and for those stories and the telling to make a difference in small spaces and places and bigger, larger places and places.