Pursuit of Justice Film: Finalist in the Documentary Feature Category for Denton Black Film Festival

 “The Denton Black Film Festival (DBFF) is pleased to announce your film "I'm Just a Layman in Pursuit of Justice" Black Farmers Fight Against USDA" has been selected as a finalist in the Documentary Feature category for the DBFF 2021 Competitive Awards program. Congratulations! The award winners will be announced during the Sunday, January 31st Awards/Closing virtual event. We hope you will tune in for the program which will be livestreamed from the Eventive platform. You can place an order for the event with this LINK. It is a free event so please share with your family and friends.

Thank you for sharing your story with our festival audience. Each year is it a tough call for the judges who are composed of industry professionals and discerning people who are avid film fans. While not everyone will go home with an award we strive to honor all filmmakers and the work that goes into creating their films. At DBFF our goal is to showcase a variety of genres, and stories that entertain, Educate, and/or Inspire.”

Check out the link here: https://watch.eventive.org/dbff/play/5fef84d89d17f1007865bf3c

Denton Black Film Festival and "I'm Just a Layman in Pursuit of Justice"

As you may have heard over the last few months, the documentary that tells the stories of nine Black farmers who fought against the USDA is now "in the can." It is finished and is available for the first time at the Denton Black Film Festival beginning later this week. 

Between 1997 and 1999, fifteen farmers prevailed against the USDA. As they prevailed, the USDA still withheld what was promised. This film, "I'm Just a Layman in Pursuit of Justice: Black Farmers Fight Against the USDA," tells those stories of nine of those fifteen farmers and family members in their own words. It is co-produced by Shoun Hill and Waymon Hinson. 

Here is the link to the web page:  https://blackfarmersinsearchofjusticefilm.com/. Inside this page you can see the background of the film, portraits of the farmers and a few of their sound bites, the trailer, and videos by Hill and Hinson as they tell what the film means to them. 

Here is a link to where you can buy a viewing of the film: https://watch.eventive.org/dbff/play/5feb39317bf46b00542ed103

When you purchase a viewing for $4.99, you have 24 hours to watch it between January 27 and February 2. 

As you enter to purchase it, you can also vote for it as your favorite documentary. 

Here is the link to the entire film festival. It is one of the biggest in the country, so we are honored to have it selected:  https://dentonbff.com/

Please feel to contact Waymon if you have any questions: waymon.hinson@gmail.com. 

We know you will be both disturbed and motivated by what you see and hear. 

A Late Christmas, or Is It an Early One?

We have been looking forward to today for quite some time.  Ever since we read of the Denton Black Film Festival, it has been at the very top of our to-go list.  So, today, we'll drive over to Denton late morning, find a good place for lunch, and then attend a series of events at the Campus Theater, downtown at 214 West Hickory.  

We'll view College Student Short films, "Talking in Black America," see "The Uncomfortable Truth," see the short film "Black Reparations," and perhaps stay for Steps.

Why you may be asking would the two of us venture into these particular waters?  Thank you for asking and thank you for taking the time to read my response and even to check out some of the links.

As mentioned in the previous blogpost, to some readers here, it may be a new thing to find your friend, Waymon Hinson, and his wife as well, involved in social justice sorts of things.  Our involvement goes back to 1994 when I heard an aristocratic voice at the other end of the line say, "Dr. Hinson, I think I have failed to communicate to you the seriousness of our concerns."  And he was correct. I was clueless.  I think America is clueless.  While some of that winding journey is chronicled in other places, this blog, chapel at Abilene Christian University, in one publication, and in several presentations at BFAA Land Loss Summits, now another part of the story is developing.

This post is getting too long, so let me brief it up a bit.

For several months now, I have been working on a project, "African American Land Acquisition and Dispossession: Reconstruction to Today." That provides an important background piece. A second layer of it is Shoun Hill, New York City photographer and I will soon develop plans for the making of a documentary on pivotal cases that served to stir the Black Farmer Movement toward the Pigford Class Action Suit. More information on that later.

So, I am a story-teller and a gatherer of stories. Several years ago, when I was interviewing a number of farmers across the land, I told them of my commitment to tell their stories in places and space that they could not or would not go because their stories are worthy of being told. Many of those stories are found in audio and print media in a volume called, "Remembering Tillery's Historical Archives" under the watchful eye of the Concerned Citizens of Tillery 

So, this begins another layer of story-telling, that of film.  I intend to learn from such people as Loki Mulholland who has chronicled the story of his civil rights activist mother, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland. Here is information about their foundation.  See this site for more information about the movie. And, today, he will be premiering another documentary on his family, "The Uncomfortable Truth." 

He is the revealer and the teacher. I am his watchful student.

Shoun and I will be the tellers of truth in ways that will likely make us all squirm.

Perhaps if you live in the DFW area, we can meet up in downtown Denton and learn together about various aspects of the righteous cause of story-telling and justice for all of our people.