TOSON: THE APPOINTED. Willie “Toson” Coleman is a Gadsden, Alabama-based visual artist whose work embodies a deep connection to his spirituality. His disappointing experiences as a young student and the challenges of life postponed his artistic pursuits. Eventually, Toson’s love for painting, which his mother had instilled in him as a young boy, along with what he terms a calling from a greater source, led him back to the canvas. These divine inspirations have shaped his work for the last 25 years. Toson’s paintings reveal this divine assignment – to portray his unique vision of the world. The Appointed is currently in production.
ON BENDED KNEES, 1963. On Bended Knees redresses the omission of the 1963 events in Gadsden from the larger Civil Rights narrative by presenting the stories of local foot soldiers and individuals whose contributions have gone unrecognized. The film will celebrate these people, in that place, at that very historic time. It was a time when hope and hatred were on full display. On Bended Knees is in the research and development stage. We are seeking production support for this project.
THE CARRIE GRIGGS TUGGLE STORY. This theatrical documentary recognizes the contributions of Carrie Griggs Tuggle. “As a social worker in Birmingham, Alabama, she instructed delinquent African American boys, often appearing in court with them. At this time in history, black juveniles were tried in the same courts as adults. Mrs. Tuggle saw the injustice of this situation and was instrumental in the formation of the Jefferson County Juvenile and Domestic Court (Family Court). On September 3, 1903, she opened Tuggle Institute, a school for African American children.”
FINDING THE CORNERSTONE – THE WALLACE A. RAYFIELD STORY. A disabled white preacher, who worked as an insurance agent and piano tuner, stumbles upon the works of a forgotten African American architect. His discovery takes him on an enlightening mission to uncover and preserve the architect’s legacy. Is his two-decade pursuit divinely inspired? Will he eventually donate the artifacts?
Mister “B.” This is a reflective experimental and biographical film honoring Birl Martin, an innovative 94-year-old golfer, instructor, and mentor. The evolving project incorporates iPhone and DSLR footage, still images, music, and titles to tell the powerful story of an African American who followed his passion for the game of golf in the Deep South. As Martin searches through his stored-away personal archives, more material is added to the narrative structure of the short film.
THE VISIT. This theatrical documentary provides a glimpse of Booker T. Washington’s historic 1910 visit to Tuscaloosa’s First African Baptist Church. It was the city’s largest gathering of black and white citizens at that time. The Church went on to become a central meeting location during the Civil Rights Movement. The performance is adapted from reports in The Tuscaloosa Times-Gazette and the research of Hilary Green at the University of Alabama.
SAVING GRACE is a documentary by Malcolm Cammeron (my son). I served as the project’s production advisor. The film is a glimpse into the life of Chari Bostick and her efforts to promote and preserve African American history in Gadsden, Alabama. Bostick started the Grace Heritage Foundation and has devoted her time to reclaiming a historic black cemetery in the southern Appalachian city. The documentary project was supported by the University of Virginia’s Religion, Race & Democracy Lab. Malcolm is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Virginia in the Corcoran Department of History
SWAYIN. Rev. Cedric Williams (and the Williams Brothers) of Cedar Bluff, Alabama honors his late grandmother, Lola Belle Bynum of Lebanon, Alabama. Swayin is one of several songs featured on their upcoming album. The emotional tribute is filmed at the quaint Mt. Lebanon Baptist Church and other picturesque locations around DeKalb County.
THE ELDORADO PROJECT is a collaborative interdisciplinary four-camera dance-theatre production, choreographed by Rita Snyder. The 2015 production includes images from the deserts of New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada as well as photos from swamp areas in Alabama and Florida and the rainforests of Oregon and Washington State as visual background for the travels of The Knight. The choreography depicts The Knight and his encounters with The Shade as he travels across the country in his futile search for Eldorado.
APRIL’S HERO is the story of Robert Reed, the ultimate first responder after the April 27th, 2011 tornado ripped through Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The tornado created a six-mile path of destruction and left 52 dead, but Reed pulled twelve of his neighbors from the rubble, throwing refrigerators and hot water heaters off of them. Reed moved into Crescent Ridge Mobile Home Estates in Tuscaloosa County in 2009. Residents were wary of him because of his background, but like many other times in his life, Reed won them over with his work ethic.
NOT MY SON. Not My Son follows Birmingham’s Carolyn Johnson Turner and her Parents Against Violence members for several months. Parents Against Violence Foundation was founded on March 1, 2004, by Johnson-Turner as a result of the anguish she experienced when her 20-year-old son, Rodreckus DeAndrew Johnson, was shot and killed while attending a birthday party. To cope, she and her members, women who have also lost loved ones to gun violence, are on a personal mission to prevent other deaths.
ERIC ESSIX: AT HOME. Jazz is often traced to the Big Easy; but defining its shape is anything but easy. So when the filmmaker set out to chronicle (in a one-hour documentary) chart-topping, record-breaking jazz guitarist Eric Essix, he ignored the occasional boxy documentary format and instead let Essix loose with his red Gibson hollow-body. The program follows Essix as produces Abide with Me.
TRYING TIMES: PERRY COUNTY SCHOOLS. With 52% of Perry County Alabama’s children living in poverty, the four schools educating those children are equally suffering impoverished hardships. “Trying Times: Perry County Schools,” portrays the humanized effect of Alabama’s legislative pitfalls and repercussions from September 10th, 2003’s, failed Amendment One (A Statewide Tax Reform Plan) education budget.
MOMENTS OF DIGNITY. Booker T. Washington established the photography department at Tuskegee Institute in the early 1900s, Cornelius Marion Battey was its first instructor, and P.H. Polk was Battey’s protégé. Discover Polk’s vivid, evocative photographs and see the unique perspective of Alabama life created by African American photographers at Tuskegee.
STILL HOLDING ON: THE MUSIC OF DOROTHY LOVE COATES AND THE ORIGINAL GOSPEL HARMONETTES. Birmingham’s Dorothy Love Coates was a vibrant performer, a prolific composer, and played a major role in shaping contemporary African American sacred music and worship services. During her 50-year career, she wrote and published over 300 songs, recorded 20 albums, and her music has been recorded by musicians such as Mahalia Jackson, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, The Blackwood Brothers, Rev. James Cleveland, Buddy Rich, and the Statesmen Quartet.
I SHALL NOT BE MOVED: THE LEGACY OF W.C. PATTON. This program profiles 84 -year-old civil rights activist, W.C. Patton. When Alabama banned the NAACP in 1956, Patton became the organization’s national voter education director and conducted crucial registration and education campaigns, before the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
THE LOWNDES COUNTY FREEDOM PARTY. The Black Panther Party was founded in Oakland in 1966, but it traces its roots to rural Lowndes County in Alabama. This program remembers the efforts of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee in this forgotten outpost in the civil rights struggle.
Dwight Cammeron, Documentary & Creative Media Producer, Miller Heights Productions 