Black Representation Matters: In Film and Beyond, the inaugural film series of the Windgate Museum of Art, begins this weekend with a screening of 13th. The series of five films and discussions, which are free and open to all, will be livestreamed due to coronavirus concerns. Access to each livestream requires a reservation; to make reservations, visit https://watch.eventive.org/brmathendrix.
The first film in the series, 13th, will screen on Saturday, September 26 at 7 p.m. A panel discussion will follow with Zachary Crow, director of DecARcerate; Dawn Jeffrey, blacktivist and grassroots organizer and creator of the Little Rock Freedom Fund; Kaleem Nazeem, who was incarcerated at the age of 17 and now advocates for prison reform and to end death by incarceration in the penal system; and Dr. Joshua Glick, Assistant Professor of English, Film, and Media Studies at Hendrix College. The panel will be moderated by Dr. Anne Goldberg, Charles Prentiss Hough Odyssey Professor of Anthropology.
13th is the 2016 American documentary by Ava DuVernay (director of Selma) that explores the intersection of race, justice, and mass incarceration in the United States. It is titled after the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1865, which abolished slavery throughout the United States and ended involuntary servitude except as a punishment for conviction of a crime. The film investigates America’s history of racial inequality by focusing on the fact that the nation’s prisons are disproportionately filled with African-Americans.