Charleston, SC- As a lifelong resident of Charleston, SC save for seven years in College and Law school and not near enough time in Europe, the staggering import of the past two and a half weeks on this old city is something so powerful, I can't competently summarize what has happened to us.
Character and Confrontation
Charleston remains a connected self aware community. The small progressive activist cadre of about 200 long term participants are mostly in their 50s. This is supplemented by hundreds of other people who are active on one issue whose agendas intersect with our more general approach. Ultimately, despite our best efforts, things are fragmented here. Everyone comprehands the absolute necessity of recruiting and transfering leadership to a younger generation of activists, but it seems to be hard for the Facebook generation to sustain the level or committed participation which forces change on a city where history exerts so much power.
The big question is will the killing of the Emanual 9 result in lasting change? Have people been roused from the "I'm good." sleep enough to realize things can't stay the way they've been? The Walter Scott Shooting two months ago shook the Lowcountry up. They've been at least three other highly problematic shootings in the past several months. There have been many other of what we'll call, the normal kind of unsolved shootings on street corners where nobody wants to talk about what they've seen.
When this nuclear level event hit the city, the activist community had already been working for over a year. Relationships between the police and new black leadership had been developed. Rallies, forums and vigils have been going on at least weekly for a year. There have also been way too many funerals.
20 thousand people joined hands and prayed across the Ravenel Bridge four days after the shootings. 1200 people showed up at the Statehouse on 24 hours notice to rally against the Confederate Flag. 9 Funerals, including one at which the President of the United States delivered the eulogy have been held here. Nothing like these events has taken place in my 55 year lifetime.
Summer is usually quiet here, but the town buzzes with forums and events. There is a huge new effort to do something about gun violence on the ground with organizers and national support. A bus is headed to Washington, DC on Tuesday sponsored by the Brady Campaign.
As a historic city, we understand that documenting events and shaping them into a narrative makes both social progress and tourism possible. At the moment, social progress is getting more attention, which is unusual.
There is a film screening Tuesday, by which time the Confederate Flag may be down at the Statehouse in Columbia or not. Either way, that change won't help keep people alive.
Creating a society which produces less violence here will take deep, swift introspection and expensive, disruptive action before the pastic snowflakes in our toursist snow globe settle back down to the bottom on their styrene cobblestones. Charleston craves order and manners. One of many events next weeks brings the mirror up close as we take a look at a partial first draft of our story.
Story of America Documentary in Progress Screening July 7
From Petigru Free Speech Defense
To Charleston Area Press and Media
For Immediate Release
Charleston, SC- Filmmakers Annabel Park and Eric Byler will hold a community discussion and screening of the documentary-in-progress, Story of America: The Third Reconstruction on Tuesday, July 7 at 7:00 pm at the Circular Congregational Church, at 150 Meeting St, Charleston, South Carolina 29401. This is a free event although donations will be accepted.*
The Documentary makers will screen an excerpt from their work-in-progress and invite members of the audience to be part of a community discussion about what it'll take for us to become more united as a community and a country.
The Story of America is a web series and a feature film project about the racial and political divide in America in the Obama era.
Filmmakers Park and Byler have spent nearly three years in the South on a political, historical, and personal journey trying to talk to their fellow Americans about what divides us. They spent much of their time in Selma, AL documenting the divide between the black and white communities 50 years after Bloody Sunday and in North Carolina documenting the birth of the Moral Monday movement led by Rev. William J. Barber, II. Recently, they have been in SC documenting the debates surrounding the Confederate flag and history in the aftermath of the massacre at Mother Emanuel AME Church.
For More information contact the project through their website http://www.storyofamerica.org/ online.
*Story of America is funded by our viewers. It is a 501c3 organization and all donations are tax deductible.