Montclair Film Series To Focus On Civil Rights, Black Experience

Montclair, NJ — For the third year in a row, the Montclair Historical Society will host a film series focusing on Civil Rights and the African American experience with a historical perspective.

According to a release, each program in “The Price of Liberty Film Series” consists of excerpts of the documentary plus discussion and Q&A with a humanities scholar.

All programs take place at the Montclair Public Library, 50 S. Fullerton Avenue, Montclair, on Wednesday evenings at 7 p.m.

Admission is free.

The first film, scheduled for Wednesday, February 24 at 7 p.m., is “Freedom Summer,” a documentary that recalls the deadly, violent summer of 1964, when more than 700 student volunteers worked with Civil Rights organizers to end white supremacy and segregation in Mississippi. Lillie Edwards, a Montclair resident and Drew University professor, will host the first program. This film is part of the National Endowment for the Humanities series titled Created Equal: America’s Civil Rights Struggle.

The second film, scheduled for Wednesday, March 23 at 7 p.m., is a 2015 release. Titled “Rosenwald,” it details how philanthropist Julius Rosenwald partnered with Booker T. Washington to build 5,400 schools and YMCAs in African American communities in the early 1900s during the Jim Crow era. Rosenwald offered to contribute $25,000 to communities that raised $75,000 for African-American branches of YMCAs. The YMCA on Washington Street, Montclair, now the site of Bullock School, was one of the recipients. Leslie Wilson of Montclair State University hosts this program.

The third film, “This Little Light of Mine: The Legacy of Fannie Lou Hamer,” will be held on April 20 at 7 p.m. It explores the life of Fannie Lou Hamer, an impoverished sharecropper who became a powerhouse in the battle for the right to vote during the Civil Rights Movement. Central to this 30-minute film is her testimony at the DNC in 1964. Lillie Edwards hosts this program.

For additional information, visit www.montclairhistorical.org or contact the Montclair Historical Society at 973-744-1796 or mail@montclairhistorical.org.

The film series is made possible by a grant from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Photos courtesy of the Montclair Public Library, Local History Collection

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