The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture joins a nationwide initiative to bring four films on civil rights history to Little Rock in order to guide public conversations about the changing meanings of freedom and equality in U.S. history.
The center was awarded a grant last year by the National Endowment for the Humanities as part of the Created Equal: America’s Civil Rights Struggle project which marked the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.
CAHC will launch its year-long film series during Black History Month at 1 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 22, with the documentary, The Abolitionists, at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center. Dr. Carl Moneyhon of the UALR History Department will moderate the discussion.
The center has partnered with the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site to select a variety of locations for the screenings of the four documentaries which feature riveting footage illustrating the history of civil rights in America. In addition, professors from the UALR History Department will guide public discussions following each film.
“These films chronicle the long and sometimes violent effort to achieve the rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—for all Americans,” said CAHC Associate Provost Deborah Baldwin, Ph.D.
“We are pleased to receive a grant from NEH to provide programming around these films.”
The Created Equal programming, which also includes the films Slavery by Another Name, Freedom Riders, and The Loving Story, will highlight dramatic scenes of incidents in the more than 150 years since the Emancipation Proclamation.
Organizers say the goal of the Created Equal initiative is to bring communities together to revisit the shared history of all Americans and help bridge deep racial and cultural divides in American civic life.
The Created Equal film set and public programs have been made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, as part of its Bridging Cultures initiative, in partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.
For more information, go to ualr.edu/cahc/createdequal.
