WEDU Community Cinema Screens Film About Whitney Young, Unsung Hero of the Civil Rights Movement

Jan. 30, 2013 - PRLog -- Community Cinema, a national documentary screening series presented locally by WEDU, west central Florida’s primary PBS station and Independent Television Service (ITVS) presents a screening of The Powerbroker: Whitney Young’s Fight for Civil Rights (http://www.itvs.org/films/powerbroker) at Pasco Hernando Community College Brooksville Campus on Thursday, February 7th at 6:00pm. Narrated by Alfre Woodard, The Powerbroker is executive produced by Young’s niece, Emmy® Award-winning journalist Bonnie Boswell and produced by Ms. Boswell, her son Taylor Hamilton, and Christine Khalafian.

During the 1960s, as the executive director of the National Urban League, Young was one of the few African Americans who had the ears of those who controlled the levers of power: Fortune 500 CEOs, governors, senators, and presidents. He used these relationships to gain better access to employment, education, housing, and healthcare for African Americans, other minorities, and those in need. His unique position and approach earned him praise, but also scorn from the Black Power movement for being too close to the white establishment. While he is less known today than other leaders of the era because of the behind-the-scenes nature of his work, Young’s legacy and influence are still felt profoundly.

Ten years in the making, The Powerbroker is both a personal portrait of Young, drawing on the reflections of family members and never-before-seen home movies, personal photographs, and audio recordings, and a historical chronicle of how he applied the social service mission of the Urban League to realize the rhetoric of the Civil Rights movement. The film features rare archival footage and exclusive interviews with a diverse array of people who worked with Young and who have been shaped by his work, including the late Dorothy Height, Pulitzer Prize winner Manning Marable, John Hope Franklin, Ossie Davis, and Howard Zinn, as well as Julian Bond, Vernon Jordan, John Lewis, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Young’s biographer Dennis C. Dickerson, Donald Rumsfeld, Ramsey Clark, and others.

WHAT: FREE screening of The Powerbroker: Whitney Young’s Fight for Civil Rights and film discussion.

WHO:  Presented by WEDU, Pasco Hernando Community College, Aston Gardens, and ITVS Community Cinema

WHEN: Thursday, February 7th at 6pm

WHERE: Pasco Hernando Community College (Room B104), Brooksville - 11415 Ponce De Leon Blvd, Brooksville, FL 34601

RSVP: www.wedu.org/cinema This event is free and open to the public. Seating is limited and reservations are requested.

About the Filmmaker

Bonnie Boswell (Executive Producer/Producer) is an award-winning reporter, producer, commentator, and talk show host. A graduate of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boswell won a Golden Mike Award for a one-hour news program she created for NBC. Boswell has been a news reporter for NBC-TV, Los Angeles, the co-host of a national cable television news talk show and an associate producer for ABC’s 20/20.

About ITVS Community Cinema

ITVS Community is the national community engagement program of the Independent Television Service (ITVS) and the Emmy Award-winning PBS series Independent Lens. Through Community Engagement Campaigns in support of groundbreaking, independent films, our innovative educational product ITVS Community Classroom and our flagship community outreach program Community Cinema, ITVS Community works to bring communities together and connect them with information, resources and opportunities for education, engagement and positive change. ITVS Community builds on our 15-year legacy of community engagement activities and makes public broadcasting into a powerful resource for individuals, communities and organizations working on key social issues around the country. For more information visit: http://www.communitycinema.org

About Independent Lens

Independent Lens is an Emmy® Award-winning weekly series airing on PBS. The acclaimed anthology series features documentaries united by the creative freedom, artistic achievement and unflinching visions of independent filmmakers. Presented by Independent Television Service (ITVS), the series is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a private corporation funded by the American people, with additional funding provided by PBS, the National Endowment for the Arts and the MacArthur Foundation. The senior series producer is Lois Vossen. More information is at www.pbs.org/independentlens. Join Independent Lens on Facebook at www.facebook.com/independentlens.

ABOUT WEDU

WEDU is west central Florida’s leading PBS station and public media company reaching 16 counties through media platforms including on-air programming and online experiences that broaden horizons, transport and transform and open gateways to new ideas and new worlds. Financially supported by the community, the organization offers a wealth of award-winning inspirational, educational and enlightening content over a variety of multi-media platforms including: television programming, station’s website, wedu.org (http://www.wedu.org/) and various social media platforms, monthly member magazine Premiere, educational outreach activities and a myriad of special events.  WEDU’s focus on the local community has resulted in the station being regarded as a beacon of trust for men, women and children of every walk of life no matter their age, ethnicity or socio-economic status. WEDU is a treasured community resource; a window to the world for the homebound and a vital educational source for the youngest members of society.  WEDU prides itself on its position in the Tampa Bay community as a leader, partner, informed citizen and a member of PBS, the most trusted institution in America (Harris Interactive Trust QuickQuery, February 2012).

For more information, program schedules or to support WEDU visit wedu.org; WEDU Public Media on Facebook and Twitter or call 813.254.9338.

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