Black Churches Can Preserve Their History with a Documentary Film

Nov. 11, 2010 - PRLog -- LOS ANGELES—"My first film was a gift from God that I want to share with the world," says Lovelace Lee III. Lee is a partner in the production company known as Perseverance Pictures and a veteran marketing professional. He just produced and directed the "Saraella Ursery: Pillar of Bethel AME Church, Perris" documentary.
  Lee attends church at Bethel AME Church in Perris, California (about 80 miles southeast of Los Angeles) because his wife the Rev. Vickie Hayden Lee serves as pastor. Last January Lee was walking outside the church with Mrs. Saraella Ursery as she told him about the church's history. "Mother Ursery was telling me the history of Bethel," Lee says. At one point Ursery looked down and said "They're all gone now. I'm the last one left." Lee was dumbfounded, so he asked, "The last one of what Mother?" Ursery, 96, was the last founding member of the 64-year-old church left alive. She and a handful of courageous women founded Bethel AME Church, Perris in 1946. Lee says he knew there was a story to be told here.
  After a couple of missteps, he approached the church's Official Board with a proposal to do a documentary about Mother Ursery. Lee says he used the knowledge he gained in 20 years of marketing and a masters degree in organizational management to create a business model that would allow the church to fund the production of their own documentary. And that he says was no small feat. “I knew they couldn’t afford much,” Lee says. “I had to be very creative and resourceful.”
  The 32-minute film took five months to complete. In late September Lee presented each family at Bethel a boxed copy of the DVD. The "Saraella Ursery: Pillar of Bethel AME Church, Perris" documentary has a Facebook page with over a hundred fans from all around the world. The DVD now sells on filmbaby.com.
  Lee's so adamant about every Black church preserving its history with a documentary that he's making himself available to teach pastors how to serve as producers of the project. He's just submitted The Saraella Ursery Project a proposal to Bishop T. Larry Kirkland, Presiding Prelate of the Fifth Episcopal District of the AME Church to teach every AME pastor worldwide how to oversee this most important process. "Bishop Kirkland understands what it takes for our churches to be relevant. He'll see the value of what I've proposed," Lee says. Lee can always be reached at robertlucycreative@yahoo.com.

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