PBS To Feature UB Professor’s Film As Part Of Black History Month Celebration

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Despite the terror of "Jim Crow" and the backlash of white plantation owners, African Americans had managed to accumulate nearly 15 million acres of land by 1910. Today, that number has declined to less than 1 million acres. Although their numbers have decreased significantly, there are still a handful of black farmers who continue to hold onto their family farms.

Filmmaker Charlene Gilbert, assistant professor of media study at the University at Buffalo, tells the story of generations of her family working the land in Montezuma, Ga., in "Homecoming…Sometimes I am Haunted by Memories of Red Dirt and Clay," a film that has been chosen for national broadcast by PBS as part of its Black History Month celebration.

A special screening of "Homecoming" will be held at 6 p.m. Jan. 25 in the WNED Broadcasting Center, 140 Lower Terrace, Buffalo. A reception at 5:30 p.m. will precede the screening, which is sponsored by the Institute for Research and Education on Women and Gender (IREWG); the Department of African American Studies; the Department of Media Studies, and Kerry Grant, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, all at UB, and Western New York Public Broadcasting.

Although the screening and reception will be free of charge, reservations must be made by calling IREWG at 829-3451.

In the film, which also will be shown on WNED, Channel 17, at 10 p.m. Feb. 3, Gilbert uses her family connections to the small farming town of Montezuma to tell the larger story of black farmers and land loss in the 20th century. Using as a backdrop the day-to-day life of her cousin, Warren James, one of the youngest African-American farmers in town, "Homecoming" weaves family stories, archival footage, photographs and testimony to explore the complex relationship between African-American families, land and history.