Charles Thompson |
Charles D. “Charlie” Thompson Jr. is a documentary filmmaker, photographer, oral historian, writer, ethnographer, and community organizer whose work focuses on farming, land, labor, immigration, and rural life. Raised in southwestern Virginia in a family of small farmers, Thompson was himself a farmer before entering teaching, research, and filmmaking.
Thompson is Professor Emeritus of the Practice of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University and a senior fellow at Duke’s Kenan Institute for Ethics. He holds a Ph.D. in religion and culture from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an M.S. in agricultural education from North Carolina A&T State University.
He has produced or directed seven documentary films, including The Guestworker, Brother Towns/Pueblos Hermanos, Homeplace Under Fire, and Rock Castle Home. With Chris Potter, he directed We Shall Not Be Moved (2007), which tells the history of the African American farming community established through the New Deal resettlement program in Tillery, North Carolina. Thompson is also the author or editor of seven books, including Going Over Home: A Search for Rural Justice in an Unsettled Land, Border Odyssey, and Spirits of Just Men. He currently co-directs the America’s Hallowed Ground project and is writing a book about American land ownership and land loss.
