African American Culture Films (South)

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Family Across the Sea

Family Across the Sea

Family Across the Sea

Family Across the Sea shows how scholars have uncovered the remarkable connections between the Gullah people of South Carolina and the people of Sierra Leone.

Everything Change Up Now

Everything Change Up Now

Everything Change Up Now

This documentary explores what has happened to lifestyles of South Carolina sea slanders since slavery, through interviews with Gullah basket weavers, net makers, fishermen,…

Hush Hoggies Hush

Hush Hoggies Hush

Hush Hoggies Hush

Meet Tom Johnson and his praying pigs. "Been fooling with them hogs for 35 long years," Johnson says in the film as he rocks on the porch of his modest residence near Bentonia,…

Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison

Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison

Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison

Pete and Toshi Seeger, their son Daniel, and folklorist Bruce Jackson visited a Texas prison in Huntsville in March of 1966 and produced this rare document of of work songs by…

Land Where the Blues Began

Land Where the Blues Began

Land Where the Blues Began

In the late 1970s Alan Lomax traveled to Mississippi with filmmaker John Bishop and folklorist Worth Long and made this film about the African American music he found there.

Other Side of Eden trailer

Other Side of Eden trailer

Other Side of Eden trailer

On a hot July night in 1932 a black tenant farmer in Northern Virginia slipped into his landowner’s home “Edenhurst,” beat him unconscious with a piece of stove wood, and dragged…

When My Work Is Over

When My Work Is Over

When My Work Is Over

The gifted African American storyteller Louise Anderson (1921-1994) tells her family stories and folk tales, and recites poetry in this film taped in Jacksonville, North Carolina,…

Blues Like Showers of Rain

Blues Like Showers of Rain

Blues Like Showers of Rain

Fannie Bell Chapman: Gospel Singer

Fannie Bell Chapman: Gospel Singer

Fannie Bell Chapman: Gospel Singer

Film of the singer/faith healer and folk artist Fannie Bell Chapman from Centreville, Mississippi. Footage includes Chapman and her family singing and praying during church…

Dry Wood

A glimpse into the life, food, and Mardi Gras celebrations of black Creoles in French Louisiana, featuring the stories and music of "Bois Sec" Ardoin and Canray Fontenot. Dry Wood…

Gravel Springs

Othar Turner, a fife-maker and musician, owns his farm in the Gravel Springs community in northwest Mississippi. The rhythmical music he and his friends play is called "fife and…

Angel That Stands By Me: Minnie Evans‘ Paintings

Angel That Stands By Me: Minnie Evans‘ Paintings

Angel That Stands By Me: Minnie Evans‘ Paintings

A portrait of the African-American visionary artist Minnie Evans from Wilmington, N.C., by Academy Award winning filmmakers Irving Saraf and Allie Light.

Made in Mississippi

Made in Mississippi

Made in Mississippi

A 1975 Bill Ferris film that features artists from a number of different craft traditions discussing and demonstrating their work, including quilting, sculpting, house building,…

Give My Poor Heart Ease

Give My Poor Heart Ease

Give My Poor Heart Ease

A 1975 account of the blues experience through the recollections and performances of B.B. King, James "Son" Thomas, Shelby "Poppa Jazz" Brown, James "Blood" Shelby, Cleveland…

Black Delta Religion

Black Delta Religion

Black Delta Religion

This film was made from b/w Super 8mm footage that William Ferris gathered in rural Mississippi in 1968. The film includes footage from rural church services and a full immersion…

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