Opinion: It’s about black empowerment

By LEONTYNE S. MASON
nabjconvention.org

Black empowerment shouldn’t be uncommon in African-American communities, it should be the norm.

It is a beautiful thing to hear stories about the struggles of our predecessors. Those stories are necessary for the advancement of our people because it’s not enough to see prominent black people on TV or read about them in history books edited by white people.

During the 2010 NABJ Convention and Career Fair there was a screening of “The Black List: Volume Three.” It is an ingenious collaboration between portrait photographer and filmmaker Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and Elvis Mitchell, a film critic and NPR correspondent.

After the special screening of the third installment of “The Black List,” notable broadcast journalist Jacque Reid moderated a question and answer segment. The panel consisted of Beverly Johnson, the first black supermodel; Thelma Golden, director and chief curator at The Studio Museum in Harlem; Daphne Farganis, director of educational initiatives for Freemind Ventures/The Black List Project; and Elvis Mitchell.

It is ironic that they would collaborate on a series of documentaries and name them after a list which has such a negative connotation — talk about a play on words. People of color have been on the “black list” in more ways than one since slavery. Sanders and Mitchell made The Black List Project a positive representation of black empowerment.

“My dream has always been that at one point the black list won’t be such a bad thing to be on anymore,” Mitchell said.

The Black List Project consists of the documentary style accounts of prominent and influential black people telling their stories in their own words. Some of the people are famous black entertainers, authors, educators, politicians, philanthropists — and the list goes on.

All of these people share a common element: black empowerment.

Mitchell, who is the reporter, selects the subjects and also conducts the research and interviews. The week before an interview, Mitchell cannot be reached because he is conducting extensive research on the interviewee. He feels like he should “offer them the respect of having done the research. I spent 10 days preparing for (the Rev.) Al Sharpton.”

When we show interest in the lives of other black people, we are able to get to the heart of the matter, resulting in the real accounts of people who are just like us.