Page 60 - ACTL Journal Win24

As its website states: “The Who We Are Project is a nonprofit organization challenging the dominant nar- rative of our nation’s founding, demonstrating how an- ti-Black racism was and remains a central part of U.S. history, and working to promote education, discourse, healing and change.” Its three-fold mission is (1) to ex- pose the role of anti-Black racism and white suprema- cy throughout history up to the present, (2) to activate all of us to learn this history, and then fight for change, and (3) to inspire the next generation of citizen-his- torians, truth seekers, and activists. It has embarked on this mission with the feature length documentary:
Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America.
So much so that Jeff was eventually approached by sis- ters Sarah and Emily Kunstler, documentary filmmakers, about turning this material into a documentary. The part- nership that resulted grew into The Who We Are Project.
slavery in colonial New York, to the site of a 1947 lynch- ing in rural Alabama, the film brings history to life, ex- ploring the enduring legacy of white supremacy and our collective responsibility to overcome it.
Jeff shared two short clips from the film along with a sample of the facts he learned as he dove into this his- tory. In one clip, the film explored New York City’s rise as a financial center of the country and then eventually the world and exposed the roots of that rise in the mon- ey generated by slave labor. Major insurance companies insured enslaved people as goods; financial institutions provided financing for slave holders. The City’s economy was entwined with slavery. By the mid-1700s, one in five New Yorkers were enslaved people. And although New
York City abolished slavery in 1827, New York remained in some respects a pro-slavery city even during the time of the Civil War, with the Mayor of New York advocat- ing for the city to leave the Union in order to continue its financial relationships with the Southern states. New York City took in $200 million in that time’s currency from slavery.
Facts like these bring us full circle to Jeff’s closing remarks above: that when people of good faith are given truthful
In Who We Are, Jeff asks all of us to examine who we are, where we come from, and who we want to be. The film interweaves historical and present-day archival footage, [Jeff’s] personal story ... and interview footage capturing [his] meetings with Black change-makers and eyewitnesses to history. From a hanging tree in Charles- ton, South Carolina, to a walking tour of the origins of
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