FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 1, 2008
CONTACT: Bobbie Fisher, Chief Communications Officer, 757.889.9107

WHRO/HAMPTON UNIVERSITY TO OFFER SCREENING OF BANISHED
HU Ass’t Professor and WHRO Alum Van Dora Williams Was Part of Production Team

NORFOLK: WHRO, public television for Hampton Roads, and Hampton University are offering a free screening of Banished, a documentary that examines a little-known side of early 20th Century American history on February 13, 2008 at 5:30pm.  A brief question and answer session with film director Marco Williams, hosted by HU writer-in-residence Earl Caldwell, will follow the screening, to be held in the Scripps Howard Auditorium on the Hampton University campus.  The event is free and open to the public.

A hundred years ago, in communities across the U.S., white residents forced thousands of black families to flee their homes. Even a century later, these towns remain almost entirely white. Directed by Marco Williams, Banished tells the story of three of these communities and their black descendants, who return to learn their shocking histories.  The film returns to Pierce City, Mo.; Harrison, Ark.; and Forsyth County, Ga. to discover that the echoes of racial injustice over the past century still reverberate today.  In Forsyth County, GA, where a thousand black residents were expelled, the film explores the question of land fraudulently taken, and follows some descendants in their quest to uncover the real story of their family's land. In Pierce City, MO, a man has designed his own creative form of reparation—he wishes to disinter the remains of his great-grandfather, who was buried there before the banishment. And in Harrison, ARK, home to the headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan, a white community struggles with their town's legacy of hate.

By investigating this little-known chapter in American history, Banished also takes a contemporary look at the legacy of racial cleansing. Through conversations with current residents and the descendants of those who were driven out, the film contemplates questions of privilege, responsibility, denial, healing, reparations and identity.
Banished has been screened at major film festivals across the country, including the January 2007 Sundance Film Festival.  Both WHRO and Hampton University have a special connection to the film: HU Assistant Professor Van Dora Williams, a former WHRO staffer, served as Associate Producer on the film. While at WHRO, she produced several documentaries, including Noble Desire, about the reconciliation conference in Benin, West Africa distributed in the Fall of 2001.  She was awarded a PBS fellowship in 2002, which took her to New York.

Banished will air on WHRO TV15 on February 19, 2008, at 10:00pm.