Stephen McKinley Henderson

There is no need to fear history. Knowing and understanding the human experience that is America's narrative benefits all of us. Many of our current societal problems are related to 400 years ago. Repairing and amending our mistakes protects our highest ideals and guards us from hypocrisy. We have eloquent documents that inspired our birth. But as former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice once observed, "Racism is our nation's birth defect." Words are beautiful, but deeds are divine. Any catalyst for healing must identify the wounds that scar us. Our documentary aspires to be a tool for clarity in response to the tactic of division. History versus myth. Struggling with mythology demands revolutionary optimism. In trying times, optimism is the revolutionary act of believing that change is possible.

Stephen Rosenthal

I have long been concerned with issues of racism in America. I’m aware of my privilege and how it has helped me through many stages of life. At the beginning of WW II, my father worked at Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in wartime housing that was segregated by decree of the federal government. I was born in Levittown, NY in 1954, in a housing development that was funded by the federal government with the caveat that it was to be for ‘Caucasians’ only, in perpetuity. My parents bought that house in 1953 for $7,200 (and sold it a few years later). It is now worth more than $680,000. I am a beneficiary of the U.S. caste system. If more of us understood our history we could move to a more equitable future and be the beneficiaries of a more perfect union.

I was certainly not taught most of this history in public school or college. With so many states implementing new restrictive voting laws, communities banning books, and even forbidding the teaching of factual U.S. history, there is an urgency to make a documentary that contains the deliberately ‘forgotten’ information on de jure racism.