Page 8
April 26, 2017
Arts &
ACCESSORIES
APPAREL
ENTERTAINMENT
Cambridge
Tradition
In short “Cambridge” is for the excellence
and “Tradition” is for the consistency.
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Cambridge Tradition
Black colleges in America have educated the architects of freedom movements and cultivated lead-
ers in every field for generations. The long overdue piece of history is told in the new documentary
“Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities.”
A Feast of Films to Watch
My annual sojourn to the Full
Frame Documentary Film Festival
earlier this month offered a feast
of films to watch for. I reviewed
the first eight two weeks ago; here
is the second half of the films I
saw, in the order of my admiration
and including three worthy win-
dows into African American life
and fascinating studies of political
quagmires in New Delhi and Oak-
land, Calif.:
“Tell Them We Are Rising:
The Story of Black Colleges and
Universities” is a long-overdue
feature-length documentary on
a piece of history that too few of
us know. The material is in good
hands; director Stanley Nelson
(“Black Panthers: Vanguard of the
Revolution,” “Freedom Summer,”
“Freedom Riders”) has made a
career of documenting crucial
pieces of black history. Here he
has enough for a miniseries, but
in 85 minutes has placed the histo-
ry of Historic Black Colleges and
o PinionAted
J udge
by
d arleen
o rtega
Universities (HBCUs) in context,
from America’s history of deny-
ing, even criminalizing education
to slaves and freedmen; to a shock-
ing 20,000 people who were killed
for educating blacks during just
the first six years after abolition.
The film addresses contrasting
views about black education from
Booker T. Washington and W.E.B.
DuBois; the role of HBCUs in
creating a black middle class and
seeding the black Civil Rights
Movement, and their importance
in preserving places where black
students can experience a level of
community that otherwise often
is not possible. The film will air
on PBS in February 2018, and its
website, hbcurising.com, features
an online yearbook for alums to
make and celebrate connections.
“Quest” won awards, includ-
ing a Full Frame Grand Jury Prize,
for its attentive depiction of the
life of a black family from North
Philadelphia. Filmmaker Jonathan
Olshefski allows them to speak
for themselves, and Christopher
and Christine Rainey simply al-
low us into the world they share
with their young daughter and the
friends for whom they offer a stu-
dio space to sing, talk, and rhyme.
Christopher, whose hip-hop nick-
name gives the film its title, over-
came addiction to become a solid
partner to Christine, who goes by
Ma, and a patriarch to their daugh-
ter and, in some ways, to their
community. Their neighborhood
is left behind in terms of resourc-
es and influence; they and their
neighbors work hard and struggle
against poverty and neighborhood
c ontinued on p age 15