For the Rights of All: Ending Jim Crow in Alaska

Images

Website

http://www.alaskacivilrights.org

Topics

Human Development: Children, Education, Land, Poverty, Social Exclusion
Human Rights: Civil Rights, Indigenous Rights, Race Politics, Social Exclusion
Information & Media: Communication, Culture, Freedom of Expression
Peace and Conflict: Arms & Military, Conflict, Conflict Resolution, United Nations
Politics: Activism, Civil Society, Codes of Conduct, Democracy, Ethics & Value Systems, Geopolitics, Governance, Justice and Crime, Law

Project Geography

US: Alaska
International: North America

Identity Niches

Indigenous, Native American, Women

Budget

Raised to date: $279,000.00
Estimate to complete: $46,000.00
Total Estimated Budget: $325,000.00
The budget numbers above are accurate as of 03/27/2009

Status

Post Production

Media Type

Video

Project End Use

TV

Key Personnel

Jeffry Silverman
Producer/Director/Writer
Jeffry Silverman is an independent filmmaker.  He co-founded Blueberry Productions, Inc. in 1994, a broadcast services and media production company.  He has directed public affairs programs for Alaska public television as well as produced several award-winning documentaries about Native culture and rural issues.  Many of his short non-fiction films can be seen at cultural sites in Alaska, have won awards, and have screened at major festivals.  
Prior to Blueberry Productions, Jeff worked at a number of arts and public policy organizations, including The Alaska Center for the Performing Arts, The Alaska Native Heritage Center, The Alaska Federation of Natives, and the Anchorage Arts Council.
Jeff is also a playwright.  His plays have been produced in Anchorage by Cyrano’s  Playhouse,  and in Juneau by Perseverance Theater, among others in the Northwest.
He earned an B.A. in film production at Penn State University and an MFA with honors in creative writing from the University of Alaska Anchorage.  He is a member of the Phi Kappi Phi honor society and the International Documentary Association.  
He is past board president of  the Alaska Junior Theater and a former board member of the Alaska Moving Image Preservation Association and the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts.  He lives in Anchorage with his wife and two children.

Stevan Smith
Editor
A Vietnam veteran who served for two years in the U.S. Marine Corps, Smith studied communications at Oregon State University and worked for over 18 years in television news as a cameraman, assignment editor, special projects producer, and managing editor in Seattle. In 1989, Smith established his own production company, Echo Productions. His documentary Two Decades and a Wakeup, the story of a Post Traumatic Stress treatment group that returns to Vietnam to face its members' demons, won an Iris Award, a CPB Local Programming Award, and was nominated for a national Emmy.  He also produced, wrote, and directed the award-winning Kontum Diary: The Journey Home.

Diane E. Benson
Writer, Actor
Is Tlingit Indian originating from Sitka, Alaska and living in Chugiak.  She has a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre, extended studies in Justice, studied at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles and has a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Creative Writing.

As a Writer, Diane has numerous credits in various national and international anthologies including American Indian Quarterly Review, Alaska Native Writers, Storytellers and Orators, Raven Tells Stories, Returning the Gift, Callaloo, and Umyuugwagka, My Mind My Consciousness (co-edited-England).  She has given readings of her work nationally and internationally, including Canada, England and New Zealand.  As a Playwright, her works include, Wood Becomes You, 2003 (Out North Theatre) a multi-media piece on relations with the natural world, My Spirit Raised Its Hands, a story of Elizabeth Peratrovich and Alaskan Civil Rights that she continually tours, Sister Warrior (Theatre Guild), Spirit of Woman (Out North Theatre), and Freight, Moon and Inconvenience, (read at the 2000 Edward Albee theatre conference, Valdez).  Her story, “The Three Days of Raven” continually airs on local public radio.

Diane E. Benson is an Actor and Stage Director for over twenty years performing extensively with major Alaskan theatre companies.  She’s toured the west coast with traditional and contemporary Tlingit drama, directed and performed for several Native theatres, as well as serving as Artist in Residence in a number of rural Alaskan schools, as Artistic Director for Nakai Theatre in Whitehorse, Yukon, as Master Artist teaching “at risk kids” for the Out North Theatre ONSTAGE program, and Guest Artist teaching at Red Eagle Soaring in Seattle. 

Diane appears in film, video, television and radio drama including Sacajawea (winner of seven awards at the 1990 animated film festival in France), Disney’s White Fang, ANCSA: Caught in the Act, and TV’s Real Stories of the Highway Patrol, and the independent Alaska film Kusah HaaKwaan, to name a few.  She functions as the voice and co-editor for the KNBA radio, “Today in Alaska Native History.” She also served as a Talent Agent, running her own Northern Stars talent agency for seven years.

Diane E. Benson was nominated for the prestigious Alpert Award in the Arts in 2004 for theatre arts, and the Pushcart Prize for poetry in 2000.  She continues to write, direct, perform original and sometimes controversial works, and frequently keynotes or facilitates public discussion on racism and other critical issues.

Outreach/Engagement Plan(s)

Our outreach plan will coordinate, promote and implement a series of public screenings and civil rights forums in key regions of Alaska, and at several strategic locations around the United States

Diverse communities need to gather and share to address concerns, solve problems, celebrate.  In Alaska, this has been a traditional part of life for millennia.   Open-ended, non-agenda-driven public discourse is a healthy pathway for education and for healing.

Today of major concern across Alaska, and the rest of the country, is racial discrimination, its various manifestations and its effect on social and economic progress.  As has been well documented, ignorance breeds prejudice.  This outreach project is designed to confront ignorance head-on by using this historical documentary to inform and inspire and to generate the kind of discourse that fosters understanding, further inquiry, empowerment and community building. 

A one-hour documentary PBS film, For the Rights of All: Ending Jim Crow in Alaska tells the inspiring story of Alaska Natives who, through non-violent social change, won justice for all Alaskans.  Many of the key moments of Alaska’s civil rights movement are dramatized in For  the Rights of All.  The remarkable work of Tlingit leader Elizabeth Peratrovich led to the passage of the Alaska Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945, ending public discrimination a decade before the landmark Brown v. Board of Education.  The film explores how Peratrovich has become a role model, a symbol of positive change, for today’s Alaskans, Natives and non-Natives, Elder and Youth, women and men.

“[Celebrating Elizabeth Peratrovich] is about a way of thinking,          a way of standing up, an example for all of us.”
-- from the film For the Rights of All

This outreach plan proposes to coordinate, promote and implement a series of public screenings and civil rights forums in key regions of Alaska, and a few strategic locations around the United States – 12 events in all.  A typical event would include a screening of For the Rights of All followed by moderated community discussion.  A local representative such as a teacher or a youth leader would moderate the panel, which would be comprised of another local recognized civil rights leader, an appropriate Native Alaskan scholar or witness from the film, and the filmmaker.

Close coordination with appropriate nonprofits, local school districts and local higher education centers would help ensure turnout and impact.  Forums would be held in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, Nome, Dillingham, Bethel, Sitka, and Kodiak in Alaska. Seattle, Washington D.C., Boston/Cambridge and Albuquerque have been strategically selected as sites in the “lower 48”.  These forums will coincide with the national PBS broadcasts, from November 2009 through February 2010.

Throughout the course of the Outreach Project, the film will be used as a tool for appropriate civil rights, educational and Native organizations to fulfill their mission, first as the centerpiece/icebreaker at the forums and later as part of a website. 

The website is to be an on-going civil rights forum and an informational clearinghouse for such issues.  Blogging and video commentary will be encouraged. Both live video feeds from the outreach forums and videotaped feed from the forums will be available on the website.

Project Goal
1) Generate community and online dialogue about civil rights among Elders and Youth, native, non native, and minority groups.  Assess the effect of continued discrimination and public misunderstanding that leads to urban/rural divide, economic disparity, and social pathology.

2) Inspire and educate Alaskans about our vibrant history and the significant contributions Alaska Natives have made toward improving life in Alaska as well as highlight the impact Alaska Native women have had in public policy and civil rights

Budget
The budget, estimated at $67,000, includes a coordinator, fiscal sponsor and grant administration fees, a grant evaluator fee, a forum/Q&A reference card, travel to 12 locations, forum videography and editing (for use on website) and website re-design, launch, and forum/blog hosting and upkeep.

Timeline

Pre-Event Planning and Design – June to November 2009
Outreach coordinator hired.  Coordinator and outreach partners select communities in which the forums arranged.  Coordinator connects with community liaisons and schools -- a forum schedule with dates and locations is devised.  (Work with First Alaskans Institute and Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) to arrange for a forum during AFN Convention Week, October 20-24 at the Dena’ina Center in Anchorage.)  An email ring and Facebook group are established.  Travel arrangements are made.  Local A/V technical support at event locations is secured.  Graphic designer and writer for print and web are hired.  Design, writing and printing of the Forum Info Card/Brochure.  The already-existing website is re-tooled and redesigned to best facilitate on-line participation, viewership.  Press kits are assembled and released to the media.  Radio and TV interviews are secured.  Reporters are invited to events.  The services of an independent evaluator are secured.

Events – October 2009 through February 2010
Website is re-launched.  Social media (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) is used along with public radio and cable scanner channels to promote the events.  Radio and TV interviews are conducted.  Events are conducted.  Attendees will be encouraged to sign up for correspondence and to participate on-line.  A local youth will be hired to videotape the event.

Follow Up and Evaluation – October 2009 to April 2010
Video and still photographs of events will be edited and added to the website and the Facebook site.  A matrix will be tabulated based on statistics from event attendance, email and Facebook response, and website hits, bloggers and viewers.  Anecdotal feedback will be gathered from events and electronic responses.  Information will be turned over to independent evaluator, who will proceed thence to write the project evaluation.

Website Forum – October 2009 to 2011 and beyond
The current For the Rights of All website already contains a forum set up and running.  With cross promotion and synergy with the Outreach Project and continued use of social media, the website should continue to be a vital site for years to come.


Lead Partners
Alaska Humanities Forum
First Alaskans Institute
Blueberry Productions, Inc.

Potential Participating Partners and Stakeholders
Alaska Native Heritage Center
The CIRI Foundation
Cook Inlet Tribal Council and MediaAK, (Youth media training center)
Native American Public Telecommunications, or NAPT
Alaska Native Justice Center
Association of Alaska School Boards
Sealaska Corporation and Sealaska Heritage Institute
Bridge Builders
Sitka National Historic Park
University of Alaska College of Rural Alaska
National Center for Outreach
University Native student groups such as Oratorical Society, Native and Women’s Studies
Emerson University
Smithsonian Institution

Funders

Location