Jacob Handy, director of “Heart of the City” (Kansas City PBS)
A good documentary is the antithesis of chaos. While being able to capture joy, frustration or the pivots we have to make to embrace one and escape the other, the documentary’s existence is to clarify, illuminate and inform.
If ever there were a time for eradicating chaos and celebrating the lives of those who have dedicated their lives to building and serving their communities, the Reel Black Film Fest, presented by Kansas City PBS at the Truman, 601 E Truman Rd., is answering the call Saturday, Feb. 22, 1:30-8:00 p.m.
Ultimately,” says Kynala Phillips, PBS Community and Engagement Manager, “it’s in our DNA to serve everyone in our audience, whether on-air, online or in person. As a community-supported television station, we will always lift up stories and voices of all kinds that may otherwise go unheard.”
Filmmakers Kerry Rounds, Jacob Handy and Nico Giles Wiggins each explore how African Americans have impacted the American experience — on the airwaves, in agriculture, and in the aspiration of a community to protect its neighborhood from being encroached by development — in films that reveal the bedrock of our city’s history.
“I think that African American history is history,” says Rounds. “Period.” His film “Diamond Jubilee: A 75 Year Celebration of Carter Broadcast,” which will debut on KC PBS Feb. 27, celebrates the life of Andrew “Skip” Carter, who started KPRS in 1950. That KPRS (the PRS standing for People’s Radio Station) is celebrating a quarter of a century in existence is a testament to the man Rounds describes as having “the gall, the confidence, the audacity” to fulfill his ambition during the Jim Crow era.
“His influence is pivotal,” says Rounds, who says Carter made Kansas City a model for other black-owned stations across the country.
Rounds discovered, though, that there is no archive for black-owned radio stations. “Most of the scholars didn’t deem this (African American) entertainment important,” Rounds says. It takes a moment to sink in, the loss of material that could educate today’s students on radio’s history, one that sought to “provide a voice for marginalized voices at a time they were getting no representation.” Many tapes, Rounds says, were dubbed over to lower operational costs, a practice that happened at many Black-owned stations, regardless of corporate backing.
The stories, as they’re repeated, survive as a people’s archive.
Rounds hopes people will leave the film informed, encouraged and empowered. “Kansas City has the oldest Black station in the city, if not the world. It was no small feat for a Black man and Black woman (Carter’s wife, Mildred) to start a radio station at that time.”
For Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Jacob Handy (2021’s “Heart of the City”), a chance conversation during a gardening mentorship introduced him to Junius Groves. His film, “The Potato King: A Dynasty Built on Dirt and Dreams,” unearths the story of the former slave whose Wyandotte County farm and business sense made him one of the wealthiest men of his time.
His high agricultural volume earned him the moniker “Potato King of the World” from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1902.
Groves’s story is an American story, Handy says. “This man became an agricultural producer whose name could be in the same company as the Cargills and Hormels. The railroad (company) built tracks on his property. Imagine how challenging and scary it was to be a powerful and successful Black man at that time,” Handy says.
“We’re really excited to engage the community,” Handy says of the festival. “PBS is an institution that can fill in the gaps of an exciting film community that is making huge strides.”
“Land of Opportunity: Road to Resistance,” by Giles Wiggins, honors the Beacon Hill neighborhood who fought against their homes being completely decimated by the 71 Highway built under the Federal Highway Act of 1956. Giles Wiggins won an Emmy for his first episode of the “Land of Opportunity” series, covering the Missouri Supreme Court case by Dr. Dennis Miller, a Black doctor whose lawsuit against a white neighborhood association to move to the Santa Fe Place neighborhood eventually won after the landmark Supreme Court case, Shelley vs. Kraemer ending racial covenants.
In “Road to Resistance” Giles Wiggins says, “With all the devastation I didn’t just want to know what was lost. I wanted to know what prevailed.”
Among the heroes, activists and historians of Beacon Hill, its heart is the Paseo Baptist Church (PBC), which was led by the formidable D.A. Holmes when the church was erected in 1927. Despite the preponderance of Black professionals, the area was deemed a district to keep Black residents from moving north of 27th Street.
The highway project, Congressman Emannuel Cleaver says in the film, “ripped the community apart.” Indeed, before the resistance led by D.A. Holmes, the development displaced 10,000 residents and destroyed 500,000 homes. PBC’s graceful structure remains, its back wall turned to Highway71.
Uncertainty, the sibling of chaos, is best challenged by staying vigilant. “Storytelling,” Giles Wiggins says, “has been a very effective tool.”
“As a PBS member station,” Phillips says, “Kansas City PBS airs PBS programming and partners with PBS on various initiatives. However, we make policy decisions, such as supporting a DEI program, independently. We are currently in the early stages of understanding the implications of recent executive orders and are working with advisors and our staff and board to ensure we can continue to serve the community effectively. We have not made any changes to Kansas City PBS policies or programs.”
For a full schedule and free tickets to Reel Black Film Fest, presented by Kansas City PBS, visit www.kansascitypbs.org/reelblack/.
