"My Father's Name" Film Screening and Panel Discussion
17oct7:00 pm9:00 pm"My Father's Name" Film Screening and Panel Discussion
Event Details
The short documentary film
Event Details
The short documentary film “My Father’s Name” will be shown on Friday, October 17, at 7:00 pm at the Chapel of the Cross. A panel discussion with the filmmaker Susanna Styron will follow the film and light refreshments will be served. There is no cost to attend but registration is requested here. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. called this story of a woman discovering that her father participated in a lynching but was never named nor punished “a gripping and essential exploration of race, accountability, and the far-reaching consequences of family secrets.”
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. calls this short film “a gripping and essential exploration of race, accountability and the far-reaching consequences of family secrets.” David Dodson, one of the film’s producers, will moderate a panel discussion following the movie screening. Coffee and light refreshments will be served. This event is free but registration is required.
Years after Lee Ed Frazier’s death, his daughter Jan made a shocking discovery: as a young man her father had participated in a lynching. As she attempts to uncover the truth about what happened, Jan learns that this specific lynching was iconic in American history, because photos of it were the first ever to be published in a national publication. Both Time and Life magazines carried the story and the photos as they reported on the anti-lynching bill that was before Congress at that very moment.
Additionally, she realizes that no names of the lynchers were ever published. Even the photographer was protected by a cloak of agreed-upon anonymity. Shaken by this stark reflection of white privilege and the brutality it sought to minimize, Jan must now reckon with deeply conflicted feelings about the father she loved, find a way to hold her family accountable and face the dawning awareness of her own unconscious racism.
