Atlanta, GA – On Thursday, September 28, 2017, at 5:30 p.m., Pulitzer Prize-winning author Douglas Blackmon and Rose Scott, WABE’s host of “A Closer Look,” will be at the Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library to discuss Blackmon’s new documentary film, The Harvest.

In The Harvest, Blackmon and Academy Award-winning filmmaker Sam Pollard tell the story of the struggle to integrate public schools in one small Mississippi Delta town as seen through the eyes of black and white children born at the height of the civil rights movement, and the transformation they and all of America would undergo over the next 50 years. Using archival film and footage shot over the past two decades, The Harvest chronicles the students’ lives into adulthood and their emergence today as leaders of their communities. Blackmon’s interest in writing The Harvest stems from his deep connection with this time, as he was among the initial group of children in Mississippi to attend racially integrated schools. For many—like Blackmon—the benefits of integration were enormous, but within two decades, most public schools are once again deeply segregated. The Harvest explores this fundamental paradox of modern American life—how a society that so widely defeated legally mandated segregation and individual racism, at the same time so failed in building the diverse, interwoven, empathetic communities in which the vast majority of Americans say they want to live.

Blackmon won the Pulitzer Prize for his book, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II, and was co-executive producer of the documentary film based on the book. An award winning journalist, Blackmon was a bureau chief and senior national correspondent at The Wall Street Journal. Currently, he is the host and executive producer of American Forum, a weekly public affairs program broadcasted on PBS stations across the U.S.

“We are honored to have Douglas Blackmon and Rose Scott at our library to talk about Blackmon’s documentary film, The Harvest, and to engage the audience in discussion about the struggle for school integration and its impact on the quest for diversity today,” said Library CEO Loretta Parham.

This program is co-sponsored by Georgia Humanities and The Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library and will take place in the AUC Woodruff Library Virginia Lacey Jones Exhibition Hall, 111 James P. Brawley Drive SW, Atlanta, GA 30314. The event is free and open to the public.

About the Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library

The Atlanta University Center (AUC) Woodruff Library is a member of one of the nation’s oldest and largest consortiums of historically black colleges and universities, which includes Clark Atlanta University, the Interdenominational Theological Center, Morehouse College and Spelman College. As the intellectual center of this prestigious, academic community, the Library strives to accomplish its mission of providing the highest level of information resources and services in support of student and faculty success and the cultural preservation of the AUC. In addition to the aesthetic benefits of this state-of-the-art facility, the Library has evolved into a model repository of information resources and a front runner in the innovative delivery of those resources. The AUC Woodruff Library is the winner of the 2016 Excellence in Academic Libraries Award in the university category from the Association of Collegiate and Research Libraries (ACRL). Library CEO Loretta Parham was named the ACRL 2017 Academic/Research Librarian of the Year. Learn more at www.auctr.edu.

About Georgia Humanities

Georgia Humanities is an independent, nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities serving the people of Georgia. In a spirit of collaboration, Georgia Humanities gathers, preserves, and shares our state’s distinctive stories through a range of cultural and educational programs and resources. Our work nurtures Georgians’ understanding of ourselves and of our state’s place in history and in the world, and it fosters thoughtful and engaged citizenship. For more information, please visit GeorgiaHumanities.org.