‘365’ explores African American experience the year ‘round

Before she died in November, consumate community woman Elaine Comegys, right, shown here with Barbara Fleming, came up with the idea of a black film festival to jump start conversations about race relations. The Elaine Comegys Black Film Festival will kick off with a celebration Saturday, Feb. 2, at 2:45 p.m. at the Senior Center, followed by a screening of the first film, ‘Freedom on My Mind,’ at 4 p.m. at the Little Art.

By Lauren Heaton

February is Black History Month. For the entire month the nation’s citizens will be encouraged to celebrate, honor and remember the history and contributions of African Americans in various ways. But come March, are we supposed to stop thinking about issues related to blacks and people of different races? And might we forget what we learned about justice and equality until the following February rolls around to remind us?

According to a group of residents known as Project 365, there should be a way to talk about the African-American experience and by extension inclusiveness, cultural awareness and social justice all year long, to really digest their meaning and relevance today. With the Elaine Comegys Black Film Festival in February, the group is launching the first of a series of events aimed at sparking dialogue about issues that can be abstract and are sometimes uncomfortable to address.

“Our goal is not only to recognize Black History throughout the year but also to equip people with the skills that go beyond talk about racial issues,” said Karen Durgans, a member of Project 365 who also represents the First Baptist Church in Yellow Springs. “We wanted to challenge people to do more than look at issues but to address them.”

The 365 group doesn’t aim to “reinvent the wheel” but to be more of a clearing house organization that unites and adds to the many efforts the community is making to celebrate African Americans and multiculturalism, according to Project 365 member Joan Chappelle. In her personal view, the group’s effort should also stimulate the community’s desire to maintain a sense of the diversity that has given the village its unique character.

“We’ve always had a strong African American community in Yellow Springs, and we wouldn’t want it to shrink or die out as we look at growth and economic stability,” she said. “Diversity needs to remain on the front burner, and we need to come together to talk about it.”

But the ethnic character of the village has changed over the past several decades, according to Project 365 members, including Yellow Springs High School Principal John Gudgel. Village leaders speak of promoting diversity, but the community has yet to have a “courageous conversation about race,” Gudgel said, quoting the title of the book on education by Glenn Eric Singleton. “But we as a village need to dialogue about race, racism and what this means.”

The film festival was one of the ideas for sparking conversation that Project 365 member Elaine Comegys had before she died unexpectedly in November. Comegys, a social work educator and committed community person, inspired the group to “be the community we want to see happen,” and according to Chappelle, the films in the series and the discussions that follow will hopefully help “get us there.”

Four of the films, chosen by Project 365 members with help from local filmmakers Steve Bognar and Julia Reichert as well as former Antioch College professor Steve Schwerner, will be shown on Saturdays at 4 p.m. at the Little Art Theatre. They include Freedom on My Mind on Feb. 2; The Black Press: Soldiers without Swords on Feb. 9; Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes on Feb. 16; and Sisters in Cinema on Feb. 23. Two additional films chosen by staff members of the Coretta Scott King Center will be shown at the center at 7 p.m. and include Daughters of the Dusk on Thursday, Feb. 7, and Eyes on the Prize, Episode Four: “No Easy Walk” on Tuesday, Feb. 12.

The first film, Freedom on My Mind, is about the summer of 1964 in Mississippi and the activist spirit of the 1960s that should help to inform the social justice work of many younger people today, Chappelle said. If there is one thing the film shows, said Schwerner, who will facilitate the discussion following the film, it’s that “the Civil Rights movement was led not by one or two great leaders but by lots of people, many of whose names we’ll never know,” he said. “You don’t need somebody famous to make social change.”

Black Press is a look at how the African American community survived and organized under centuries of oppression. The discussion after will be led by Felix Hoover, a writer from Columbus who is also Elaine Comegys’ nephew. The next film might appeal to the younger generation, as Hip-Hop, whose discussion will be lead by Central State professor Jawara Giddings, explores gender roles, violence and sexuality in hip-hop and rap music with interviews of musicians such as Mos Def, Busta Rhymes and Russell Simmons.

Yvonne Welbon, who produced Sisters in Cinema, will appear at the last event to talk about the contribution of black women filmmakers in the early part of the 20th century. Antioch student Jay Casale will facilitate discussions following both films at the CSK Center.

The film festival, which received funding from the Yellow Springs Community Foundation, is just the beginning of what Project 365 hopes will be a consistent effort to gather, discuss and keep the ideas of racism, classism, gender, age and other types of discrimination fresh in the minds of local residents and especially the youth. The next scheduled event is a performance of The Last Poets, a group of New York poets and musicians who arose during the Civil Rights movement to raise political consciousness. The spoken word performance will take place on Feb. 16 at 7 p.m. at Kelly Hall.

A group oriented toward being inclusive, the members of Project 365 include First Baptist Church Interim Pastor Vurn Mullins, Gudgel, Human Relations Commission members Chappelle and Don Wallis, CSK Center Director Dana Patterson and outreach coordinator Menelek Alexander, AACW President Faith Patterson, Village Council member John Booth, and residents Alyce Earl Jenkins, Jocelyn Robinson, Durgans and Robin Jordan-Henry.

Other future plans for Project 365 include Jordan-Henry’s idea for a series of interviews documenting on film the economic contribution of African American families in Yellow Springs. Robinson also has an interest in organizing a visioning process to define the group’s purpose in relation to the community’s needs and interests. And at the high school and McKinney, Gudgel plans to hold the next all-school Pulse meeting on evaluating the attitudes toward women and minorities in pop culture and how that translates here in the village.

Project 365 members hope that through their events they will eventually reach out to all villagers and engage them in conversations that will bring about greater understanding for better community solutions, Chappelle said. Though the village may call itself diverse, Schwerner still feels there is a need to explore the meaning of the word.

“In my judgement, the U.S. isn’t a fully integrated society, and as long as it isn’t, I think there’s a real need for various people to understand the contributions of various groups,” Schwerner said. “The more that gets exposed to the public, the richer we are for it.”

Contact: lheaton@ysnews.com