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Many Black “leaders” decry the lack of massive support when calls go out for community action. They wonder why outrage is not spontaneous and ubiquitous. Black leaders actually vocalize their wonder when the masses go about their business as if nothing is going on.
What most Black leaders miss are these facts: the leaders are Black men, the issues revolve around Black males, those expected to engage in community action are Black women, and issues related to the well-being of Black women and children are ignored.
Under normal circumstances, male leadership stands for the well-being of the entire community- men, women and children. In the Black community, male leadership are generally concerned only with themselves, and other males. The well-being of women and children, in the community and the home, do not seem to be of paramount concern. The low rates of stable marriages among Blacks, and the doubling of Black children in single-parent families (from 35% in the 1960’s to 70% at the beginning of the 21st century) are two examples of the absence of “operational unity” in the Black community.
During the Civil Rights Movement, with Black men in leadership roles, Black women and children were the backbone. Rosa Parks’ courageous defiance was the spark of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Black children were at the center of integrating Little Rock High School. Black  male leadership strategically used Black children as fodder for water cannons, dogs and filling jail cells during Civil Rights marches. What did Black women and children get for their efforts? Dismissed.
Years of sustained action  culminated with the August 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom which led to the enactment of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the National Voting Rights Act in 1965. The March on Washington was organized by A. Phillip Randolph (international president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters), Whitney Young (president of the National Urban League), Roy Wilkins (president of the NAACP), James Farmer (president of the Congress of Racial Equality), John Lewis (president of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King (president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference) and Bayard Rustin (organizer of the first Freedom Rides).
Black women played the central role in a wide variety of Civil Rights organizations and actions, including Daisy Bates (president of Little Rock NAACP who recruited the Little Rock 9), Pauli Murray (lawyer and feminist who had staged the first sit-in at a Washington restaurant during World War II), Dorothy Height (president of the National Council of Negro Women), Diane Nash (student leader and organizer of the Freedom Riders in the South), Jo Ann Robinson (college teacher who worked with a group of middle-class Black women to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott), Ella Baker (acting director of King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, advisor for Black college students who formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and Rosa Parks (long time activist and catalyst for the Montgomery Bus Boycott). Despite the sacrifices of these and other Black women, the organizers of the March on Washington refused to let even one Black woman speak.
Black women thought the Civil Rights Movement included our well-being, in spite of Black men marching with large placards tied to their torsos declaring in huge black lettering, “I AM A MAN.” Black women thought we were included when we got arrested at protest marches side by side with Black men. It was our children who were strategically used as human targets for water hoses. But when Stokely Carmichael (who appropriated the term “Black Power_” from Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.) was asked the role of the  Black woman in the movement, he slipped up and honestly (from his point of view) retorted, “On her back.”
Popular culture was sometimes not much better. A classic Parliament Funkadelic line: “Stupid Jill forgot her pill, and now they have a son,” as if Jack, who had no concern for the well-being of Jill or his son, was not responsible for the situation he created. Blaxploitation movies glorified “pimpin” and being a “playa” at the expense of Black women, nurtured children and stable families. Gangsta rap is no better when it tells the world Black women ain’t nothin’ but hos, not wives.
Last season’s Survivor: Cook Island graphically illustrated how casually Black female opinion is dismissed. The 16 participants were divided into 4 teams- Black, white, Asian and Latino. The Black team members, Sekou, Nathan, Sephanie and Sundra were asked to make a decision. Without thinking, Sekou grabbed Nathan’s shoulder, stepped forward and conferred for a decision. Left out of the team process, Stephanie and Sundra looked at Sekou like he was stupid. Later, it was no surprise that Sekou was voted out. Sekou’s analysis of the vote was that the team made a mistake by voting him, their leader, out. It never occurred to Sekou that a true leader takes into account the gifts and opinions  all team members bring, including Black women.
In spite of this and other increasingly public and private indignities, our love for Black men has kept hope alive.
For decades, Black women have been the backbone of community action. Interestingly, when many of these same women (who are members of any number of community groups) ask for development of  community action around issues related to the well-being of Black women and children, they are told they are being “divisive”. Many Black women, not wanting to be “divisive”, have dropped  their inquiries and calls for action. This has been going on for years.
Who are really the “divisive” ones? When Black male  leadership chooses “Black issues”, why are they (with few exceptions) limited to support for Black male challenges with the criminal justice system? Could it be that addressing the well-being of Black women and children would require Black men to look at and amend their selfish male privilege instead of myopically focusing on white racism?  The greatest risk to the well-being of Black women and children is not racism or police brutality. The greatest risk to the well-being of Black women and children is the behavior and attitudes of Black men.  Consider, for example, the large numbers of Black children on welfare and the family and community instability attendant with Black women begging for food stamps to feed Black men’s children as if it is a glamorous lifestyle. Why has no Black male leader called for a rally at the welfare center demanding that Black men get their children off welfare? Why has no Black male leader held a march in support of children who feel threatened when they are sexually harassed while walking to school?
There are a few glimmers of hope. Tamika Mallory has led the National Action Network’s Decency Initiative in challenging denigrating lyrics in Hip-Hop.  Girls For Gender Equity, under the leadership of JoAnn Smith, gives young teens tools to deal with street sexual harassment. Kevin Powell has been hosting monthly men’s meetings after his successful Black and Male in America conference. Byron Hurt produced Beyond Beats and Rhymes, a documentary look at misogyny in popular Black music. Taharka Robinson recently organized a march against domestic violence.
In the meantime, Black women need to speak up, even at the risk of being called “divisive” by “divisive” male leadership. The survival of the Black community is at stake.

By Linda Armstrong
2007: The Year in Black Theatre
The year 2007 was quite amazing for Black Theatre. We saw the late August Wilson’s final play in his 10-play series chronicling Black life in America, presented at the Cort Theatre on Broadway. Radio Golf was an amazing production to behold, with an outstanding African-American cast.
This past year was also phenomenal because it was the important 35th Anniversary of the AUDELCO Awards. This organization recognizes the work and accomplishments of Blacks in Theatre and Black Theatre companies. AUDELCO is an audience development non profit group that bestows VIV Awards on actors, directors, playwrights and all those associated with Black theater productions that are off-Broadway. This organization not only celebrated its landmark 35th Anniversary, but shared the spotlight with several other organizations that have been around for at least 35 years, including the H.A.D.L.E.Y. Players, the Billie Holiday Theatre, the Black Spectrum Theatre, the Negro Ensemble Company,  the Frank Silvera Writer’s Workshop, the Nuyorican Poet’s Caf‚, New Federal Theatre, Richard Allen Center for Culture & Art (RACCA), AMAS Musical Theatre, National Black Theatre, and Roger Furman New Heritage Theatre.
There have been some delightful productions in 2007, by Black Theatre companies. One production that had a short run but a huge positive message about African-American men was Black Man Rising presented by the National Black Theatre. Audiences enjoyed a lot of laughs at the Billie Holiday Theatre in Brooklyn while watching Sassy Mamas and were entertained by The Desire. The Black Spectrum Theatre in Queens had Five Guys Named Moe. New Federal Theatre did Moon Over A Rainbow Shawl. Classical Theatre of Harlem did an intense production of Electra. Nilaja Sun continued to do her production of No Child, a piece she wrote to expose the issues in the New York City Public School System.
When I heard that Fantasia Barrino was going to play Celie in The Color Purple I didn’t know what to expect, but she easily proved herself to me and to anyone else, that she was not only able to be Celie, but was able to make the role her own. Her performance was so impressive it won her a Theatre World Award.
Imagine being a playwright and having your work done in one theater. What a thrill that must be, so Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, Suzan-Lori Parks, must have been beside herself in 2007 when over 300 of her plays were performed in theaters around the country in a project called “365 Days/365 Plays” and it was just what its title said, a play a day.
2007 was a year that saw positive things for David Lamb, the writer of Platanos & Collard Greens not only is the show in its fifth year but it was joined in December by Auction Block to Hip Hop. In January, both plays can be seen at Florence Guild Hall on E. 59th Street.
Productions that showcased the talents of some marvelous Black performers included 110 In The Shade, which had Audra McDonald; A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Keith David in a lead role; Ella Joyce in her one-woman show, The Mother of the Civil Rights Movement; Glynn Turman in his one-man show, The Movin’ Man and Melba Moore in her show Sweet Songs of My Soul. Lisa Gay Hamilton was on stage in Ohio State Murders. Andre De Shields had everyone captivated and amused as he starred in the Classical Theatre of Harlem musical production of Black Nativity.
A very sad note to 2007 was the passing of Larry Leon Hamlin, the founder of the National Black Theatre Festival that is held in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Hamlin founded the festival to make sure that Black Theatre professionals get their due.
There are several shows to watch out for in 2008: Cat On A Hot Tin Roof is going to be presented on Broadway in a landmark all-Black production featuring James Earl Jones, Phylicia Rashad, Terrence Howard and Anika Noni Rose and if that wasn’t awesome enough, the show is being directed by Debbie Allen. The Disney production of The Little Mermaid is going to showcase the talents of quite a few African-Americans, such as Norm Lewis. While The Color Purple will lose Fantasia, it will gain Chaka Khan and Bebe Winans in the roles of Sophia and Harpo.
Whatever you do in 2008, make sure that you support Black Theatre Groups and Blacks in productions.

Many Black “leaders” decry the lack of massive support when calls go out for community action. They wonder why outrage is not spontaneous and ubiquitous. Black leaders actually vocalize their wonder when the masses go about their business as if nothing is going on.
What most Black leaders miss are these facts: the leaders are Black men, the issues revolve around Black males, those expected to engage in community action are Black women, and issues related to the well-being of Black women and children are ignored.
Under normal circumstances, male leadership stands for the well-being of the entire community- men, women and children. In the Black community, male leadership are generally concerned only with themselves, and other males. The well-being of women and children, in the community and the home, do not seem to be of paramount concern. The low rates of stable marriages among Blacks, and the doubling of Black children in single-parent families (from 35% in the 1960’s to 70% at the beginning of the 21st century) are two examples of the absence of “operational unity” in the Black community.
During the Civil Rights Movement, with Black men in leadership roles, Black women and children were the backbone. Rosa Parks’ courageous defiance was the spark of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Black children were at the center of integrating Little Rock High School. Black  male leadership strategically used Black children as fodder for water cannons, dogs and filling jail cells during Civil Rights marches. What did Black women and children get for their efforts? Dismissed.
Years of sustained action  culminated with the August 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom which led to the enactment of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the National Voting Rights Act in 1965. The March on Washington was organized by A. Phillip Randolph (international president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters), Whitney Young (president of the National Urban League), Roy Wilkins (president of the NAACP), James Farmer (president of the Congress of Racial Equality), John Lewis (president of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King (president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference) and Bayard Rustin (organizer of the first Freedom Rides).
Black women played the central role in a wide variety of Civil Rights organizations and actions, including Daisy Bates (president of Little Rock NAACP who recruited the Little Rock 9), Pauli Murray (lawyer and feminist who had staged the first sit-in at a Washington restaurant during World War II), Dorothy Height (president of the National Council of Negro Women), Diane Nash (student leader and organizer of the Freedom Riders in the South), Jo Ann Robinson (college teacher who worked with a group of middle-class Black women to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott), Ella Baker (acting director of King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, advisor for Black college students who formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and Rosa Parks (long time activist and catalyst for the Montgomery Bus Boycott). Despite the sacrifices of these and other Black women, the organizers of the March on Washington refused to let even one Black woman speak.
Black women thought the Civil Rights Movement included our well-being, in spite of Black men marching with large placards tied to their torsos declaring in huge black lettering, “I AM A MAN.” Black women thought we were included when we got arrested at protest marches side by side with Black men. It was our children who were strategically used as human targets for water hoses. But when Stokely Carmichael (who appropriated the term “Black Power_” from Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.) was asked the role of the  Black woman in the movement, he slipped up and honestly (from his point of view) retorted, “On her back.”
Popular culture was sometimes not much better. A classic Parliament Funkadelic line: “Stupid Jill forgot her pill, and now they have a son,” as if Jack, who had no concern for the well-being of Jill or his son, was not responsible for the situation he created. Blaxploitation movies glorified “pimpin” and being a “playa” at the expense of Black women, nurtured children and stable families. Gangsta rap is no better when it tells the world Black women ain’t nothin’ but hos, not wives.
Last season’s Survivor: Cook Island graphically illustrated how casually Black female opinion is dismissed. The 16 participants were divided into 4 teams- Black, white, Asian and Latino. The Black team members, Sekou, Nathan, Sephanie and Sundra were asked to make a decision. Without thinking, Sekou grabbed Nathan’s shoulder, stepped forward and conferred for a decision. Left out of the team process, Stephanie and Sundra looked at Sekou like he was stupid. Later, it was no surprise that Sekou was voted out. Sekou’s analysis of the vote was that the team made a mistake by voting him, their leader, out. It never occurred to Sekou that a true leader takes into account the gifts and opinions  all team members bring, including Black women.
In spite of this and other increasingly public and private indignities, our love for Black men has kept hope alive.
For decades, Black women have been the backbone of community action. Interestingly, when many of these same women (who are members of any number of community groups) ask for development of  community action around issues related to the well-being of Black women and children, they are told they are being “divisive”. Many Black women, not wanting to be “divisive”, have dropped  their inquiries and calls for action. This has been going on for years.
Who are really the “divisive” ones? When Black male  leadership chooses “Black issues”, why are they (with few exceptions) limited to support for Black male challenges with the criminal justice system? Could it be that addressing the well-being of Black women and children would require Black men to look at and amend their selfish male privilege instead of myopically focusing on white racism?  The greatest risk to the well-being of Black women and children is not racism or police brutality. The greatest risk to the well-being of Black women and children is the behavior and attitudes of Black men.  Consider, for example, the large numbers of Black children on welfare and the family and community instability attendant with Black women begging for food stamps to feed Black men’s children as if it is a glamorous lifestyle. Why has no Black male leader called for a rally at the welfare center demanding that Black men get their children off welfare? Why has no Black male leader held a march in support of children who feel threatened when they are sexually harassed while walking to school?
There are a few glimmers of hope. Tamika Mallory has led the National Action Network’s Decency Initiative in challenging denigrating lyrics in Hip-Hop.  Girls For Gender Equity, under the leadership of JoAnn Smith, gives young teens tools to deal with street sexual harassment. Kevin Powell has been hosting monthly men’s meetings after his successful Black and Male in America conference. Byron Hurt produced Beyond Beats and Rhymes, a documentary look at misogyny in popular Black music. Taharka Robinson recently organized a march against domestic violence.
In the meantime, Black women need to speak up, even at the risk of being called “divisive” by “divisive” male leadership. The survival of the Black community is at stake.

By Kara I. Stevens
You did everything that you were supposed to do. College degree. Good job. Benefits. Yet it is still difficult for you to get a handle on your finances.  Lately, you might have found yourself asking, “What is at the root my money problems?” and “What can solve them?” Luckily, the answer to both questions is “You!”
The impulse buys, lack of saving, frequent trips to the ATM, unwise loans, late payments, postponed meetings with your financial advisor, and other financial mishaps can directly be attributed to your underlying and subconscious values, understanding, and beliefs about money. The good news is that you can redefine your money mindset through these good old-fashioned soul-searching guidelines and wealth accumulation tips.
1.  Figure out why you spend. The survival of a capitalist economy relies on high levels of consumption. Big business relies on the media to assist in achieving this end.  Newspapers, magazines, television, radio bombard consumers with images of products, services, and goods in an effort to convince them that they would be happier, more interesting, smarter, and sexier once they purchase, invest, and consume. Essentially, the media attempt to reprogram the average consumer to believe that material items will make them complete and at peace.
So before you go on your next shopping spree, here are some questions to ask yourself about your sense of worth as it related to the acquisition of material items:
1.    Am I just as good as (person’s name) because he/she can (or seems) like she/he can afford (material item)
2.    Do I shop because I think things (clothes/electronics/music) will make the people that I want to attract like me more?
3.    Do I feel empty when I can’t buy something new or expensive?
4.    Does buying expensive things make me feel better than others that can’t afford to buy those things?
2. Make it a group effort. Tell your closest friends about your financial recovery plans and get them involved. You are probably not the only one going through this transition and the support of like-minded people will optimize your chances of successfully attaining your goals.
3. Live at home for as long as you can. Are you eager to move out to show (or convince) your friends that you have made it by getting your own place? Instead of paying rent or splitting it in thirds with roommates, stay at home until you have enough saved to afford to purchase your own residence. Those eager to move out without a clear financial plan, often end up moving back home.
This concept is not new to the black community. It is part of our history. Throughout the Caribbean and the Americas, newly-freed enslaved Africans formed communities, collectives, and extended living kinships as a way to pool resources, reduce expenses, share advice, and protect one another from external threats. This is a timeless system and approach.
4.  Rethink the big wedding celebration for your 5th anniversary, not your first. This is not to say that being newly married is not something to celebrate, because it is. However, what is greater than being happily married for one year is being married for five years and even better, 10 or 20 years. Too many young couples go into debt preparing themselves for one day and do not plan for the everyday financial trials of martial partnership. At least with this approach, there is something to look forward to every 5 years and you’ll be more in a financial position to pay for it.
5.  Prioritize your debt.  Open up the bills and get a reality check.  See how much you really owe. It may seem overwhelming, but this is the first and most important step in getting you toward financial freedom.
After that, start paying. The two most popular strategies for tackling debt are the “high-interest” approach and the “smallest balance” approach. One is no better than the other. Use whichever makes you feel as if you are making the most progress toward your $0-balance dream. With the former, you pay your bills with the highest interest first. With the latter, you pay the bills with the smallest balance first.  Some prefer to pay off the highest balance first to get the most financially draining bill out of the way. Others chose to pay with the “smallest balance” approach because there is an immediate sense of accomplishment when one bill is completely accounted for.
6.  Figure out how much you are spending and create a monthly saving plan.  There is no way to get around it. Without a financial blueprint, that is, your financial plan, you will make little headway in securing your financial freedom. A basic budget begins with dividing your expenses into two broad categories: fixed expenditure (i.e. housing, transportation, food, insurance, tuition) and variable expenditure (i.e. standing nail/salon appointments, gym memberships, entertainment,). Determine which variable expenditures can be eliminated either temporarily or permanently until you have made some headway with paying off your outstanding debt.
7.  Create a FFF (Financial Freedom Fund) bucket. It is your choice. It could be an old vase, an old wastepaper basket, or a mini-trash can. Label it “My Financial Freedom Fund” Decorate it. Start by throwing all of your loose change in there at the end of each day. If you live in a big house, have a few these FFFs around high-traffic areas. (kitchens, bedrooms). When necessary, combine all of the money into the central FFF. After it has reached its capacity, redeem your coins for cash. You may not think so, but those pennies add up. This extra money could be used to pay off some debt or money that could be airmarked for a stock, bond, or mutual fund purchase.
8.  Get a hustle (or maybe even two or three).  Use your creativity to increase your income. If you are good at organizing, place an ad to clean-out garages, run errands, and organize closets and yard sales throughout the neighborhood. If you have a computer and can type pretty quickly, solicit editing/typing/revising gigs. Clean out your closets and put those items up for sale at a garage sale, E-bay, or on consignment at a local second-hand store. Good with pets and plants? Walk and water them for a fee!
9.  Go shopping in your closets before you make your way to the mall. If you have a problem with shopping and are thinking that you need a new black pair of slacks or a 2-inch pump, check your closets. You’ve probably bought them. (maybe even twice.) If not, check in your best friend’s closet.
10.  Pick up a book and empower yourself about money (or borrow it from the library).  Read and internalize straightforward, practical advice from African-American personal finance experts like Michele Singletary, Lynette Khalfani, and Glenda Bridgforth. These women are present-day pioneers in counseling and educating the black community about their financial hygiene.

1943-2007
St. Clair Bourne was a passionate and brilliant filmmaker, an organizer and a race man.
Saint prospered in the tough world of a principled documentarian of the African-American experience with his gentlemanly intelligence and his love for his people.
Saint had a lot more stories to tell and we will miss him.
St. Clair Bourne was born in Harlem on February 16, 1943, and was raised and educated in Brooklyn, New York in his early years. He entered Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. after graduating from Xavier High School in New York and was aiming for a career in the Foreign Service Diplomatic Corps. But the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s got in the way when he was arrested during a sit-in in Arlington, Virginia in his junior year and left school.
Suddenly adrift, he joined the Peace Corps and served as a volunteer in Peru for two years, helping to publish a local newspaper that became a national award-winning journal during his tenure. Word of the activist reached Ebony magazine, resulting in a ten-page spread on Bourne and he became something of a Peace Corps celebrity. When his two-year term ended, he entered Syracuse University on a work-study scholarship program, earning a dual degree in journalism and political science while teaching Peace Corps trainees. He also started the Student African-American Society, which is now a campus-affiliated student organization.
After graduating in 1967, Bourne won a scholarship to Columbia University Graduate School of the Arts to study filmmaking.  Again, he became politically involved with the radical Black Student Movement and was among those arrested for taking over the administration building on the campus in 1968. Although this got him expelled again from school, one of his professors recommended him to the executive producer of a new series for public television called Black Journal, the first Black public affairs series in America. Within two weeks after leaving school (and an overnight stay in jail for his campus activities), Bourne was hired as an associate producer.  Five months later, he was promoted to a full Producer and spent the next three years making films for that series, helping the staff win an Emmy Award and winning the John Russworm Citation for himself for excellence in broadcasting.
Seeking more creative freedom, Bourne left Black Journal in 1971 and formed CHAMBA, his production company. Soon, four colleagues from the series followed him out the door and CHAMBA became a collective, working on a variety of advocacy-oriented projects. Two years later, his partners left for more conventional film jobs and Bourne was on his own.  He was then commissioned by a group of Black ministers to create a film on the African-American religious experience and the result was a narrative documentary, Let The Church Say Amen!  It was an immediate success, winning festival screenings, prizes, critical and popular acclaim. It became the first Black-produced film to be shown at the prestigious New “American Filmmakers” series at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York City, one of the major independent film showcases.
In 1975, Bourne was invited to come as a guest lecturer in the UCLA Film Department and so moved to Los Angeles. At the same time, he was named the North American Film Coordinator for the upcoming Festival of African Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in Lagos, Nigeria, and thus traveled frequently between classes. After his academic appointment was completed, he stayed in Los Angeles, made three more documentaries for KCET-TV, the local PBS station, became a member of the Los Angeles Film Exposition (FILMEX) selection committee and worked with the American Film Institute’s Independent Filmmaker Program as a judge. He was also signed by producer Norman Lear to develop and produce Bourne’s first feature film, a project that never came to fruition because the screenplay was considered too radical.
Bourne spent five years in Los Angeles before he decided that the kind of work he wanted to do was best done in New York at that time. He returned there in 1980 and almost immediately signed to produce and direct Big City Blues, a film on the contemporary Blues scene in Chicago for CBS. Directly on the heels of that production, he produced a major segment of an NBC WHITE PAPER SPECIAL, “AMERICA: BLACK AND WHITE” in 1981 and was the only independent producer on that network project. The film won the Monte Carlo TV Film Festival’s Best Documentary Award.
Bourne then returned to producing his own self-originated work and started a film of the radical Black poet/activist Amiri Baraka (also known as Leroi Jones). The result, In Motion: Amiri Baraka, was broadcast nationally to controversial but glowing reviews. On the last day of shooting on that project Bourne was told about a group of Black activists who were going to Belfast, Northern Ireland on a fact-finding tour. Within a month, he organized a crew, raised the necessary money and left to film the trip. That film, The Black And The Green, has been screened internationally and gives a different perspective to that 800-year-old struggle.
Bourne remained busy. On The Boulevard, a short drama he developed for public television, is a bittersweet love story between two aspiring entertainers in Hollywood affected by economic pressure. Langston Hughes: The Dream Keeper a “narrative performance” documentary was commissioned for the PBS “Voices And Visions” series. Selected for the Berlin, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Hawaii Film Festivals, the film describes the life and times of America’s most beloved Black poet/writer. He completed two films for the National Geographic Society’s “Explorer” TV series: Gullah, about the impact of tourism on the African-based “Gullah” culture of the South Carolina Sea Island people; New Orleans Brass, about the brass street bands in New Orleans and Heritage of The Black West, an educational documentary about the role of African-Americans in the American West.
His acclaimed narrative documentary about the making of Spike Lee’s controversial feature Do The Right Thing, filmed in Brooklyn, was invited to the Munich, Hawaii, Los Angeles, Amiens France, the Festival Dei Popoli and Turino, Italy Film Festivals but even Bourne was surprised when his film was picked up by First Run Features distribution company and received a national theatrical release, something unusual then for a documentary. Bourne then produced two one-hour documentaries for a six-part BBC series with Catalyst TV, a London-based production company. Entitled “Will To Win”, the series explores the political impact of Black athletes on the international sports scene.
Bourne broke new ground as the director of John Henrik Clarke: A Great And Mighty Walk, a feature-length documentary about the respected historian and Pan-African activist. The executive producer and narrator is actor Wesley Snipes. The film has been invited to the Toronto, Carthage (Tunisia), Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso, Africa) and Sundance film festivals. He then was hired to direct Paul Robeson: Here I Stand! for the PBS “American Masters” series. He then produced a documentary about photo-journalist/filmmaker Gordon Parks for HBO, which garnered 3 Emmy nominations, followed by Melvin And Mario At Sundance, a documentary short he produced and directed about the Van Peebles father-and-son partnership at the Sundance Film Festival for the Sundance Channel. For the last three years, Bourne is shooting a documentary series on the rise, fall and legacy of the Black Panther Party and most recently started shooting a docu about Memphis-based veteran photographer Ernest Withers, whose work includes the assassination photos of Martin Luther King.
In addition to his own projects, St. Clair Bourne has been the executive producer for four documentary films. A Question Of Color, by Kathe Sandler, explores beauty standards and skin color discrimination within the Black community. The film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, had a two-week theatrical run at NYC’s Film Forum Cinema and was broadcast over the PBS network. Ben Brand and Jonathan Mednick’s Opposite Camps, a humorous and thought-provoking look at race relations, chronicles six weeks at a New England summer camp where white counselors and Black campers try to create a new community. Innocent Until Proven Guilty by Kirsten Johnson, a portrait of a young public defender in Washington, DC, James Forman, Jr., gives an insider’s perspective on the American criminal justice system as Forman struggles to help three of his juvenile clients turn their lives around. Twelve Disciples Of Nelson Mandela, by Thomas Allen Harris, is the latest film that Bourne has executive-produced. It had its world premier at the Toronto Film Festival, has been nominated for a Spirit Award and won Best Documentary at the LA Pan-African Film Festival.
Bourne was currently executive producing Visitors, a documentary by Turkish filmmaker Melis Birder about New York City women who visit their loved ones in upstate NY prisons each weekend.
In addition to his production experience, Bourne has designed and taught film courses at Cornell University and CCNY-Queens College, served as guest lecturer at UCLA’s Film Department and Yale University. He has given filmmaking seminars at various universities and media art centers. Invited by the Canadian Film Board, Bourne gave a weeklong seminar on documentary filmmaking for the Canadian Black Film/Video Network. In Summer 2006, he curated a special film program, Class in America for the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.
Although Bourne continued making documentaries, theatrical feature films were to play a larger role in his activities. He was developing two dramatic feature film projects: The Bride Price, a contemporary thriller set in Senegal about a romance between an African-American businessman and an African holy mans daughter, and The Visitor about an African Muslim filmmakers visit to an African-American counterpart when 9/11 erupts.
Overall, Bourne’s films concentrated on changing cultural and political trends, a theme he continued to explore in his work.