DAY 5

4:30 PM EST
SESSION 7: Mediating Blackness: A Journalist's Roundtable
Although black migrations within and into the United States are nothing new, articulations of black diversity are receiving a surge in media attention. Black Americans are increasingly naming their transnational, multiethnic, and multilingual realities, among other identities. The journalists on this panel will explore the use of collective terminologies such as African American and black, and discuss how the multiplicity of news media, both written and social, is responding to diverse black perspectives.

• Zain Asher, CNN International
• Carl-Philippe Juste, Miami Herald Media Company
• Felice León, The Root
• Jeneé Osterheldt, The Boston Globe
• Moderator: Natalie Hopkinson, Howard University

• Cassandra Bromfield, filmmaker, Into My Life
• Roy Clovis, film editor, No Traveler Returns
• Julie Dash, filmmaker, Standing on the Scratchline
• Ellie Foumbie, filmmaker, No Traveler Returns
• Kavery Kaul, filmmaker, The Bengali: A Work in Progress Trailer
• Moderator: Michelle Materre, Creatively Speaking

• Standing at the Scratchline, by Julie Dash, 2016 (11 minutes) - The year 2016 marks a century since the beginning of the first Great Migration of African American families to the Philadelphia area at the start of World War I. Dash captures the stories of a people seeking refuge and freedom in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Working with Mother Bethel AME in Philadelphia, and Mother Emmanuel AME in Charleston, South Carolina, Dash creates a cinematic poem about returning to sacred spaces of departure and arrival.
• No Traveler Returns, by Ellie Foumbi, 2018 (12 minutes) - Migrating to the United States as a young black male can be a difficult process. For a young African immigrant, the adjustment can at times be overwhelming. This beautifully shot black- and-white film tells the story of one young man’s struggle to adapt to life in America, which eventually pushes him toward an existential crisis.
• The Bengali: A Work in Progress, by Kavery Kaul, 2020 (8-minute trailer) - An untold story of ties between South Asians and African Americans in the United States. In the early 1900s, an Indian Muslim man marries an African American Christian woman. A granddaughter of this vibrant cultural tangle travels to Bengali, India, in search of family a world apart—a remarkable quest of hope and fear, as she tackles deep divides of culture.
• Into My Life, by Cassandra Bromfield with Grace Remington, Sarah Keeling, and Ivana Hucíková, 2018 (15 minutes) - Since 1965, an African American mother-daughter filmmaking duo has chronicled their lives on 8-mm film. Into My Life pays tribute to their drive for self-preservation and self- representation, highlighting the memories, identities, and relationships housed within their archive. From Puerto Rico to Lindsay Park in South Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the women experience vast changes to the place they have made their home.