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The Humanities Research Center, Center for African and African American Studies, and the History Department at Rice University are presenting “Beaumont’s Black History – In Moving Pictures” on Thursday, February 22nd at Rice Cinema, 6100 Main Street, Sewell Hall Room 301 in Houston at 7:00 pm. 

The history of Beaumont’s Black community has been introduced to audiences across the globe via content created by the faculty, students, staff, and alumni of the Lamar University Department of Communication and Media. Through an award-winning historical fiction short film “The Example,” inspired by the 1943 Beaumont Race Riot and “They Will Talk About Us: The Charlton-Pollard Story, an award-winning documentary about the oldest neighborhood in Beaumont, viewers have gained insight via the visual medium that never existed previously about African Americans in Southeast Texas.

View a trailer for “Beaumont’s Black History – In Moving Pictures”

Content creator Gordon S. Williams, who was the writer and a producer on both projects, will be in attendance to share insight on the inspiration for the films and discuss various themes of the work.

“For the filmmakers of this project, having the chance to screen these pieces at this prestigious academic institution gives a new level of gravitas to the importance of this history and the creative work.     

Personally, over twenty-five years ago, I was attending workshops at Rice Cinema hoping to have the opportunity to tell stories in a visual medium, now I will have the chance to screen work at the same entity.” Gordon says.

Williams is the Lamar University Television Studio Operations Manager and adjunct instructor for LUTV News. He is an award-winning content creator whose projects have screened at over seventy film festivals and earned distribution deals from entities such as Amazon Video and Shorts International. In June, Gordon was awarded a Special Congressional Recognition by United States Representative Brian Babin for his work in sharing Beaumont’s history and his decades of developing content creators at Lamar University.

Lamar University Department of Communication and Media chair Dr. Nicki Michalski feels this is an important and inspirational accomplishment for content creators in the department and Southeast Texas.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for our students. They get experience on a real set and can take those skills with them as they move out into the film community. In addition, this project sheds light on events that are continuing to shape the existence of everyone in this area, even while many people have little to no awareness of those events.” Michalski says.

The“Beaumont’s Black History – In Moving Pictures” presentation is recognized through the efforts of Rice University history graduate student, Dionne Babineaux, whose passions lie in learning and sharing the histories of Texas.

“Surfacing our undertold stories through different mediums, like the “Beaumont’s Black History – In Moving Pictures” project, while engaging and challenging broader audiences is the reason why I study history.” Babineaux states.

For more information on the presentation, contact Dionne Babineaux at info@undertoldtexas.org.