The Center for the Study of Southern Culture will host a documentary film screening of “Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power” March 19 at 6 p.m. in the Meek Hall Auditorium, followed by a Q&A session with the film’s director Sam Pollard.

Using archival footage, the film details the citizens and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) activists who fought for voting rights and Black Power in Lowndes County, Ala. 

Pollard, an Emmy award-winning filmmaker, graduated from Baruch College in 1973 and built a career in editing, directing, producing and screenwriting for films. 

Associate Director for Programs Afton Thomas described the parallels between the documentary’s story and current racial issues.

“It’s a film that is using archival footage and talking with individuals who are later in age who are looking back on a time of activism and the struggle for the right to vote,” Thomas said. “I think looking back helps us to be able to look forward and plan for or at least see some parallels or some differences in issues that plague us today.” 

This particular SouthTalk event is a part of the visiting documentarian series, a learning opportunity within the Master of Fine Arts in Documentary Expression program offered through the Center for Southern Studies.

“Our visiting documentarian series is a perk of the MFA program, but we all reap the benefits,” Thomas said. “It has turned into a public event open to the community and campus, but it was thought of years ago as another opportunity for our MFA and our documentary-focused MFA students to interact and engage with documentarians doing the work that they hope to do one day.”

Students in the MFA program have the opportunity to individually meet with Pollard and other visiting documentarians to discuss their projects.

“It’s so that they can get other eyes on their work, get other opinions on their work,” Thomas said. “It’s important for (students) to get insight from someone else other than their professor.”