CJFF Presents: Black Lives in Alberta: Over a Century of Racial Injustice Continues

Physical Screening

VENUE : RIVER PARK CHURCH. 3818 14A ST. SW. CALGARY

When: November 20, 4:50 pm

Release Year: 2021

Runtime: 34m

Director(s): Jenna Bailey

Synopsis:

Black Lives in Alberta: Over a Century of Racial Injustice Continues tells the story of five generations of Black Albertans and their experiences of discrimination living on the Canadian Prairies. Descendants of a large wave of African American immigrants who moved to Alberta and Saskatchewan in the early 20th Century to escape racism and persecution in the United States candidly share their family histories and discuss how their racial identities have shaped their experiences of living in Alberta.

Deborah Dobbins, founder of Shiloh Centre for Multicultural Roots, worked in partnership with The Aspen Foundation, Dr. David Este of the University of Calgary, and Dr. Jenna Bailey of Bailey & Soda Films to create Black Lives in Alberta: Over a Century of Racial Injustice Continues.

It builds on the work of the documentary; We Are the Roots: Black Settlers and Their Experiences of Discrimination, shows how the original immigrants overcame adversity, resisted measures to exploit and control them and made significant contributions to Alberta’s society and culture.

Jenna Bailey is a best-selling author, multi-award winning oral historian and documentary filmmaker. Through her writing and filmmaking Jenna explores her fascination with the recent past. She connects with individual storytellers to help them to convey the important and moving details of their lives to the wider world.

Jenna is the Director of Bailey and Soda Films, a documentary film company. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Lethbridge, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Oral History and Tradition (COHT) at the University of Lethbridge, Canada. Jenna’s PhD in Contemporary History is from the University of Sussex.

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