KERA and Dallas TRHT team up to document South Dallas’ civil rights legacy
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“Some people think the Civil Rights movement skipped over Dallas.”
“But the city, and South Dallas specifically, has had a long history of civil rights and social justice activism.”
These opening lines of “Recovering the Stories: South Dallas” sets the tone for the 9-minute documentary of our neighborhood’s history and how it “became a crucial battleground for Black empowerment.” It’s one of six short documentaries in a series recently released by Dallas public media station KERA, in partnership with Dallas Truth Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT).Another 10-minute documentary focuses on Fair Park. A vintage image of the iconic Texas Star ferris wheel is the screenshot, but the film zeroes in on the adjacent residential streets that are now covered in concrete as a Fair Park and State Fair of Texas parking lot and, of course, civil rights icon Juanita Craft.
The documentary describes Fair Park as “a site steeped in racial politics since its inception. Originally a symbol of cotton dominance, it became a battleground for civil rights.”
| Dallas TRHT executive director Jerry Hawkins narrates the series, and the organization hosted a viewing this week. Diane Ragsdale, Donald Payton, Rene Martinez and several other Dallas elders interviewed for the series attended, some dabbing at tears as they watched. Payton, a Dallas historian, said he saw images and film clips from Dallas’ past in the series that he had never seen before. Ragsdale, one of the original “Craft kids,” wanted to know how the films would be shared with Dallas youth, and KERA said they are working to build curriculum around it. In 2021 KERA participated in Dallas TRHT’s Racial Equity Now cohort. (Dallas Free Press participated in 2022.) The public media entity’s “commitment to serving and representing our North Texas community” includes “amplifying the voices of communities that have been historically marginalized and misrepresented.” Hawkins commended KERA chief relationship officer Sylvia Komatsu and series producer Kaycie Ellingson for their bravery in seeing through a project that addresses Dallas’ history honestly and lifts up stories of resilience from BIPOC communities. The films from “Recovering the Stories” will air on Thursday and Saturday nights on local PBS channel 13, and each 9- to 14-minute episode can be streamed on demand from KERA’s website. |
| Top: A scene from “Recovering the Stories: South Dallas,” created through a partnership between Dallas Truth Racial Healing and Transformation, and KERA. Above: A trailer for the “Recovering the Stories” series. |
What South Dallas said.
A collection of South Dallas quotes culled from other content. Content lacking neighborhood voices is noted with *. Content behind a paywall is noted with $.
“I’m here to figure out what we can do as residents to stop people from selling their homes because they can’t afford these ridiculous property taxes.”
—South Dallas resident Des Washington at a community meeting hosted by Builders of Hope to preview its anti-displacement toolkit. Dallas Free Press
“We are, in fact, in a crisis. There are not enough affordable units to meet the demand. Dallas is really not affordable to a lot of people.”
—Billy Lane, executive director of ICDC in Mill City, in response to a new City Council report showing fewer than a fifth of renters make the $100,000 annual salary required to buy the typical Dallas home. WFAA
“As our political system has become one of hate as opposed to love, it is taking me out of the middle and putting me in a Democratic box that I never wanted to be in.”
—Eva Minor Jones, Queen City Neighborhood Association president, in an editorial profiling voters “stuck in the middle” leading up to the Nov. 5 election. Dallas Morning News$
“Spectra thought we’d be little more than a marionette. And for five years, we pretty much were.”
—Veletta Forsythe Lill, Fair Park First board chair, on the nonprofit’s relationship with for-profit OVG (formerly Spectra) and a corresponding audit reporting $5.7 million in misspent funds. D Magazine*
This content originally was a newsletter Dallas Free Press emailed to insiders. To become one, sign up here for free.
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Keri Mitchell has spent 20+ years as a community journalist, including 15 years dedicated to community and civic journalism at Dallas’ Advocate magazines. She launched Dallas Free Press in early 2020 with the belief that all neighborhoods deserve reporting and storytelling that values their community and holds leaders accountable.
Mitchell says she is energized by “knowing our work is making an impact — listening to people, telling their stories with strong narratives paired with compelling data that leads to change. I also love spending time in our neighborhoods and with our neighbors, learning from them and working to determine how journalism can be part of the solution to their challenges.”
Mitchell is proud to be the winner of multiple awards during her journalism career including: Finalist in Magazine Feature Reporting (2018) and Finalist in Magazine Investigative Reporting (2017) from Hugh Aynesworth Excellence in Journalism, Best Feature Story (2011) from Texas Community Newspaper Association and Best Magazine Feature (2011) from Dallas Bar Association Philbin Awards.
Areas of Expertise:
local government, education, civic issues, investigative and enterprise reporting
Location Expertise:
Dallas, Texas
Official Title:
Founder + executive director
Email Address:
keri@dallasfreepress.com
