The Daily Bulletin

Please join the Beyond Boundaries Screening and Discussion Series for a presentation of the documentary Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power (2022) on Thursday, February 15, at 7:00 p.m. in the Burchfield Penney Art Center's Tower Auditorium. A panel discussion on voting rights, moderated by John Torrey, assistant professor of philosophy and Africana studies, will follow the film.

The passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 represented not the culmination of the Civil Rights Movement but the beginning of a new, crucial chapter. Nowhere was this next battle better epitomized than in Lowndes County, Alabama, a rural, impoverished town with a vicious history of racist terrorism. In a town that was 80 percent Black but had zero Black voters, laws were just paper without power. This isn’t a story of hope but of action. Through first-person accounts and searing archival footage, this documentary tells the story of the local movement and young Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizers who fought not just for voting rights but for Black power in Lowndes County.

Watch the trailer.

Beyond Boundaries is sponsored by the Center for Social Justice, the Equity and Campus Diversity Office, the Communication Department, and the Burchfield Penney Art Center. This screening is free and open to the public. The series is curated by Ruth Goldman and Meg Knowles, associate professors of communication.