KU News Release

LAWRENCE — When the National Park Service officially opens its visitor center for the African Burial Ground National Monument in New York City on Saturday, Feb. 27, two University of Kansas faculty and two KU alumni will be among those credited for the center’s signature film.

Madison Davis Lacy, associate professor of film and media studies and four-time Emmy Award winner, wrote and produced a short film titled “Our Time At Last” for the monument that honors a sacred space in Manhattan: the burial grounds of the slaves who built New York.

Robert Hurst, assistant professor of film and media studies, worked with Lacy to produce sound for the film. Two KU alumni were on production crew. Eric E. Harnden, a spring 2006 film graduate from Wichita, was principal editor. Kristin M. Overton, a fall 2007 film graduate from Leawood, was associate production editor. Both had worked on the film as KU students and now are employed with Lacy’s Firethorn Productions offices in New York.

The visitor center is on the first floor of the Ted Weiss Federal Building, 290 Broadway. The memorial is at corner of Duane and Elk streets. Both sites are near Foley Square in lower Manhattan. The center includes a 40-seat theatre where Lacy’s film will help visitors grasp the history of the 17th and 18th century burial grounds that were rediscovered in 1991 during pre-construction work for a federal office building. The National Park Service notes that the rediscovery of an estimated 20,000 graves of free and enslaved Africans in a 6.6-acre plot is the single-most important, historic urban archaeological project undertaken in the United States.

Lacy imagined a slave girl burying her father in the 1700s as a focal point for his film. The reenactment draws visitors into the story of the thousands of Africans whose labor built the city.

The film is the third work that Lacy has produced for national museums in the past eight months. In each, he has written scripts and produced video designed to help museum visitors grasp the background for the exhibits.

A key element in Lacy’s films for museums is “the notion that people always want to see themselves reflected in the film. You have to force that notion as gently as you can — it’s really a suggestion. Once audiences see themselves in film, they are engaged,” he said.

He produced “A Complex Tapestry,” a film for the Greensboro, N.C., International Civil Rights Center and Museum that opened Feb. 1 with national acclaim. The opening commemorated the 50th anniversary of four young men whose courage to ask to be served at a Greensboro lunch counter became a catalyst in the U.S. civil rights movement.

“One truth prevails throughout,” Lacy said of his Greensboro script. “Ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things.”

Last fall, Lacy unveiled a film for the official opening of the August Wilson Center for African American Culture in Pittsburg, Pa. Named for the late Pulitzer-prize winning playwright who made Pittsburg his home, the state-of-the-art facility features a three-screen film experience for visitors as they enter. “They see themselves,” Lacy said of his film.

A gifted storyteller, Lacy loves history and has focused much of his career on telling the stories of the civil rights movement and African-American history. He won Emmys for “Beyond Tara: The Extraordinary Life of Hattie McDaniel,” “Free to Dance,” “Richard Wright — Black Boy” and “The Time Has Come” and “Back to the Movement,” two episodes of the eight-hour “Eyes on the Prize II” series chronicling the civil rights struggle.

His museum work also includes films for the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka; the Fort McHenry National Monument in Baltimore Harbor; and the Birmingham (Ala.) Civil Rights Institute.

His interest in civil rights history emerged in part from Lacy’s own experience as an African-American. He grew up in the south during segregation. As Washington State University graduate who excelled in journalism, he found a color barrier blocking his career plans in broadcasting. His writing talent made him a successful grant writer and scriptwriter, yet when seeking funding for film proposals that didn’t involve minorities, he found underwriters questioned his ability to cover topics beyond race. African-American history became his trademark.

Lacy regards his work, especially the museum films, as a service to the nation and to African-Americans.

“Beyond the social and educational purpose behind my films, there is a sense of leaving something behind,” he said.

He continues to make documentary films but notes that museum work may have a more lasting impact.

“Films for television are ephemeral. They’re up. They air. And they’re gone,” Lacy said. “With museums, over time, lots of audiences see your work. Those films can run every 15 or 20 minutes for years. And they can enhance public understanding of the African-American experience in ways in which broadcast often fails.”