For more than a decade, University of Virginia colleagues Kevin Jerome Everson, Commonwealth and Ruffin Foundation Distinguished Professor of Studio Art and Director of Studio Arts, and Claudrena N. Harold, Associate Dean for Social Sciences and Edward Stettinius Professor of History, have collaborated on Black Fire, an ongoing body of work devoted to the history and experience of Black life at UVA in Charlottesville. The project grew out of Harold’s research into the political and cultural history of African American students and faculty at the university and her discovery of a fragmentary archive. Together, Harold and Everson began using this archival material as a point of departure, making images where images were absent and bringing Harold’s research into conversation with Everson’s approach to performance, duration, and gesture.

The selection presented here moves between histories of student organizing and institutional change, athletics, gospel, and the forms of social and cultural exchange that took place within and around the university.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A and conversation with Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena N. Harold.

Please note that this program is presented in conjunction with an additional selection of works from Black Fire, screening at the Academy Museum’s Ted Mann Theater on Friday, November 13. Please visit the Academy Museum’s website for full program notes.

Special thanks to Madeleine Molyneaux, K.J. Relth-Miller, and the Academy Museum.

Films appear courtesy of the filmmakers and Picture Palace Pictures. All films directed by Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena N. Harold.

Sugarcoated Arsenic, (written by Claudrena N. Harold and Vivian Gordon) the first of the Black Fire collaborations is a cinematic exploration of African American intellectual, social, and political life at the University of Virginia during the 1970s. Starring Erin Stewart (featured in Everson's 2006 feature Cinnamon) as Vivian Gordon (the director of UVA’s Black Studies program between 1975 and 1980), the film tells the story of African American women and men who through their public and private gestures sought to create a beloved community that thrived on intellectual exchange, self-critique, and human warmth.

Chelsea Drive displays three decades of University of Virginia Black student style, fashion and dance.

We Demand tells the story of the anti-Vietnam War Movement from the perspective of James R. Roebuck, a northern-born African American who studied at the University of Virginia during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Over a ten-day period of unprecedented student upheaval at the University, Roebuck, the first African American president of UVA’s Student Council, confronted a series of political challenges and existential dilemmas. This budding activist and future U.S. representative was the quintessential militant insider whose cool temperament and ideological flexibility proved quite useful as UVA appeared on the verge of imploding from within. 

Hampton features the University of Virginia gospel choir, Black Voices, returning from a triumphant concert in Hampton Roads. 

Fastest Man in the State Kent Merritt waxing poetically about being one of the first four Black scholarship athletes at the University of Virginia. 

Dooni is the eulogy of the American soul-singer Sylvester (1947-1988) as told by the gospel singer and preacher Walter Hawkins. With the voice of NY actor/director Timothy Johnson. 

Please note: seating is limited. Box Office opens thirty minutes prior to the listed showtime. Guests may add their name to the standby list upon arrival. Online ticket sales will be honored up until 15 minutes after the scheduled showtime; at that time, any unclaimed seats will be released for in-store purchase on a first-come, first-served basis. All Sales Final.