BANISHED Wins Erik Barnouw Award

Marco Williams and Strickland family descendant Dorothy Pemberton from the Erik Barnouw Award-winning film BANISHED.

BANISHED, by Marco Williams, recently was awarded an Erik Barnouw Award, which recognizes outstanding reporting and programming on television or in documentary film that is concerned with American history.

From the 1860s to the 1920s, dozens of towns and counties across America violently expelled entire African American communities, forcing thousands of black families to flee their homes. A century later, these towns remain all white. BANISHED tells the story of three of these communities and their black descendants, who return to learn shocking histories.

BANISHED aired last season of Independent Lens and is a co-production of ITVS, Two Tone Productions, the Center for Investigative Reporting and the National Black Programming Consortium, with major funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Tags: African American, Human Rights, social justice