Daisy Bates
Filmmaker Sharon La Cruise Discusses Daisy Bates Biopic with Hari Sreenivasan
The documentary Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock will air Thursday, February 2 on Independent Lens to kick off Black History Month. Recently, PBS NEWSHOUR’s Hari Sreenivasan caught up with filmmaker Sharon La Cruise to discuss the project.
Special Screening of “Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock” Wednesday in Los Angeles
Community Cinema and The Museum of Tolerance, in association with The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum, will be presenting a special screening of Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock Wednesday, February 1 in Los Angeles.
The film will be followed by a discussion with Sharon La Cruise (filmmaker), Terrence Roberts, Ph.D. (one of the Little Rock Nine), and Larry Earl (Executive Director of The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum). › Continue reading
Central High Hosts a Social Screening of Daisy Bates
On Friday, we’re hosting a screening of the documentary Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock from Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. and will include the participation of filmmaker Sharon La Cruise. Moderated by PBS NewsHour‘s Hari Sreenivasan and featuring filmmaker Sharon La Cruise, the event will take place at this link on Friday, February 3 at 11:30 AM PT/1:30 PM CT/2:30 PM ET. Premiering on Independent Lens this Thursday, the film examines the life Daisy Bates — a complex, unconventional, and largely forgotten heroine of the civil rights movement who led the charge to desegregate the all-white Central High School in Little Rock in 1957.
The screening will take place exclusively online; you can join for free by signing in with Facebook (or directly on the site) and interact with other viewers, Central High students, La Cruise, and Sreenivasan in real-time, while you watch the film. Viewers can comment, ask questions, take polls, and even express their feelings about what they’re watching through a variety of tools on the site.
This is an entirely new way we’re offering some of our documentary films, and all of us are looking forward to an open, freewheeling conversation on Daisy Bates!
Find more information on Friday’s screening here.
ITVS Heads into High Gear for Black History Month
By Sally Jo Fifer, President & CEO of ITVS
The organization has supported a slate of documentaries that shine a unique light on the history of African American activism. Several of the films will air this month on Independent Lens.
February is Black History Month. It’s an important time for public media, because the heritage months — as artificial as they seem to some, including ITVS-funded filmmaker Shukree Hassan Tilghman, whose film More than A Month tracks his playful yet serious quest to end Black History Month — act as public reminders of our mission to bring underrepresented voices into the mainstream and ensure that the diversity of the nation is reflected on television.
› Continue reading
Women and Girls Lead & Athena Film Festival Present, “Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock”
Women and Girls Lead is happy to announce an exciting partnership with the Athena Film Festival on the film Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock. The documentary will air on Independent Lens on February 2.
The Athena Film Festival is a celebration of women and leadership, and the only film festival in the nation to focus its content on women’s leadership. With an impressive line-up of groundbreaking films — chronicling the lives of long serving Native American female firefighters to the weekend’s closing film, The Lady, on the life of Aung San Suu Kyi the Burmese opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
› Continue reading
Independent Lens Honors Black History at TCA
At this year’s Television Critics Association, Independent Lens announced three new films that examine the history of African American activism and produced a panel including legendary activist Angela Davis and artist Talib Kweli. Watch the video below to see some of the icons and artists who joined Independent Lens in recognizing African American history at this year’s TCA Press Tour in Los Angeles.

Lois Vossen (IL), Sharon La Cruise (Daisy Bates), Dr. Angela Davis and Talib Kweli (The Black Power Mixtape), Michael Jones (COO of PBS), and Shukree Hassan Tilghman (More Than a Month)
Independent Lens begins its celebration of Black History Month on PBS with Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock, which premiers on February 2. The film follows the seven-year journey of filmmaker Sharon La Cruise to learn about the mostly forgotten civil rights activist Daisy Bates.
› Continue reading
Independent Lens Leads PBS’s Black History Month
The lineup will include three new critically acclaimed documentaries in February: Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock, More Than a Month, and The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 — featuring the legendary activist and scholar Dr. Angela Davis.
In February 2012, Independent Lens will lead the celebration of Black History Month on public television with premieres of three new documentaries that shine a unique light on the history of African American activism, with one provocatively re-examining of the whole idea of Black History Month.
› Continue reading
Open Call Recipients: Noland Walker and Sharon LaCruise, Filmmakers of IN THE SHADOW LITTLE ROCK
ITVS’s Open Call provides finishing funds for single non-fiction or animation public television programs on any subject and from any viewpoint. Projects must have begun production as evidenced by a work-in-progress video.
Check out the clip below with filmmakers Noland Walker and Sharon LaCruise, who received Open Call funds for their film IN THE SHADOW LITTLE ROCK: The Life of Daisy Bates, which looks at the life of the African American political activist and newspaper publisher. Learn more about their film and why they thought it was the best fit for public television.
Interested in applying for Open Call? ITVS is looking for single public television programs on any subject, viewpoint or style. We fund programs that bring new audiences to public television and expand civic participation by bringing diverse voices into the public sphere. This year’s deadline is July 31, 2009.
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