Matters of Race

Matters of Race explores the implications of shifting demographics on American culture in this four-part series.
Director

Producers: Orlando Bagwell, Jacquie Jones, Dale Pierce Nielsen

Production Company
ROJA Productions

Release Date
September 23, 2003

Ten years ago, Siler City, North Carolina, was a black and white town of segregated communities with a shared geography and an unsettled history. This quiet, rural southern town is a "laboratory" for the national transformation that is fundamentally altering America's sense of itself. The program addresses the following questions: how does rapid change in racial demographics affect small-town America? What happens when white people and white culture no longer dominate? What visions of the future do residents have? Does the future more closely resemble the country's racialized and segregated past? Is America going back to the future? Or is the nation seeing the declining significance of race? Utilizing the writing of Eric Liu and Ruben Martinez and directed by John J. Valadez, this film explores power and identity in small-town America.

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