The film “Origin of the Dream” was screened in the James B. Hunt Jr. Library Auditorium on Thursday, Jan. 22 as a part of MLK Commemoration Week, shedding light on North Carolina’s role in the Civil Rights Movement and the long-term impact Martin Luther King Jr. made on those that heard him speak.
The film was created by Jason Miller, a distinguished professor, in collaboration with Emmy-award winning filmmaker Neal Hutcheson and featured many academics and experts to create a vivid portrait of the issue.
An expansion on Miller’s previous research on the topic, the film explores the personal and professional connection between King and the poet Langston Hughes. Within this framework, there is also an important historical discovery that fuels the narrative: A tape of King’s speech given in Rocky Mount, NC on Nov. 27, 1962.
The tape, discovered in Braswell Memorial Library by Miller in 2015, is the first recorded instance of King saying his now iconic phrase, “I have a dream.”
“To document forever that Dr. King’s first ever ‘I Have a Dream’ speech is in Rocky Mount, and then to also connect its links to the famous poet Langston Hughes, really does have wide appeal,” Miller said.
King visited North Carolina many times as a part of his movement to mobilize the South. On July 31, 1966, King spoke at NC State in Reynolds Coliseum and the Klu Klux Klan marched down Hillsborough Street in protest. He also gave speeches in Greensboro, Charlotte and Durham.
The documentary highlights the experiences of several Black Rocky Mount citizens, and gives them the platform to reclaim King’s speech in their small, rural community. Joyce Dickens and Herbert Tillman were both teenagers when the visit made waves in their town. Not only did they both give moving accounts of the speech itself, but they also spoke about how it changed the trajectory of their lives.
“Telling local stories has incredible advantages,” Miller said. “So much of the knowledge we think of at academic institutions is in the libraries, in publications, but really a great deal of it lives in people’s attics, their basements, their hearts and their minds. Gathering those kinds of stories and that kind of knowledge is really important.”
Miller also said the documentary connects back to the general challenges of telling authentic Black stories, and the value of hearing them straight from the source.
“It is still so hard to document the Black experience in America. That hasn’t changed for decades, and it continues right now,” Miller said. “Having people speaking in their own voice about their recollections, and having it in a medium that can be preserved and shared, that is still a challenge we have all across academic circles, regardless if it’s the humanities, literature, poetry or civil rights.”
Experts such as Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper and Glenis Redmond contributed to the portions of the film focused on Hughes, and their expertise lended great weight to the historical impact of the poet. Actors Felix Justice and Danny Glover also gave an interview while visiting NC State in 2016, speaking about the impact of Hughes and King on American society as a whole.
Miller highlighted that the film was, above all, a collaborative process. NC State Libraries, the Department of English and the African American Cultural Center were long-term supporters of the project.
“We’re not just here in this auditorium because of the fact that it’s the best space to see and hear a great film; the libraries have been partners with me for over two decades,” Miller said.
While his research has been previously contained to academic circles with books and articles, Miller said a film will change who has access to these stories.
“This film is a really exciting way to really transform traditional research in book and publication form into the most accessible and perhaps most persuasive medium we have,” Miller said.
The production process was initiated by Miller, filmmaker Rebecca Cerese and journalist Cash Michaels. They worked organizing and conducting interviews across North Carolina before there were issues with funding, causing the project to be put on hold.
Hutcheson jumped into the project a few years later. He said that while most of his work has had a connection to social justice, this film was compelling because of its relevancy to the present.
“It’s not merely a historical piece looking back that informs us about things that occurred in the past, but all of its themes, subjects and much of what is said in the film is actually incredibly relevant to our present moment, socially and politically, in this country,” Hutcheson said.
Michaels worked on all of the publicity for Miller’s research and discoveries, and connected him with many of the film’s main storytellers. Looking at a racially diverse audience in the auditorium, he reflected on what it meant to deliver on the promises of King’s dream.
“We, today, are that dream,” Michaels said. “What Dr. King did then, the sacrifices and the hard work, was not just to gain freedom for people at that time, but also to make sure that people in the future would have access to education, jobs and to be fully fledged citizens.”
King evolved into much more than a Civil Rights activist throughout his career. He advocated for peace during the Vietnam War, openly criticising the United States government’s investments in defense. The many unseen sides of the Civil Rights movement and its leaders are equally important parts of history, and people deserve to know every side of those stories, Michaels said.
“The importance of a film like this is immeasurable, as far as I am concerned,” Michaels said. “We need more films, books or whatever to remind us as to who we’re supposed to be as Americans, as the kind of citizens that Dr. King fought and died for. And we should be doing everything in our power to rebuild the dream.”
