Central Wyoming News

“A Place of Our Own,” the first episode of the compelling docuseries “Echoes from The Hill” was recently featured at its first film festival.

North Texas film enthusiasts enjoyed a filmmaker panel discussion and a screening of the episode, which explores what life was like for Black residents in a small Arlington community known as The Hill, at the 2023 Denton Black Film Festival.

The Hill was the only historic addition platted specifically for Arlington’s African American residents. The docuseries’ first episode features photos, maps, documents and excerpts from interviews with Black residents and their descendants who lived in this community.

The Arlington Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Committee, which sponsored the first episode of the planned five-part Echoes from The Hill documentary, initially hosted a public screening of “A Place of Our Own” during the 2022 Arlington Juneteenth Jubilee. The committee was honored to have the episode selected for a screening at the Denton Black Film Festival last month and is hopeful to reach more audiences at future film festivals.

“It was exciting to see so many people, from all walks of life, young and young at heart, there to see the film. The room was full of over 50 eager viewers, who never took their eyes off the screen,” Lisa Thompson, the Chair of the Arlington MLK Celebration Committee Board of Directors. “Many seemed to have been intrigued by what it was like for Black residents to live in the segregated small community in Texas. Others seemed to have felt a sense of disbelief that they survived during the tough time. While others seemed to understand that this was their story, our story, an American Story.”

Interviews in the first episode include the Rev. Carl Pointer, Bob Ray Sanders, Randy Parker, Bertha Jones, Geraldine Mills and Beverly Jackson on topics ranging from segregation to influential church and business leaders to the vibrant night life in The Hill. Additionally, it features scholars Gene B. Preuss, Ph.D., and W. Marvin Dulaney, Ph.D., who explore African American life in North Texas after emancipation as well as the history of racial control that would evolve into Jim Crow laws. Click here to watch the trailer for the first episode.

King Hollis and Lindell Singleton directed the documentary. It was produced by Southroad Pictures, with associate producers Geraldine Mills, Anthony Cisneros and Shirley Adams and executive producers Lemuel Randolph, Lisa Thompson, Jennifer Wichmann, King Hollis and Lindell Singleton. The project was funded by the Arlington Tomorrow Foundation.

Interested in learning more about The Hill? Visit the Arlington Public Library's Black History Community Archive. This digital collection, created and hosted by the library, provides free searchable access 24/7 to many of the historical photos, recordings, and documents that will be featured in the “Echoes from The Hill” documentary projects.

Original source can be found here.