Black Fire

Black Fire

6 Episodes

Made as part of an ongoing collaboration between experimental filmmaker Kevin Jerome Everson, historian Claudrena N. Harold, and the students and alumni of the University of Virginia, these unclassifiable, poetic short films explore the ways in which Black students have transformed the university—politically, socially, culturally, and intellectually—from the 1960s through the present. Creatively employing reenactment, interviews, music, and performance, Everson and Harold pay tribute to the unsung trailblazers who paved the way for greater equality on the UVA campus while bringing the university’s history of racial and social struggle into dialogue with the present.

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Black Fire

6 Episodes

  • Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena N. Harold Interview
    21:42
    Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena N. Harold Interview
    Episode 1

    Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena N. Harold Interview

    Episode 1

    This interview with directors Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena N. Harold was recorded in 2021.

  • Sugarcoated Arsenic
    20:19
    Sugarcoated Arsenic
    Episode 2

    Sugarcoated Arsenic

    Episode 2

    Directed by Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena N. Harold • 2014 • United States
    Starring Erin Stewart, Vivian Gordon

    SUGARCOATED ARSENIC is a cinematic exploration of African American intellectual, social, and political life at the University of Virginia during the 1970s. Starring Erin Stewart a...

  • We Demand
    10:23
    We Demand
    Episode 3

    We Demand

    Episode 3

    Directed by Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena N. Harold • 2016 • United States
    Starring Ricky Goldman, Richard Warner, Ryan Leach

    WE DEMAND tells the story of the anti–Vietnam War movement from the perspective of James R. Roebuck, a Northern-born African American man who studied at the Universi...

  • How Can I Ever Be Late
    04:39
    How Can I Ever Be Late
    Episode 4

    How Can I Ever Be Late

    Episode 4

    Directed by Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena N. Harold • 2017 • United States

    Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena Harold imagine a group of African American students from the University of Virginia greeting Sly and the Family Stone at the Charlottesville airport in 1973.

  • Fastest Man in the State
    09:56
    Fastest Man in the State
    Episode 5

    Fastest Man in the State

    Episode 5

    Directed by Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena N. Harold • 2017 • United States
    Starring Kent Merritt

    Kent Merritt waxes poetic about being one of the first four Black scholarship athletes at the University of Virginia.

  • Black Bus Stop
    09:25
    Black Bus Stop
    Episode 6

    Black Bus Stop

    Episode 6

    Directed by Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena N. Harold • 2019 • United States

    Students reclaim a popular gathering spot on the campus of the University of Virginia.

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