January 18, 2021
January 18th marks another trip around the Sun for me. Though Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s actual birthday is January 15th, this year my birthday happens to coincide
with the Monday we collectively celebrate and honor his life and legacy. The beginning of a new year is usually filled with hope, optimism and excitement for a
fresh start and bright future. As I reflect on 2020 and look forward to 2021, I linger on how relevant and necessary Dr. King’s core values and principles of love, peace,
justice and equality are today as they were 58 years ago, on his 34th birthday in 1963, the year he delivered his most iconic speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the
National Mall.

Were Dr. King alive today to witness the horrors that still plague our society in the form of police shootings of unarmed African-American citizens, rampant poverty and
despair among communities of color throughout our nation, and the most recent violent attack on our nation’s capitol and our democracy as a whole, he would be
incensed and disappointed. Though we have made great strides in society since 1963, the fact that his dream of lifting “our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the
solid rock of brotherhood” is still so far from being truly realized would undoubtedly bring tears to his eyes.

“As artists, it is our responsibility to create and tell the stories of the worlds we envision and desire.”

– H. Drew McClellan, Chair, Cinematic & Visual Arts Senior Specialist, LACHSA

 

As artists, it is our responsibility to create and tell the stories of the worlds we envision and desire. The greatest reward is when we are able to experience our reality imitating our art. In American cinema, the stories and portrayals of African-Americans and women are all too often denigrated tales of survival and attempts to achieve the most basic rights within society; whether it is struggling to break free from the horrific culture of enslavement, trying to order a meal at a segregated lunch counter or simply surviving an encounter with law enforcement.

These portrayals are the devastating realities that people of color still face in 2021. However, in order for us to change our realities, we must change our narrative. In the past decade we have had an African-American man and woman ascend to the highest and second highest offices in the land. It is time that examples of black excellence be given the same artistic platforms as black despair. As a society we have witnessed black peoples’ ability to survive; we are now at a place where audiences in society are yearning for the stories of black excellence flourishing.

 

Society needs films about individuals like Reginald F. Lewis, the first African-American businessman to own a company worth over a billion dollars and the first African-American to have a building named in his honor at Harvard University (The Reginald F. Lewis International Law Center), or George Washington Carver, African-American professor, agricultural scientist and environmentalist who unlocked the endlesspossibilities of the humble peanut and invented cutting-edge techniques that are still used by farmers today to prevent soil depletion in crops, or Marian Anderson, the first African-American woman to perform at the Metropolitan Opera and was subsequently awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, The National Medal of Arts and Kennedy Center Honors.

 

As a filmmaker, I strive to advance and honor Dr. King’s work and legacy everyday through my actions as an artist, educator, creative professional and citizen. I have set a personal goal for 2021 to finish a screenplay which focuses on Dr. King’s origins as an academic and educator and highlights the philosophical theories of non-violent civil disobedience that influenced and shaped the civil rights movement.

Stories like these are needed now more than ever to bring empathy, civility and decency back to American society. I challenge all artists, young and seasoned, to continue to honor and advance Dr. King’s legacy by reflecting the principles of love, peace, freedom and acceptance now more than ever in your art and energy. This is our time to contribute to society by imagining the world we want, and then sharing that dream with as many people as possible in order to heal both the deep and fresh wounds.

 

As Dr. King wrote in 1958, “Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they do not know each other; they do not know each other because they cannot communicate; they cannot communicate because they are separated”.

It is my dream that within the next 60 years, Dr. King’s vision is fully realized and the separation and division that stokes the flames of fear and hatred throughout society are extinguished, so much so that our current reality feels like a blurry, distant nightmare. As artists it is imperative that we use our talents and gifts to be the agents of change and communicate Dr. King’s guiding principles thru the universal language of artistic expression. Through sharing our gifts with the world, we can live in the realities created by our art. Happy birthday Dr. King.

H. Drew McClellan
Chair, Cinematic & Visual Arts Senior Specialist, LACHSA