Gilder Lehrman Center Film Screening and Panel Discussion: "My Father’s Name," a film by Susanna Styron
Yale University | Luce Hall | 34 Hillhouse Avenue, New Haven, CT 06511
4:30—6:30pm: Luce Hall Auditorium
Screening of the documentary (20 minutes), followed by discussion.
6:30—7:30pm: Reception, Luce Hall Common Room
Introductions: Constance Royster YC ‘72
Join Gilder Lehrman Center Director David W. Blight (Sterling Professor of History, Yale) in conversation with the film’s director, Susanna Styron YC ’76, Crystal Feimster (Associate Professor of Black Studies and American Studies, Yale University), and Willie James Jennings (Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies Yale University Divinity School)
In the face of the ongoing reality of anti-Black violence and hostility toward history, how do we persevere in educating ourselves and others? Individually and collectively, how do we move from denial or guilt toward responsibility? How do we foster national accountability?
About the film: https://myfathersname.com/
Years after Lee Ed Frazier's death, his daughter Jan made a shocking discovery: as a young man her father had participated in a lynching. As she attempts to uncover the truth about what happened, Jan learns that this specific lynching was iconic in American history, because photos of it were the first ever to be published in a national publication. Both Time and Life magazines carried the story and the photos as they reported on the anti-lynching bill that was before Congress at that very moment.
Additionally, she realizes that no names of the lynchers were ever published. Even the photographer was protected by a cloak of agreed-upon anonymity. Shaken by this stark reflection of white privilege and the brutality it sought to minimize, Jan must now reckon with deeply conflicted feelings about the father she loved, find a way to hold her family accountable and face the dawning awareness of her own unconscious racism.
Co-sponsored by: Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale; Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library; Black Studies Department, Yale University; Dwight Hall at Yale; Film and Media Studies Program, Yale University; Whitney Humanities Center; and Yale Divinity School.
Contact: https://macmillan.yale.edu/glc
203.432.3339 | gilder.lehrman.center@yale.edu
