Three Documentaries to Kick Off Black History Month

Chuck O'Bannon and Rosalind Withers (left) produced the
film "SNAP: A Look at Injustice in America." Annie Robinson and
O'Bannon (right) produced "United Front: The People's
Convention 1991 Memphis." Courtesy photos)

Marie V. Pizano

MEMPHIS, TN – A documentary is a film or video about a person or event based on facts. A documentary should also educate and bridge cultural divides, added Maria V. Pizano, founder and CEO of MVP3 Entertainment Group, which focuses of film, music, and community.

“This is part of my plan,” said Pizano, who is presenting a Black History Month series via MVP3, featuring three Memphis-based films: “Shannon Street: Echoes Under a Blood Red Moon,” “United Front: The People’s Convention 1991 Memphis,” and “SNAP: A Look at Injustice in America.”

“United Front” is screening Wednesday, Jan. 18, and “SNAP” is showing Wednesday, Feb. 1. “Shannon Street” was shown Jan. 11. 

The films are showing at Malco Paradiso, 584 S. Mendenhall Rd., with a meet and greet at 5:30 p.m., showtime at 6:15 p.m., and a panel discussion from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

The Black History Month series benefit the South Memphis Alliance, which serves youth in foster care and families in need through social services, mentoring and advocacy.

“Shannon Street” digs for answers to that fateful night of Jan. 11, 1983, when a tactical squad from the Memphis Police Department stormed the home of Lindberg Sanders and killed seven Black men, including Sanders, after their hostage, officer Robert S. Hester, was beaten and heard pleading for his life.

“This is the 40th anniversary of Shannon Street,” said Pizano, an author, director and producer of the 90-minute documentary. The film’s grueling details, with reflections from both sides of the police-involved shooting, stir the conscience of those who remember the carnage.

“United Front” commemorates the 30^th anniversary of the 1991 African-American People’s Convention at the Mid-South Coliseum and the “people’s” selection of a qualified Black consensus candidate to take on the white incumbent Memphis Mayor Richard “Dick” Hackett.

Using the Democratic Convention as a model, Dr. Willie W. Herenton, formerly the superintendent of Memphis City Schools, emerged the victor and went on to eclipse Hackett for the office of mayor by a mere 147 votes.

Anniece Robinson, one of the convention’s “architects and conveners,” is the “United Front’s” executive producer. Chuck O’Bannon is producer and director of the 67-minute film.

“SNAP” gives us a glimpse in the life and legacy of Dr. Ernest C. Withers Sr., one of this nation’s most celebrated civil rights photographers. The film underscores the historic significance of Dr. Withers’s photography and what they really show.

An iconic photojournalist, Dr. Withers’s vast collection of images include the trial of Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, in Sumner, Miss., who were acquitted of killing Emmett Till, the Memphis Sanitation Strike of 1968, the Montgomery bus boycott, Negro league baseball, and others.

“SNAP” is presented by The Withers Collection and produced and directed by Chuck O’Bannon. Rosalind Withers, Dr. Withers’s daughter, is the film’s executive producer.

Pizano believes there aren’t enough people in Memphis who know about The Withers Collection. “It’s been here,” she said, “but what about the students? They don’t understand all this; so I want them to learn.”

A connoisseur of history, Pizano says Memphis fascinates her – which makes it “a perfect fit for me to show Shannon Street and to show these other films [United Front and SNAP] to build up toward Black History Month.”

For their work, Pizano said MVP3, her entertainment group, is honoring Anniece Robinson for “United Front,” and both Rosalind Withers and Chuck O’Bannon for “SNAP.”  

“This is history,” she said. “This is the first annual [Black History Month series]. I’d like to kick this off each year in January and build up toward Black History Month.”

Maria V. Pizano can be reached at 901-634-1724. Tickets to the Black History Month series are available, with contributions to South Memphis Alliance, at https://smaweb.harnessapp.com/wv2/donate.

Commemorating the 1991 African American People’s Convention

 

The team (from left): Brunette Mays, Tony Jones, Shep Wilbun
(featured in the documentary), Anniece Robinson, Arthur Robinson,
Zellner Madkins. (Courtesy photo)

On April 27, 1991, a group of young Black political strategists and activists convened the African American People’s Convention at The Mid-South Coliseum and changed the paradigm of Memphis politics forever. 

To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the People’s Convention, noted documentarian Chuck O’Bannon was tapped to produce a 60-minute documentary to preserve that moment in history.

Entitled “Reflection and Reconnection,” the documentary chronicles the grass roots strategy and the successful outcome of the People’s Convention as told by the pioneers who convened it. 

One of those pioneers is Anniece Robinson, project manager for the 30th Anniversary of the People's Convention and the executive producer for The 1991 People's Convention Documentary.

“As I was being interviewed in late March for a recent award and was responding to an inquiry about my role in the People's Convention, it was then that I realized it was the 30th Anniversary,” she said.

Robinson said she had an epiphany to commemorate the People’s Convention and didn’t want that moment in history to be forgotten. Then she assembled a team to help her pull it all together.

“I was divinely instructed to not let this moment go by,” she said, adding: “An in-depth accounting of the story has never been told.”

The story will unfold Saturday, May 1, when the official trailer of the documentary airs on Comcast Channel 17 at 5:30 p.m. on The Rainbow Connection, a community affairs program. The full documentary will premiere at a red-carpet black-tie event Saturday, July 3, at a local theatre that will be decided during the post production.   

Several pioneers, including Robinson, are featured in the documentary recounting their role in the People’s Convention, which led to the selection of Dr. Willie W. Herenton, former superintendent of the legacy Memphis City Schools, as the consensus candidate to challenge the two-term Republican incumbent Mayor Richard “Dick” Hackett Jr.

Herenton, a Democrat, eventually succeeded in wresting the seat from Hackett by a mere 142 votes in the 1991 mayoral election to become Memphis’s first elected African-American mayor and thus made history in one of the city’s most important exercises in democracy.

The city had been largely devoid of Black representation on some levels of government and dominated by white powerbrokers wielding considerable influence in Memphis politics, even though Memphis, in 1990, was 60 percent Black according to that year’s census. 

On the day of the Convention, a downpour thrashed the city. But the inclement weather did not deter the 5,500 people who waded through pelting rain and mud to choose a consensus candidate to take on Hackett. He was thought to be a shoo-in for a third term since no Black candidate had been able to wrest the seat from a white mayor or contender vying for the seat in any mayoral race due to the runoff system. The People’s Convention successfully subverted that process for the first time in Memphis history.

The convention’s architects – the late Dedrick “Teddy” Withers, the late Vernon Ash, Shep Wilbun and Robinson – could not have been more relieved after watching the influx of Black people file through the coliseum door.

What the architects envisioned was a Black consensus candidate who could challenge the incumbent in a one-on-one match-up without other Black candidates splitting the vote. Vote-splitting was common and a factor in loss elections for Black aspirants seeking public office. 

There had been some advancements made on the political front prior to 1991. For example: civil rights attorney A.W. Willis’s historic victory to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1964; attorney Russell B. Sugarmon’s successful bid for a state Senate seat in 1966; and Harold Ford Sr., the first African American to represent Tennessee in the U.S. Congress in 1974. Citywide races, however, proved difficult to win.

Even though significant milestones were achieved by other African Americans holding public office, the office of Memphis mayor had been elusive and never occupied by an elected African American. An interim stint was as much as any Black aspirant could achieve.

There was a reason for this. Whites had maintained their grip on power since 1966 after the Memphis City Charter was overhauled by mostly white men who decided there should be seven district seats and six at-large seats.

According to the revised charter, if a candidate vying for an at-large seat or a mayoral seat fell short of the majority vote, there would be a run-off between the two top vote-getters. 

For example, a Black candidate could win 49 percent of the vote versus a White candidate’s 43 percent and still lose the race in a run-off. To avoid a run-off, the candidate would have to get 50 percent of the vote.

This came to an end in 1991 after the United States Justice Department filed a suit against the election process in Memphis based on the provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The late Dr. Talib-Karim Muhammad, a freedom fighter who won a seat on the City Council in 1995 from Super District 8-Postion 1, filed a suit in 1988 against runoff elections. His suit was folded into the DOJ suit in 1991.

The late U.S. District Judge Jerome Turner had declared that run-off elections in city-wide races discriminated against Black candidates and thus had given white candidates an unfair advantage. There would be no run-off in the 1991 mayoral race and others going forward.

“Prior to 1991, attaining the coveted mayor's seat was not successful,” Robinson said. After Herenton was elected mayor, she added: “It gave a renewed hope of what is attainable when those of greater good are on one accord.”

The victory was hard-fought. “It was our journey. I made history because the people empowered [me]…” Herenton said. “I was just an instrument. We made history. We were unified.”

Grim obesity rate prompts health conscious advocate to launch weight loss initiative

     

Anniece Robinson and the youngest team members of UBABY (U Be A Better
You) prepare to show Channel 24's Mary Jo Ola how to do "The UBABY Shuffle."

     It was difficult – but not altogether impossible – but Anniece Robinson managed to drop from a 28 dress-size down to a 14 in a year and a half and gained control of a weight problem that had tugged at her for quite some time.

The weight was a constant reminder that Robinson needed to take the necessary steps to avoid the potential threat of a medical malady on down the road. So with a diet change and a razor focus on health and wellness, she shaved off a whopping 130 pounds.

The euphoria was short-lived, though. Why? Because Robinson gained 40 of those pounds back over the course of a few years after she quit smoking. She also went up another dress size or two – 16 or 18, one or the other – which she has maintained since.

“I picked the weight back up because I digressed in my behavior. I lost my way,” said Robinson. “Now I have to fight my way back.”

Robinson is not alone in her fight to lose weight and to keep it off. There are countless men, women and children in the United States grappling with this widespread problem. In Tennessee alone, the adult obesity rate is 31.2 percent, according to a 2015 report, The State of Obesity: Better Policies for a Healthier America.

Dozens of UBABY team members and others from the audience
performed "The UBABY Shuffle" amid a throng that came out for
The Tom Joyner Morning Show at the Liberty Bowl Memorial
Stadium on Sept. 11. (Photos by Wiley Henry) 

That percentage, which reflects the combined effort of Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), has Tennessee saddled with the 14^th highest adult obesity rate in the nation.

Tennessee has struggled with its adult obesity rate over the years – up from 20.9 in 2000 and from 11.1 percent in 1990. The obesity rate fluctuates from state to state. According to the report, Arkansas tips the scale at 35.9, the highest percentage in the country, while Colorado comes in at the lowest – 21.3 percent.   

Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and CEO of RWJF, and Jeffrey Levi, executive director of TFAH, stressed in a letter accompanying the report that obesity remains “one of the biggest threats to the health of our children and our country.”

By 2030, it is projected that 68 percent of Tennesseans will be obese. That grim forecast is the precursor to a number of deadly diseases and chronic illnesses on the horizon, which is troubling and often leads to a shortened lifespan.

Obesity is expected to cause 939,564 new cases of type 2 diabetes; coronary heart disease, 1,896,993; strokes, 1,714,690; hypertension, 1,117,321; and arthritis, 260,360. The current tab in Tennessee for obesity related illnesses and diseases is more than $6 billion annually.

“There are no quick fixes,” said Robinson, who didn’t hesitate to hit the reset button to get her weight-loss regimen back on track. “You just got to psychologically make those adjustments; then you have to do it.”

Robinson is doing just that. She’s trying to unyoke the heavy burden of carrying around too much weight. But not all people with weight problems have the resolve to “trim the fat” or the dogged determination to keep it off.

In 2013, Gov. Bill Haslam launched the statewide “Healthier Tennessee” initiative “to encourage Tennesseans to be more physically active, to eat nutritious foods in healthy portions, and not to use tobacco products.”

Robinson was appointed the health ambassador for the Shelby West Tennessee area. She was one of 22 individuals who completed 14 weeks of training in the whole person wellness model across Tennessee, which tied as the second fattest state in the nation according to the “F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies are Failing in America” 2010 report.

With those dismal facts in the forefront of Robinson’s mind, she founded UBABY, Inc. (U Be A Better You), a community-based, 501c3 corporation that promotes and facilitates wellness via “edutainment-formatted” opportunities. She is the organization’s executive director.

The goal, said Robinson, is to encourage individuals and organizations to practice and sustain healthy lifestyles in an effort to reduce health disparities in minority communities. She essentially wants individuals to “keep it moving.”

“Gotta Keep It Movin,’” in fact, is a catchphrase Robinson is using to brand a new six-month health and wellness campaign called The WOW (Wisdom of Wellness) Challenge. Three churches in the Memphis area have accepted the challenge. Others are pending. Cigna Corporation (NYSE: CI), a global health service company, is sponsoring the “Challenge.”

A number of activities are slated throughout the six-month campaign, including weigh-ins, a culinary challenge for chefs, a red carpet showcase production and other activities that will coincide with the participating churches’ in-house wellness program.

Keeping the body in motion is important, but changing or adjusting the portions of one’s diet is just as important, said Robinson, adding, “We are the fun and fresh side of fitness and the delicious side of nutrition.”

During the early morning of Sept. 11, Robinson and the UBABY team introduced The WOW Challenge on The Tom Joyner Morning Show at the Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium in conjunction with the 26th Annual Southern Heritage Classic.

Robinson and her team challenged the audience to keep it moving to avoid a sedentary lifestyle and to make better nutritional choices. Dozens rose from their seats to perform “The UBABY Shuffle,” an original line dance Robinson created specifically to get people moving.

The UBABY Shuffle is a rhythmic form of exercise designed to increase flexibility and motor movement. It keeps the body in motion without the use of heavy equipment. Everybody can participate, Robinson said.

“I want people to be better than they were in terms of their health. We want people to take ownership in improving their health. When you lose weight, it decreases chronic diseases,” said Robinson, noting that not all people taking the challenge are overweight or obese. But everybody, she said matter-of-factly, needs to take care of their “earth suit,” a term denoting the human body.

“If you adopt a healthy mindset, eat healthy, and get the required physical activity, you’re going to achieve optimum health,” said Robinson, taking incremental steps to get the obesity rate lowered in Memphis and Shelby County and subsequently in Tennessee.

“We’re building a wellness community,” she said. “We’re going to keep everybody engaged.”

Young chef Robinson ready to serve with D. Arthur’s Catering

Desmond Robinson prepares to serve food at the "Brunch Showcase."

Desmond Robinson had his fill working as a senior education coordinator for training and development at Regional One Health, formerly the Regional Medical Center at Memphis. He’d spent his time in the labor pool and decided to follow his dreams. 

   “I quit so I could become a fulltime caterer,” said Robinson, who’d been catering public and private parties, events, weddings, bridal showers and the like for more than two years before officially launching D. Arthur’s Catering. He has clients in Memphis, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Arkansas, Louisiana and Dallas. 

   “I enjoy catering much better and always wanted to be a chef,” said Robinson, 28. 

On June 1st, the young chef provided an ample sampling of his palatable treats during a “Brunch Showcase” at the newly-built Beale Street Landing on the Riverfront. 

   The atmosphere was conducive for such a showcase and replete with succulent, attractive food that included chicken and waffles, seafood mac & cheese, loaded potatoes mac & cheese, pepper jack mac & cheese, veggie crepes, collared greens egg rolls, mini fish tacos, chicken drumettes, and five different desserts stations.

   Robinson’s parents, Arthur and Anniece Robinson, stood proudly among the crowd, observing while their son worked his magic. He donned a white chef uniform, served and mingled with guests that numbered more than 125. They came expecting a treat and Robinson delivered.   

   “He is an all-around renaissance kind of guy and an upstanding kind of fellow,” said Anniece Robinson, expressing how happy she’s been after her son decided to stay in Memphis to pursue his career in the culinary arts. 

   “We have too many of our children leaving Memphis, and I’m glad he stayed,” she said.

A pretty good cook herself, Robinson encouraged her son to seek his own path and offered to do all she could to help him get to where he wants to go. “I’m sure he’ll do just fine,” she said.

   During his formative years, Robinson observed carefully the Food Network’s Emeril John Lagasse, an American celebrity chef, restaurateur, television personality and cookbook author. Smittened, he envisioned “throwing down” just like Emeril. 

   “Now that I’m older, I’m a fan of so many chefs. I don’t have a favorite,” he said.

   Would Robinson like to become the next superstar chef on the Food Network channel?

   “Sure, I would love an opportunity to cook on the Food Network,” he said.

Robinson actually has limited formal training in the culinary arts. After graduating Whitehaven High School in 2003, he received a Bachelor’s of Art degree in communications from the University of Memphis in 2007, and a master’s degree in higher education and administration from Louisiana State University in 2011. 

   “It wasn’t until after undergrad in 2008 that I decided to go to culinary school,” said Robinson. “I went for one quarter and didn’t finish.”

   Attending culinary school really wasn’t an option, he said, particularly after acquiring the skill set firsthand from his mother, aunts and grandmothers on both sides of the family. The bloodline, he surmised, makes him a bona fide cook.

   “There are a lot of good cooks in the family. I got it naturally. That’s been my niche,” said Robinson, adding that if food is tantalizing to the taste buds and looks scrumptious, people would purchase it. 

   Robinson creates his own recipes and takes other recipes up a notch or two. He has a team of 20 people – servers, drivers, trainers, dishwashers and cooks – to help him create the ambience that his clients expect.

   “We’re looking for other cooks who are experienced and qualified to come in knowing what to do,” said Robinson, who hopes to take his catering business to a whole new level to attract a broader clientele locally and nationally.

   Memphis, however, is his hub of operation.

   “It allows me to be flexible and creative. I can create different menus everyday of the week and design tables, food, and the overall décor.”