Film Screening: Agents of Change (2016)
The San Diego Museum of Art will hold a film screening in conjunction with the exhibition Black Life: Images of Resistance and Resilience in Southern California. Frank Dawson and Abby Ginzberg’s documentary Agents of Change recognizes, in exhaustively researched detail, an uncompromising moment of upheaval in American history. The movement began around the time Muhammed Ali refused to participate in a war against an enemy that wasn’t his. It was Stokley Carmichael who placed the term “Black Power” in popular usage. Before it was over, the first all-black student union had been formed in a predominantly white college. The image of black students, rifles raised and emerging victoriously from the takeover of the student union at Cornell University, packs as powerful a place in today’s as it did in April 1969. It may not be much of a selling point in this day and age, but it’s been a long time since we’ve seen a film that placed this much emphasis on the importance of getting an education. The San Diego African American Fine Arts Museum is co-sponsoring the event. Executive Director Gaidi Finnie will be on hand for a post-show Q&A with filmmaker Frank Dawson. — Scott Marks