A Peculiar Freedom: Portraits of Black New England

FAIN: TD-293254-23

Olaleye Communications, Inc. (Boston, MA 02120-2296)
Nora Jacobson (Project Director: January 2023 to present)

Development of a film about free people of color in New England from 1780 to 1900. 

We seek a $75,000 Media Development grant to consult with our Humanities Advisers, write a script, shoot a trailer, and complete a full Production Proposal for a two-part (60 mins. each) documentary titled “A Peculiar Freedom: Portraits of Black New England.” “Peculiar freedom” defines free Black life in the Northeast between the 1780s and 1900, when white racism limited the opportunities of Black citizens, resulting in their social, political, and economic disenfranchisement. To be free and Black at this time meant confronting White assumptions about Black inferiority and having to prove one's worthiness as an American. Thus, our documentary will analyze the tensions between the theory of free-Black life and the lived experiences of free Blacks in late 18th- and 19th-century New England. We have two main objectives: to dispel the myth of a historically all-White New England, and to reveal the role that literacy and allies played in Black self-determination and self-actualization.