Working Films, Bennett College, UNC-Chapel Hill and Warren Wilson College are bringing filmmaker Leah Mahan on a tour across North Carolina this February. Screenings of her documentary Come Hell or High Water: The Battle for Turkey Creek will connect faculty, students, and local residents to issues of environmental justice in the state.
February 10, 2015, 8pm
Warren Wilson College
Holden Auditorium, Holden Arts Center, Asheville, NC 28815
Public parking available on campus. Please RSVP to ensure your seat: hharvey@warren-wilson.edu, or 828-771-3062.
February 11, 2015 at 6 pm
Bennett College
Global Learning Center Auditorium, 521 Gorrell St., Greensboro, NC 27401
Free public parking on campus.
February 12, 2015 at 6pm
UNC-Chapel Hill
1301 McGavran-Greenberg Hall, School of Public Health, Chapel Hill, NC 27759
Public parking available at Dogwood deck, Manning Drive across from UNC Hospital.
Come Hell or High Water: The Battle for Turkey Creek follows the painful but inspiring story of Derrick Evans and the African American community of Turkey Creek on the gulf coast of Mississippi as they battle developers and politicians in an effort to save their community’s land, history, and culture. Encapsulating pertinent issues of environmental racism, land loss among African American communities, urbanization, and lack of political recognition, the story of Turkey Creek parallels and reflects the story of many communities in North Carolina who have organized for environmental justice and land security.
The tour will kick off at Warren Wilson College where the event is hosted by The Office of the President and The Wilson Inclusion, Diversity, & Equity Office. The goal is to encourage dialogue and inspired action against intersecting oppressions – including race, class, and environmental injustice in western North Carolina. Following the film will be a discussion with filmmaker Leah Mahan and the audience of students, faculty and community members.
Come Hell or High Water will launch Bennett College’s Black History Month Film Series. The Africana Women’s Studies’ Dr. Valerie Ann Johnson will facilitate an interactive post-screening discussion. Our co-hosts include the Division of Humanities and Africana Women’s Studies departments, and the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters Foundation. Members of the grassroots environmental justice community in the Triad will offer their reflections on the documentary and update the audience regarding local and statewide efforts.
At UNC-Chapel Hill, event is part of broader initiative to strengthen an education-science-activism paradigm at the university, and to envision an urban planning approach that integrates science, community, and environmental justice. Local, long-time environmental justice organizers Omega Wilson of West End Revitalization Association and David Caldwell of the Roger Eubanks Neighborhood Association, will join with Assistant Professor Danielle Spurlock (UNC-CH City and Regional Planning) and the filmmaker to in a discussion moderated by Danielle Purifoy (Duke Environmental Policy). The screening is hosted by The Institute for the Environment at UNC, the UNC Department of Communication Studies, the UNC Department of Geography, the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, and Working Films.
Follow Working Films on Facebook for photos and updates during the events.
