Thank You For A Great 2023
Screening the movie on Main Street in Downtown Torrington, CT for the Litchfield Hills Creative Festival
I want to thank all of the supporters, partners, helper bees, and friends of the John Brown Project for a fantastic 2023. We began the year still high from our premier screening event at the end of October, full of hope for more screenings, and by golly, that's what happened.
The big screen and a historical award
By February, we were watching our movie on the big screen at Bantam Cinema & Arts Center, which felt really good.
Another thing that really felt good was winning an Award of Merit from the Connecticut League of History Organizations for our "...irreverent and fun approach to these important historical topics and the way the videos used the history of music to explore social movements in American history that went far beyond Torrington and the life of John Brown."
May was another big month for us, screening the movie three times at Torrington High School, being invited to the John Brown Farm in North Elba, NY, to participate in their annual John Brown Day celebration, and participating in Torrington's own John Brown birthday party.
June saw the invention, launch, and success of the first (of many) Tiny Abolitionist Film Festivals, partnering with Swiss filmmaker Mat Callahan and the Torrington Historical Society to bring equality center stage. We also were honored to screen the movie during Torrington's Juneteenth celebration.
Another big screen, this time downtown
In August, we screened "His Truth Is Marching On" at the Litchfield Hills Creative Festival on a big inflatable movie screen for the whole city to see. The next month, in September, we were invited to be part of the Blues for Timbuctoo Festival sponsored by John Brown Lives!, screening the movie at Lake Flower Landing in Saranac Lake, NY, the home venue of artist Karen Davidson, who produced the Memorial Field at the John Brown Farm. While there, we met many great new friends, including Jackie Madison, the president of the North Country Underground Railroad Museum, who showed our movie at their annual meeting in November.
We are capping the year with a screening and a voter registration drive at Trinity Episcopal Church on Dec 30, partnering with the Litchfield County League of Women Voters.
New website and new project starting soon
Also in December, we launched a new John Brown Project website, Facebook page, and Browniac Digest blog to join our growing Instagram and YouTube platforms.
At the end of 2022, it was difficult to imagine another year as successful as that, but here, looking back on '23, I see we've exceeded expectations again because of YOUR help.
Thank you all. It could not have happened without the deep dedication, hard work, financial backing, nudges, and niceties of a LOT of people and organizations.
2024 is shaping up to be another banner year, as we've got TWO Tiny Abolitionist Film Festivals on the docket, one of which is at a community college. We're partnering with the Berlin Equity Action Team, who produced "The 29th Connecticut," to pull these tiny festivals together.
We are also developing the next documentary about systemic racism, tentatively called "On The Origin Of Systems." It picks up where HTIMO leaves off (the John Brown song), working toward today, exploring reconstruction, Jim Crow, Wounded Knee, the Civil Rights movement, Charlottesville, George Floyd, and White backlash.
Again, the film will be guided by music, and we are on track to record the first song, Plessy's Train, about Homer Plessy, the cobbler who sat down in the first class section sixty years before Rosa Parks sat down on a bus.
Stay tuned for more as it develops, thank you for your help, and please track out if we can be off any help to you.
Have a magical new year!
