Beyond Boundaries : Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power

2022 

Directors: Sam Pollard & Geeta Gandbhir 

The passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 represented not the culmination of the Civil Rights Movement, but the beginning of a new, crucial chapter. Nowhere was this next battle better epitomized than in Lowndes County, Alabama, a rural, impoverished town with a vicious history of racist terrorism. In a town that was eighty percent Black but had zero Black voters, laws were just paper without power. This isn’t a story of hope but of action. Through first-person accounts and searing archival footage, the documentary tells the story of the local movement and young Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizers who fought not just for voting rights, but for Black Power in Lowndes County.  

Trailer : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCE-keWeTd0

Beyond Boundaries Screening & Discussion Series is a distinctive program at Buffalo State that has been running since 2014.  This annual, six-part film series is organized around categories of diversity including, but not limited to race, gender, class, sexuality, and abilities, with an emphasis on intersectionality.  It creates an opportunity for open dialogue on social justice issues among college students, staff, faculty and members of the greater Western New York community. 

Beyond Boundaries is sponsored by the Office of Equity and Campus Diversity, the Communication Department, and the Burchfield Penney Art Center.  All screenings are held in Burchfield Penney Art Center and are free and open to the public.

The series is curated by Professors Ruth Goldman and Meg Knowles