New documentary on Connecticut tobacco history to screen in Westport on June 1
Eastern-produced 'Stepping Into the Shade' explores untold history
Willimantic, CT (05/28/2024) — Excerpts from the highly anticipated documentary series "Stepping Into The Shade" will screen at the Westport Library on June 1, followed by a panel discussion featuring the film's producers, host and local historians. The series explores Connecticut's tobacco heritage and local civil rights movement and is hosted by June Archer and produced by Eastern Connecticut State University film/theatre professors Brian Day and Kristen Morgan.
The event runs from 5-9 p.m. (screening begins at 6 p.m.) and will be hosted by acclaimed journalist Leslie Mayes Low. In addition to Day, Morgan and Archer, panelists include Fiona Vernal, Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar, and Jason Chang, history professors at the University of Connecticut.
Three years in the making, "Stepping Into the Shade" tells the fascinating story of the people who toiled in the soil on Connecticut's tobacco farms, including migrant workers from Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Poland and Pennsylvania, as well as college students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HACU's) who had summer jobs on the farms.
"I am so thrilled to be able to share excerpts of our work with a big audience this Saturday," said Morgan. "This is a subject that so many people in (Connecticut) connect with and I hope we have done justice to the many stories we have collected over the past three years. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who is one of the subjects of an episode of the series, insisted that 'All labor has dignity,' and we have tried to reflect the dignity of the workers who generously shared their stories with us."
"Everyone has seen the tobacco sheds," said Day, "but not everyone considers the historical relevance of the sheds to culture and civil rights." Morgan added: "Working on this project has revealed some of the more complicated facets of Connecticut history; the documentary will cover a lot of things that people don't know (about our state)."
As host of the "docuseries," Archer toured the state, speaking with historians, community members, students and relatives of migrant workers. The most notable summer worker was from Morehouse College - Martin Luther King Jr. - who spent a summer on a farm in Simsbury, CT, in the 1940s.
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