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>> the following programis a special presentation from the big ten network,produced in association with purdue university. >> hi. i'm pat rochon. i teach here at purdueuniversity. i'd like you to meet two youngmen who are as interesting as the films they create. i'd like you to meet theproducers of black purdue. [ music ]
>> about 50 years before oldjohn purdue came to indiana from ohio, american troopsfought the kickapoo indians in the battle of tippecanoe. their victory won the landthat became west lafayette and made it possible to formpurdue university in 1869. one hundred years later,purdue was yet again the site of a major battle of ideals. a small group of determinedstudents banded together to demand change armed withbricks alone, not to break
but to build, speakingtruth to power. they changed thecourse of history and rebuilt the foundationsof purdue one brick at a time. this is their story. if you've ever been theonly one of your kind, maybe it was your gender, fromwhere you came, or you race, that gave you the painfulfeeling of isolation. the black purdue experiencegrows out of that feeling and so it goes that in thebeginning, there was only one.
>> we're going to takeyou behind the scenes of the emotionallycharged film black purdue. i'm sitting here with the twofilmmakers who brought this to the silver screenand dvds everywhere. we have jamar whiteand to derek fordjour. welcome and i'd like to findout why you did this film. >> first of all, thankyou for having us here. >> yeah. >> we created thisfilm to tell the story
of the black movement throughoutpurdue's history and taking you through the ups and the downsof the black student population and how it manifested to a point where we have a blackcultural center at purdue and things are reallylooking up. >> one of the mostpoignant sections of the film is the scene where you have the studentsdoing the protest march and they're bringing onbrick at a time over in front
of the administration building. >> can you talk about howyou put that together? >> the student protest,and there were two, but you're making referenceto the most, i guess, it was the first timein purdue history when any student populationmade a public protest of an activist nature. and so i think itwas significant for purdue in general.
i think before then, everybodysort of followed the program to a great extent, blackstudents and white students. but it was the firsttime in purdue history that a particular studentpopulation had staged a protest. so all the studentsconspired for several weeks on how they could createa more inclusive purdue. and they actually startedby trying to talk to faculty and they invitedfaculty to meetings. so their first choice wasnot to stage a protest.
they tried to invite facultymembers and it never went well. and i think they just took apage out of what was happening around the country atseveral other campuses and they staged a protest. >> and at the time, there werea few different campus protests in different universitiesand a lot of those were violent, you know? people, the kids taking overthe student union with guns and things of that nature.
they wanted to take a differentroute, but they wanted to have that same potent symbolism. so the bricks and the fire nexttime sign meant that we want to build a new beginning andrebuild the structure of purdue and how they relate to theirminority student population. but if we can't get itthrough peaceful means, the fire next time,you know, the same way that brick can build, itcan also be used to break. >> i think they usedpoetic means.
i mean, fire next timecame from james baldwin, because the leaders ofthe movement, homer larue and linda jo mitchell,were really intellectuals. and linda jo mitchellunderstood metaphor. so without the show of force,which i think is also typical of indiana, and there is sort ofa politeness that sort of exudes from all communication. they decided to let thesymbol itself communicate. i mean, i think theyunderstood the weight
of 100 african americanstudents, you know, stone faced in the linein the middle of the day. they understood what that meant. >> that's right. >> the currency that carried, but i think the symbolwas very intentional and not arbitrary by any means. >> very powerful. >> just one monthafter the assignation
of dr. king the student emergedwith their own non-violent plan. advised by marine veteran bobjones and two visionary leaders, sophomore homer larue andjunior linda jo mitchell. it was an overcastmaine morning in 1968. one hundred twenty ninestudents armed with a list of nine demands assembledat the steps >> the day of the march, we hadalready been told that we needed to get a brown paper bagand find a red brick. purdue was a red brick building.
they were everywhere. so we each got our brick, putit in our little paper bag. we assembled in stewartcenter and we got in a single file line. >> each of his went to abrickyard and got a brick. there was actually constructionprojects going on on campus that made it convenient for us. but we all picked up a brick, wemarched from the union building, the normal center of studentactivity, in a straight line.
no one said a word. >> with our red bricks in ourbrown paper bags, one by one, to hovde hall, which is themain administration building where the president andother higher level officers had offices. and single file,quietly and many people with dark sunglasseson, you know, that was real cool back then. we walked single file quietlyto hovde hall and one by one,
we took our red bricks outof our brown paper bags, and one by one, wewalked up the steps and put a brick on the steps. >> and on the first levelplatform, we'd lay a pile of bricks right down infront of the building. it was an amazing experience,because as we looked into the windows,there was people in all of the windows watchingthis student group march on the administration building.
>> i remember the demonstrationas being very moving. it was very well organized. the students were quiet. they were dignified. well, the two organizers of thedemonstration, linda jo mitchell and homer larue, knew me andsort of knew where i stood. and by this time, they knewthat the exponent was sort of a real student newspaper, notjust the public relations organ that the universitywanted us to be.
so they gave us a heads up thatthis demonstration would take place, so that wewould make sure that we had a reporterthere, a photographer there. they put this sign on the stepsof the administration building. they filed by one at a timeand carefully laid their bricks at the base of the sign and it was a verypowerful demonstration. i can remember you looked upat the administration building and there were headspeeping out the windows
from behind the curtains. and i think there was a certainamount of fear on the part of the people in theadministration building about, you know, what was maybegoing to happen next. >> so we laid thebricks down in front of the administrationbuilding on the stairs. we placed a sign in it. the sign said thefire next time. >> when you're doing theinterviews, did you get a sense
that they were discouragedwhen one year later, there wasn't much thathad been accomplished? >> right. indeed. they were discouraged,but still hopeful because there was some thingsthat started to happen, you know, and changedoesn't happen fast. but as long as it's moving inthat right direction, you know, they were happy toa certain extent and then that's why the secondprotest movement came about,
because all the demandsweren't being met. >> and i think it'salso important to note that there weren'tthe exact same leaders from the first movementto the second, which is not something we reallywent into to a great extent, but i guess the type of student that purdue had recruitedcontinued to diversify in that they were pulling morestudents because they started to recruit athletesfrom inner cities, okay?
so the type of studentprofile that came in tended to now become where as homerlarue and linda jo mitchell, you know, sort of scholarlystandouts and intellectuals, eric mccaskill and thoseguys were from newport news, virginia, you know,chicago, and, you know, their patience leveland their tolerance, you know, it was a little less. so you were starting to see ashift in the type of student as well and so theunrest that came
about was also areflection of who was there. >> right. and thatsecond group called for a black cultural center. you know, we want a place thatwe can call our own on campus. >> right. >> i thought that was powerful. >> by the 60s, purdue had begunto recruit black athletes, like all-american leroy keyesand track man eric mccaskill. >> as an athlete, youwere somewhat in, like,
a little special category. you know, looked upto in a certain way, especially if youwere a star athlete. >> well, life asan athlete was life that i would say wasenjoyable from the standpoint that physical activitycan take away frustration. everybody has frustration andthe frustration that we had to deal with and endureduring the course of the day or the evenings afterpractice kind of dissipated
when you were a student athletebecause you had an opportunity to physically get itout of your system. also the fact thatwe were individuals who the community admiredfrom the standpoint that we were doingpositive, something positive for their teams, made it aneasier place for an athlete to be versus an individuals whois black and only a student. >> the black athleteat purdue became vital to the student unit,lending their local celebrity
to the cause, often raising theprofile of student protests. black athletes werehistorically among the first to break racial barriersat purdue. herman murray, the first blackboilermaker on the gridiron; ernie hall, in the same year,changed life on the hardwood in boilermaker basketballforever. lamar lundy, who in 1957,became the only boilermaker to win both mvp of the football and basketball teamsin the same year.
>> i was always interested inthe news that the students set for a court appearance. it was a rallying point,because prior to that, you know, was the silent protestand there was like a lull. >> the arrest of 22 year olderic mccaskill galvanized the black student bodylike never before. with the help of purdue'sfirst black professor, helen bass williams, thestudents organized a march into the town of lafayette.
>> court appearancewas on a monday. we organized, met atthe student union. from the student union,crossed the wabash river, the wabash bridge, to lafayette, from west lafayetteto lafayette. when i got to the courtroomcoming up the stairs, i still remember thatguy from a cbs affiliate in indianapolis,and interviewed me. i said, i'm calling in alawyer, because it's a trumped
up charge, so i was gettinga little bit of nation time. and we go and make ourway into the courtroom and i had never seen that manyfolk in one small courtroom. the district attorneyquestioned me and he recommended to the judge thatthis case be thrown out because of no evidence. and so it was dismissed andafter that we just shouted. >> as the march continuedback to campus, the focus quickly turned tothe administration building.
this time, students wentbeyond the building steps and silence was replacedwith urgency and passion. >> one of the things thatwas particularly important that i think is beingbrought into life through this film isthe history of nsbe. >> yes. >> correct. >> because i had ason who was in nsbe and he had no ideathat it started here.
>> yeah, that's huge. the national societyof black engineers, we thought it was huge thatit was founded at purdue. we didn't know that either. >> i mean, i guess,why don't you think about where it came from, but, imean, most of us who, you know, are black college studentswho know other people in nsbe and we just thoughtthis is something that purdue can bereally proud of.
>> right. and also the facultyand administration help them to come into being, you know, with president hovdewriting letters >> so it once again showed howpurdue was willing to support and go the extra mile forit's minority students. >> so it was a perfectexample of the rebuilding. i guess we think about thefilm as a first half being sort of explaining the conditions. then the high pointbeing the crisis.
then, there was aperiod of rebuilding and nsbe was a prime example of not just outstandingstudent leadership, but also faculty support. and it was in a sense anolive branch, you know, to say let's be aggressive about how we cansupport these students and are still around today. >> and what 33,000 strong,something like that?
>> i don't know, yeah. >> eleven milliondollars, but yeah, it's pretty amazingwhat they've been able to accomplish as a result. >> let me ask you a littlebit about yourselves. >> all right. yes. >> oh, yes. we can talk somemore about the film,
but i want to findout about you guys. tell me what yourbackgrounds are. >> art. >> art, of course. we're from the tribeof the artists, but we're old artschool buddies. we've known each otherfor the last 15 years and we've been workingprofessionally together for about the lastfive, six years.
and just basically taking across disciplinary approach to filmmaking and storytelling,because as artists, we're already storytellers,whether we do it with our brush or whether we do it withthe mouse clicks, okay? and so to bring those skillsto this new medium, you know, was like vitally important. and we felt likeoverqualified to do it. >> he's right. we met our freshman year.
i was a traditionalpainter, you know. i came along to, you know, gointo a dark and brooding lineage of very deep thinking painters who shunned all thesetechnological. of course, this wasbefore the boom, right? this was before theinternet was created. >> okay. [ laughter ] >> but i was reallyinvested in just sort
of painting and drawing. that was my thing. and jamar was theexact opposite. he was all about the mouseand excited about technology. >> and graphics. >> editing graphics,special effects. and for us to sort of see eyeto eye as individuals, you know, barring what we weredoing, you know, it really brought twopolar opposites together,
but with the same sortof core expression. >> and that's the cruxof our creative union. >> when you graduatedfrom college, did you know that you wanted to do this? that you wanted to make films? >> yeah, well, listen. we knew we wantedto tell stories through the visualmedium, you know? whether it's painting,whether it's filmmaking,
whether it's designor effects, you know? so this our language and wecan use any of these medium, and so when we sawthat there was a dearth of these storiesbeing told, you know, like there was anabsence, you know. like we were uniquely qualifiedto be able to tell these stories and be able to tellthese treasures, so to speak, in black culture. >> what kind of advice wouldyou give to somebody graduating
from college at thispoint, who's interested in storytelling, but not kindof sure what they want to do. >> right. go for it. go for it. i mean, seriously. you can. the world isset up so that you can go in whatever you want to go in. don't accept no for ananswer and follow your heart and be passionate andcommitted to what you do.
>> neither one of you guyswent to purdue, right? >> nope. >> no. >> and you don't have, do youhave a connection with purdue? >> not, through thisproject, i think, is our biggest connection. >> how did you getinvolved with the project? >> well, we werecontacted by a few alumns who had seen an earlier projectwe had done and they just kind
of asked the question, do you think you guys could dothis kind of thing for purdue? and that was a bit of astretch for us initially, just because we associatedpurdue with, you know, neil armstrong. >> exactly. >> oh, okay. >> and black purdue, we'rejust like, purdue, you know, it's associated with like,you know, whiteness, you know?
and so we were just likeokay, well, what, well, okay, what's the story? and they were just like, well,we're not exactly sure, but, you know, we want toput you on the case. and so we was like okay. let's see what's down there. >> what convinced youthat there was a story? >> oh, man. when we actually spoke tothe people who attended.
>> the people. >> the people, that's right. all the people. >> and what i liked about,what i liked being an outsider because it allowed us toapproach the story in a way that what would interest us about this story notcoming from purdue. because we wanted toreach a broader audience and we were essentiallythat audience.
like okay, let's see what'shere and what would interest us about the story, not coming fromor being an alumni from purdue. >> and not having an agenda. there's no agenda. >> had we been students, idon't even know if we could be as subjective toour own alma mater. >> yeah, indeed. >> we couldn't. but just coming in here, itwas all about the people.
>> and the peoplehad such dimension. >> and had such affinityfor purdue oddly enough. you know, that it was clear thatthere was a lot to be told here. >> it felt to melike it was addressed to a very large audience. when i saw the name blackpurdue, i said, oh, well, this is a great film and i'mfiguring that i'll watch this with my family, withother black friends. but this is aimed ata much wider audience.
tell me about that. >> it's definitely aimedat a much wider audience, because once again, it'shumans connecting to humans and human being stories, okay? so therefore, we say blackpurdue, but it's talking about an experience that peoplehad, that we can connect with. we know what it feels like tobe the only ones to be lonely. and we just want you toconnect to this story and bring you along this ride,so to speak, of this people
and their experiences at purdue. and what purdue, and howthese people changed purdue. >> and what is the purpose,right, what is a point? why would we eventake this journey? and if it's a conversation,you know, of black people to black people, that's limited. i mean, in a sense, you'repreaching to the choir. we want to create the kind ofprojects that invite people to investigate a subject
that they might not haveotherwise considered and to feel comfortablewhile they're going there. >> and there's a way that,we like to say that we're from the obama generation,right? we're looking fora bridge, right? in the 60s and the 70s,it was about, you know, sort of activism, vocalism. in the 80s, it was assimilationand sort of now, we're saying, hey, we're neighbors,let's come look
through the family photo album and we can all lookat it, you know? so we like that invitingapproach to a subject matter in the past mighthave been explosive. >> we'll be back in just amoment with derek and jamar. >> this presentation of the bigten network was brought to you by purdue university,preparing tomorrow's leaders for a changing world. >> when purdue studentsarrived on campus,
they'd be getting much morethan a four years education. they were embarking ona journey of discoveries that will change theirlives in the world. at purdue, students learnto invent science, business, and global thinking to deliversolutions for the cultural, political and economicchallenges facing people across the globe. at purdue, we arepreparing tomorrow's leaders to deliver solutionsfor our changing world.
>> en'urga incorporatedcreates advanced optical instrumentation for analysisin combustion systems and specializes in absorption and emission spectroscopy. >> purdue research park,the idea economy is here. >> this presentation of the bigten network is brought to you [ silence ] >> i'm going to askyou guys a little bit about the way you createdthose moments in the film where there was no dialogue,
where you had music,but you had pictures. what made you decide to go without somebodysaying something? >> i'll tell you. jamar had seen a movie, becausehe said, he's movies and tv. he's our media research and hecame to me and he said, man, i just saw this and the first 10minutes, there was no dialogue. and he was just insistentthat this is a wonderful way, and i'll tell you the politicalside and he'll give you some
of the particulars how he did. but politically,right, it's been hard for people to talk about race. i mean, let's be frank. we didn't want to come in hereand lambaste the institution. >> right. and createan angry race place. >> i did not want to dishonorwhat was a real situation. >> so politically, thisworked well as a way of allowing the intelligence ofthe viewer to make associations
that we didn't have toarticulate verbally. >> right. yes, indeed. we always want to pushthe film making envelope, so to speak, to the next level. and so when i saw that piecewhere there was no sound and just the motion, itwas a perfect way for us to walk this tightrope,so to speak. because we didn'twant to say too much. it was a dark periodand we didn't want
to make it angry, you know. we wanted to be inclusiveand we said, you know what, let's let the people see andfeel the conditions, you know, of that lonelinessand that solitude. and i think that'llcome over much better than us creating somewords to say, oh, they were this, they were that. let's just go through thepictures and let's feel it. >> and that's one of the momentswhere the score really mattered.
>> we wanted a pregnant score. full of, you know, sowatching the picture alone, i don't think wouldnecessarily give you the cues. but listening to the tone, it felt like brahmsor a mournful score. then you start to emote, youknow, around this, you know, oh, there's something here. so that's where it came from. >> i thought that it was veryeffective with the stills,
but i think it wasmost effective when you had roger blaylock onand when you had nicholas hood. >> those moments at theend were so poignant. it was amazing, becauseit seemed like you were saying more. and yeah. you've got togive those scenes a chance to breathe, so to speak. and we would tellthe interviewees after a scene just hold it.
just stay in the moment, becausewe knew exactly what we were going to do. if you're just quiet andlet us look into your eyes after telling us about thatexperience, then we can get that extra drop of, oh, man,i can feel his pain, you know? >> and we want people tolook at history, right? i mean, you can read a book and you can draw your ownconclusions from reading, but when you look at someonewho tells you, who was there,
the moral authority, you know. and the experienceof just looking at them is a very humanthing and we think sort of the eyes are thesoul to the spirit. just, you know. so tempo is somethingthat we also think about. pacing, you know, what is thetiming and what does that say? i mean, think about it. television, you watchsome things.
[snapping] move you alongand get you ready to act. some things are more reflectiveand the tempo we wanted to strike here was one thatwould allow, as jamar says, that sort of breathingperiod to say, like, let me look at this person. you know, so it wasall an attempt to evoke through the emotion. >> and to mimic what younaturally do in conversation. when someone's talking toyou, you're looking at them.
you're looking atdifferent things about them. you're feeling their eyes andthe way their mouth's moving. we're doing it now. >> right. we're havinga conversation. >> right. and so you want a filmthat can start to be organic and you to connect, youwant the audience to connect with your subject in that way, so you want to mimic whatthey would normally do. and after someone'sfinished talking,
you're just kindof like, oh, i see. >> when i arrivedat purdue in 1942, i went through theregistration line and one of the first personsi saw was a counselor. he took one look at me and hesaid you don't belong at purdue. you're not college material. being black at purdue, we werejust on the edge of everything. we weren't involved in anyof the student organizations. the atmosphere wascompletely different then.
we could not lifein west lafayette, but two white clergymensetup an international house. >> for black male students,the only place on campus to sleep was the internationalhouse, a small home reserved for students from foreigncountries and negros. residents hailed from as faraway as czechoslovakia, korea, indonesia, china,uruguay and gary, indiana. for black female students, the only housing was milesaway accessible by foot
in the most undesirableparts of west lafayette. >> my sister and icame to purdue in 1946 and we could notlive on the campus. >> freda's father fredparker sent a letter to president hovdeseeking on-campus housing for his daughters. hovde denied theiradmission to the dormitory. disheartened, mr. parker thensought out favor into friends, secretary of the colored branchof the senate avenue ymca
in indianapolis anda black power broker. on behalf of the parker girls,we assembled a motley crew of concerned citizens to paya visit to an old friend, indiana governor ralph gates,who in turn, pressured purdue. the spring semesterof 1947 marked the end of housing discriminationat purdue. along with the fournewest colored residents of bunker hill werethe parker girls. >> the student unionbuilding had a barber shop,
but we could not, they would notcut negro students hair there. so the late judge aloysiushigginbotham and i went to the president and weprotested to him that we wanted to get our haircutsin west lafayette. >> in order to get a haircut, black male students would drivean hour south of purdue in order to find a local coloredbarbershop in indianapolis. >> and he listened to us reallypatiently, then he said, well, we'll put a pair of hairclippers in the service
and storage buildingand you check them out and cut your hair. so that was sucha slap in the face that leon higginbotham became afederal judge, a legal scholar, went on to oberlin tofinish his education. >> when the film firststarted, there were all of the beautiful still images. i like history, so i lovedthe images in the beginning. when the words started,i was surprised
at the way you approachedthe subject. you want to talk aboutthat a little bit? >> you mean the narrator, right? when he started tot alk? >> when he came in, wewanted him to, we wanted him to befriend the audience, right? we wanted him toengage the viewer. we did not want him to talkat the audience, you know. so he started with aquestion, which is,
in some sense, interactive,right? it invites your participation. we all have kids andwe watch them sort of, you know, what do you think? touch one and theykind of respond. somewhere along the line,adults become too sophisticated for that, but we knew thatby starting with a question that would be sort ofa dialogue, you know, with the narrator,so we wanted him
to befriend the audiencesort of with a question. he was your guide. and i think that'swhat we called him. like the vo is your guide. he's on the side of theaudience and he's ushering you through this piecein history, you know, so you want to introducehim to the audience. like, hey, this is me, you know? you didn't want itto be too jarring.
like, okay, now we'regoing to start, you know? so i think the way wehandled it was like perfectly and it gave you that gray-datedintroduction into the vo and your guide, so to speak,for the story in history. >> we don't like necessarilythird person, you know. and in 1949, yeah. >> there's nothingwrong with that. >> it's just a differentapproach. >> it's also africanamerican material.
we're black folks, in case youcouldn't tell and we sort of try to mimic the feeling youget at a coffee table, i mean at a kitchen table,talking to your grandmother. >> talking to your grandma. yeah. >> she never comes in andsays in 1869, you know? so it's sort of how aconversation starts. do you remember such and such? oh, yeah. i know them.
what about it? that's it. >> what was the budgetlike for this film? >> it was a modest,small six figure budget. and anybody in productionknows that's very small. >> yes, if you cansay it in six figures. >> indeed. >> definitely, but on thetimeline, it was even worse. because with a smalltimeline, small budget.
>> tell me about the timeline. >> six to nine months. >> that's how we had toput this thing together. >> so we had to go fromresearch to post production, pre production, and have itall done and ready to show, you know, for homecoming. so yeah. but what's greatis with a small budget, you know, invention, you know? creativity becomes important.
>> there were a lot of things. i mean, we wanted to do areenactment of some scenes, but it forces usto get creative. and some of the things youwere talking about as far as not using narrationin certain parts and using music instead,these are creative solutions around sort of workingon a tight budget. but that's what wespecialize in. we want to say wecan stretch a dime.
>> sounds great to me. >> high productionvalue, low budget. >> you guys used keith david. now he has the voice. how did you, how didyou work that out? how did you get intouch with him? how did you figure outhow to get him for it? >> right. exactly. well, keith david who isthe voice of the navy,
when we heard hisvoice, we were just like, we got to have thisguy, you know? and so, you know, i put mystar power relations guy on it, derek fordjour, and hewent to work calling people and he got hold of keith for us. >> yeah, keith isa, the truth is, i'm married to a broadwayactor, so it brings us both into a world of broadway talent that we normallywouldn't even think about.
and, you know, some of thoserelationships and things that we've been able to see helps us consider acompletely different audience. but for us, it startedwith the piece. what did the piece need,who would the voice be, what would their function be? does it make senseto be older, younger? >> male or female? >> serene, aggressive.
will we have multiple voices? will we have youknow, so all those, keith sort of hitall that we wanted. authoritative, butnot condescending. >> african american,but not stereotypical. you know, so we wantedfolksy, but also eloquent. and so he was able to bring thequality of voice that we needed, i mean, with precision,accuracy, you know. he was just a reallyamazing talent to work with.
>> what were some ofthe biggest challenges in making this documentary? >> i think the biggestchallenge was the research, actually gathering up enoughinformation to put a good and well told storytogether, you know? it has to have some basisin something and so one of the challenges was gettingthis archival information, getting all thisresearch together and then the second challengewas, you know, cutting it down
and trying to make astory out of it, you know? >> yeah. and i thinkthat jamar is right. in terms of research, forinstance, we were told that the early africanamerican students came in through the pharmacydepartment, right? and so part of what we dois kind of detective work. so you know, we can'ttake it on face value. we have to substantiatethese claims. so when we went to the archives,it didn't quite bear out,
so we thought is this somethingwe can go forward with or not? there's an ethical, you know,component to what we're doing as well, and i think that is achallenge because it's possible that people might have kind ofheard through oral traditional, that this is what,you know, is true. and our job is to,in a sense, demystify and to substantiatethese kind of claims. that can be tough. so i think from a challengestandpoint, we were going
to leave some stuffout, but you've got to leave in the good stuff. >> one of the things that i wasmost impressed by was the use of the very simple graphics thatsaid the year, the population on the campus andthe black population. >> how did you guyscome up with that? was that something that youplanned from the beginning or did you decideto throw that in? >> well, as we were doing ourresearch, we came across a lot
of tidbits and nuggetsof information that composed a story andwhen we saw those numbers, it allowed the audienceto get in a moment. you know, the magnitudeof the situation or how small the populationreally was compared to the greater population. and so by just flashing ournumber and saying nothing, you know, you get it in aninstance what the situation was on campus at thattime for blacks.
>> it had a major impact onthe people that i spoke to. the other thing that i waswondering was about some music. now, you had a special score. >> created for this. how did you figure outwhat you were doing to use? >> well, i think weknow how important it is to set an emotional tone. we wanted, this ispurdue, which is known for science and technology.
we really wanted todrum up the emotion. we wanted people to feel. so, you know, dropping in musicis easy, but finding someone that understood theemotional tenor of each scene wasvery important to us. so we looked at severalcomposers and came up with a guy we bothloved, james schafer. he was very talentedout of rancho cucamonga. i just like to say that.
rancho cucamonga. but james in a smart guyand we're very particular about how scenes are scored andwe want to work with someone who could reallyget our direction and he was great with that. but that was somethingwe found to be important for the emotionaldriver to the story. >> while the minor games ofprior years were a source of pride to many, forfuture generations
of black purdue students,they were barely enough. with a new generationcame a whole new mindset, a new negro was comingto purdue. >> a new negro is a personwith a new sense of dignity and destiny with anew self respect. along with that isthis like a field which once characterizeda negro, this willingness to stand up courageously. >> gradual racialprogress now gave way
to frustration anddiscontentment. social unrest was in the air. the nation was at war. the civil rights movementwas in full throttle. the boiler was soon to erupt. >> when you started on thefilm, did you have an idea of how you wanted it to beshaped or did you have all of the stuff in frontof you and say, oh, this is how i want to do it.
>> we had no idea actually. >> when we were commissionedto do the project, no one knew what the story was, but they knew there wasa story there, you know. we have history here. we just want to tell it. and so in our research phases,where we actually figure out what the story is, sowe get in as many facts and as many tasting ofthe time and interviews
from people who were there. and then from there,the story kind of emerges organically,you know. so when we found out about theprotest and then how it led to the second protest, andwhat they were going through and what the numbers were,it was just like, oh my god, the world has to know. it has to know whatblack purdue gave to them and meant, you know?
>> and actually jamaris being modest. he's actually the story guy. >> wow. >> if i told you his story, we'dbe here for two days, all right? but jamar understand thescience of storytelling. so we do get this stuff togetherand the story does emerge, but he kind of like wakesup one day and says, i know what the story is. and it, that's, it does emergein the sense that we pull
from these timetables andthese very rigid structures that we create aroundthe research. and jamar does a good job ofkind of stringing us along of saying this iswhat's interesting. that's what's not interesting. oh, they're going to go to sleep if we do too muchof that, you know? and that's how we really did it. >> but in order forthat story to emerge,
you have to havesomething to work from. you've got to have the research. now this guy righthere, he reads a lot. i'm the tv guy. i watch tv. he reads books, okay? so he goes into these centers and gathers all this wonderfulresearch and these point out all the facts of this timeand era and now what's here?
what do we have here? >> yeah, basically. >> and so he makes it easy. >> what about the writing? is that something thatyou did or you did or do you sit togetherand put it together? >> we like to refer toourselves as the unibrain, okay? left and right, youknow what i'm saying? and so we look ateverything before us.
you know, we look atthe different pieces, what's interesting, what's not. how this segment can steerus into the next segment and then we startto write together. >> one of the key moments startswith dr. king's assassination. did you plan that this would be like the high pointin your story? or did that just emerge? >> that point in the story wasthe major catalyst, so to speak,
to the angst and themovements that came out of it. and we found that this wasthe starting point in a lot of different universitiesin protest movements around america, you know? and so when dr. kingpassed and was assassinated, there was a lot of angst andanger and people didn't know how to deal with it, but theyknew things had to change. and this is what kickedup the entire movement and it became a naturaljumping off point for the story.
>> as our story editor,i mean, jamar really kind of conceived the idea thatpurdue would be the character, the main character, right? and we follow traditionalstory structure, right? and so every character,anything you've ever seen kind of follows this trend. there's a main character whohas a persistent condition, a change. i'll tell you it's a crisis.
and then the pattern changesand then we feel resolved. and in that sense, this wasthe moment that the crisis hit and this persistentcondition of exclusion. >> had to change. right. and so there's a senseof resolve that we sought to communicate thathappened from this criteria. >> yeah, and that was one ofthe secrets of the film was that the main characterwas not the blacks at purdue, but purdue herself.
how she got changedby these conditions and what her responsewas, you know? she could have continued on apath of stringent, you know, stiff behavior, resistance towhat was going on, but instead, she acquiessed and she began to make things better forher student populations, black, white and otherwise. so i thought that wasa triumph for purdue. >> being black at purdueis not where it should be,
but it is betterthan where we were. so we made some steps, but yet we still havesome progress to make. so you know, we'vewalked a long journey, but the journey is still there. and so what i think reallyhelps is having people in place like myself who go through thejourney in a different level and a lot people are coming backto purdue to work for purdue, who were here on the other side.
so we can see bothsides of the coin and know how we can make thisthing better for the students and for the environmentthat they're going to face when they exit this place. >> it's been over 100 years since david robert lewis firstwalked onto purdue's campus. he must have imagined as wedo now in moments of isolation that there is indeeda better day coming. and that the best days forpurdue are yet to come.
>> you talked to marianblaylock in this and we see kind of two marian blaylocks. we see her at two differentperiods in her life. do you want to talk about that? >> because we, the marianblaylock in, you know, that we see at the last partof it is totally different from the one in the beginning. >> so glad you observed that. >> we not only thoughtthe conversation
as jamar talked aboutwas important. we thought showing the peoplethat were on the front lines, that came in whenthings were tough and were bad, asconverts, right? and not only converts, but asarchitects of this movement. you see? so it's one thing ifi came in, i was treated bad and i went away and ihad this experience. it's another thing if i came in, i experienced theconversion and i invested.
and not only did i invest,but i stayed around to build. >> and then ultimately,i was appreciated, right? >> right. yeah. i mean, these are the peoplewho were in the protest, who were going up againstthe structure, the man, the, you know, the structurethat was there. and then they got convertedto becoming faculty members and now changing the system and bringing other youngblack people into the fold.
so that once again, it'sa testament to purdue and how she changed thesesituations, you know? >> in 1974, the engineeringdepartment gave birth to the minority engineeringprogram and appointed an enterprisingyoung purdue alumnae to head the program,marian blaylock. >> as coordinator of minorityengineering programs, as i was, there were some thingsthat were already in place and were a result of themarch that we had done in 1968
and they had begun to develop. so we were experimentingin various programs. we did some outreach programsand went to the students where they were and we hadsome onsite campus visits where we would bringthe students to us and they would spend a week ortwo or three days on campus, get to meet otherblack students. >> over the next 35 years,marian would be responsible for graduating over2000 students
through the minorityengineering program. >> were you surprise aboutanything that you learned? >> yeah, we were surprised that the story emergedso wonderfully. i mean, like seriously, i mean, two protest movements,a bomb scare. like, i mean, you couldn'thave scripted this better if you had just wroteit from scratch. and this was whatlike really happened.
so it really made ourjob easy when we came across the actualfacts of the situation. but there were also surprisesin the research to learn about indiana, african americanhistory in the state of indiana. >> i mean, i'm fromtennessee originally. >> and i'm a new yorker,so coming down here, i was just like, whatare we going to find? [ laughter ] >> indiana, i mean, who knew?
i mean, so much that came out of indianapolis and crispus attucks and some of the peoplewe learned about, like madam c.j. walker and the connections to purdue and so we, therewere surprises there. during the making ofit, one of the pioneers, paul parks, passed away. but he had given us someamazing oral interviews before that that even brought thurgoodmarshall to west lafayette. unfortunately, we lost him,but that was another surprise.
so i think there werea lot of surprises. >> right. it comesalong with production. >> okay, so you did allof these interviews. were there thingsthat you had to leave out because you couldn'tmake it a six hour movie? >> oh, most definitely. it would have been aten hour movie had we included everything. what we wanted to do wasgive a general understanding
of what went on, becausei feel like there's like four differentdirections we could have went in and we can make a two hour movie on just the black athleteat purdue, you know? so we just wanted to lay downa foundation, so to speak, and then later generations canprobably expound and go deeper into certain branches, shalli say, that we touched on. >> yeah. it was, wedid leave out a lot. but we put in the essentialsand we like to use the analogy
to cooking, you know, andsort of being good sous chefs. and if the ingredients aregood, we pick them good, if we prepare them goodand we clean them good, then only the best makes it. >> yes, lots of stuff was out, but i think that theessential elements are there. >> what's next for you guys? >> oh man. to continue to tellthese stories.
>> because black history, right? the majority of the populationknows slavery and then the 60s. what were we doing in between inthe 40s, the 20s, the 30s, man? they have so many great storiesout there and we kind of want to uncover those truths andbring them to the light. >> that's what wefeel our mission is. >> yeah, between 1850 and 1920,we were just talking today about something with that. we just think that are justso many, there are stories
that we've heard informally forso long, but we want to partner with institutions and, like wesay, we like to bring hollywood to the little man, right? and so far, unless somehollywood big shot likes it and spends 30 million dollarsto make it, or it's a symposium on sunday afternoon with15 people in the audience, you know, what's in between? >> so we seek to fillthat gap and we've talked to some really interestingpeople who have lots
of great projectsthat we can't talk about to have a green light,but people are really sort of catching on to this. we even found one of theresearchers on this project, martha biondi, is writing a book on all the studentprotests of the 60s. >> the 60s, right. >> and she said over 500of these things happened and during the courseof this project,
we learned about the universityof wisconsin, duke, cornell, yale, i mean it goes on. so the stories are there. we just want to be able toposition ourselves to tell them with care, with authenticity,with an agenda to build, and to bring sensitivityto that space that we think is pretty dark. >> so you see historykind of as your niche. that would be the thread runningthrough all of your work?
yeah. but through history,everything is history, right? what we said 10 minutesago is history, right? so in a sense, historyis sort of the, it's our lens, but it's broad. i mean, there are no limitsthere as far as we see. >> if you were goingto do a sequel to this, what do you thinkwould be the next step? what's your challengeto the next filmmaker? >> i think if we had a lifetime,we'd like to go to every campus
and tell their particular story. these days, people arebattling with diversity and how to we retain and recruit. our thing is justtell your story. >> i mean, just tellthem what's happened. and that's interesting. we never knew much about thestudents that came before us and if you didn't have astatute or a legal scholarship, or you didn't stillcome around, i mean,
we could have been thefirst black students there. >> so it's about tellingthe institutional memory and the history of aplace to say, yeah, you guys have been here. maybe in larger numbers overtime, but you've been here. we think that's animportant story to tell. >> what's the messagethat you'd like people to take away from this? >> try and find thehuman spirit.
human beings arewonderful people. not that i know anyother type of life forms. but, you know, in general, we'reable to get through much more than we give ourselves creditfor and so this should, this story should be takenas an inspiration and a hope that if these peoplewere able to do it, you can certainly battleyour every day challenges in life to overcome. >> it is about hope, you know?
we show reverend nicholashood, who's a phenomenal man, at the beginningwho came to purdue in the 40s and was very tough. and he kind of goes away whenwe talk about that period. but at the very end, duringthis triumphant score, he returns with the statementof declaration, i am purdue. and to me, that's justhopeful, you know? right? he didn't just sort ofwither away, but to still stand and affirm speaks towhat jamar talked about
and that is the humanspirit can indeed forgive, can persevere, canevolve, right? and so those dramatic things that are innately humanqualities, you know, are what we want to extract. >> can you tell me ifthere's somebody that stood out in your mind, somebody whowas particularly outstanding and left an impression on you? >> there was a gentleman wespoke to named paul parks,
who started purdue in41 and graduated in 49. and in between, hewent to the war, right? so he came at purdue when hecould not get a haircut there. he could not live on campus. and then when he returned,the school had integrated. so he saw such abreadth of time, a cataclysmic change occurred and he could recountit with such clarity. he was in his 80s and hada very successful life
as a civil engineerin massachusetts and knew the kennedys. this guy went on todo amazing things and passed during themaking of the film, but he was really a titan. he really even told us about integrating themovies downtown lafayette and spending a night injail and thurgood marshall. >> and the reverendduke mccaskill,
he really made animpression on myself, because this was a plainspoken kid from chicago, right? >> no, from newport news. >> newport news, right. >> virginia. exactly. >> and what was amazingabout his story, this was a regular inner citykid, right, who was thrusted into these circumstances of likethe feds coming into bomb scare
and then to changethat negative energy into a positive type protest andleave the other kids, you know, so they're 19, 20 years old. to lead them intothat second protest that got the black culturalcenter bill was amazing to me. so this guy right here, hereally stuck in my heart. from college at this point who'sinterested in storytelling, but not kind of surewhat they want to do? you can. the world isset up so you can go
in whatever directionyou want to go in. >> well, you guys are certainlypassionate and i would love to be able to pass yourpassion on to our students. thank you so muchfor being with us. >> thank you. >> i am pat rochonand i am purdue. >> i am reverend doctor nicholas hood and i am purdue. >> i am marian williamsonblaylock. i am purdue.
>> i am governor dukemccaskill and i am purdue. >> i am roger blaylock. >> i am tony harrisand i am purdue. >> i am erica elizabeth mills. >> i'm heather partridge. >> i am roland parish. >> i'm don thompson. i am purdue. >> i am liz thompson. >> i am terry richardson.
>> the preceding program wasproduced by purdue university in associate withthe big ten network.
