1:24

Chris Everett is the Wilmington based film

1:26

producer and director of the award-winning documentary

1:28

film Wilmington on Fire , as well as the documentary

1:31

Grandmaster the Vic Moore Story . He's

1:33

the founder and president of Speller Street Films and

1:35

is the artistic director for the Southern Documentary

1:37

Fund . He's currently working on his follow-up

1:40

film , wilmington on Fire Part 2 . I'm

1:42

very honored to have him here . Chris Everett

1:44

, welcome to Carney Saves the World .

1:46

Yeah , yeah , yeah , we'll do it one day .

1:48

Thank you again for coming on . We got some important stuff

1:50

to talk about . This is a very important

1:52

topic . I was not aware of

1:54

the Wilmington riots massacre

1:56

. I was not aware of that at all and

1:59

I'm kind of shocked by it because I have

2:01

a history degree From

2:04

up north . You know I could see if they weren't teaching it down

2:06

south . Right , you know , with the lost cause deal

2:08

that adjusted the education system down here

2:10

for a while , but up north we're not learning about this

2:12

, right . Right , could you just tell us a little

2:14

bit about it from what you've researched ?

2:16

Well you know , the Wilmington massacre of 1898

2:19

is pretty much considered one of the only

2:21

examples of an actual overthrow

2:23

of an existing government here in the

2:25

United States of America . This happened on

2:28

November 10th 1898 in the beautiful

2:30

city of Wilmington , North Carolina . You

2:32

know , what makes it really unique is that

2:34

back then this is over

2:37

30 years after slavery where you had

2:39

this thing that was going on in

2:41

several states in the South , a thing called

2:43

fusion . And so this fusionist movement

2:46

, kind of combined black Republicans

2:48

, white populists , kind of coming together and

2:50

saying you know , let's fuse together , let's try

2:53

to become a political power to get

2:55

our folks in office , and so you saw a lot

2:57

of that happening in Wilmington . But you also

2:59

had a white supremacist movement

3:01

that was just not only in Wilmington but throughout

3:03

the state of North Carolina that really wanted

3:05

to reverse all of these changes

3:08

that was happening in the state of North Carolina

3:10

and specifically in Wilmington . And that's how

3:12

we got the whole 1898 massacre

3:15

that happened . And a lot of people might be familiar

3:17

with Tulsa , rosewood , those

3:19

things . But Wilmington was before

3:21

both of those racial massacres

3:23

that happened here in the United States and , like you were

3:25

saying earlier , a lot of us still don't

3:27

know about it . A lot of us didn't know about it until

3:30

, I would say , you know Wilmington on fire really

3:32

coming out and really exposing a lot of this stuff

3:34

.

3:35

So how did you pick that as your ?

3:37

Well , it wasn't my first one . It

3:39

was my first completed one , and so it

3:42

was kind of like it's going to answer

3:44

your question at the same time . So my very

3:46

first documentary was about

3:48

where I'm from . I'm from Lawnburg , north Carolina

3:51

, scotland County . Lawnburg is about . If

3:53

you go across the bridge in Wilmington , the Cape

3:55

River Bridge , you know it's right on 74

3:57

. It takes you right through Lawnburg . Man , lawnburg

4:00

is like the halfway mark from here to Charlotte , and

4:03

so it's about an hour and a half from here , and

4:05

so I grew up there . I've been involved

4:08

in history my whole life . I grew

4:10

up right around the quarter from the Lawnburg Institute . It's

4:12

a historical blackboarding in day . School

4:15

started in 1904 , been the

4:17

same family for three generations . My grandfather

4:19

went to school there , my godfather

4:21

he went to school there . He was the alumni

4:23

president for years . You know I collected

4:25

all these old archival stuff for them over the

4:27

years and so that was going to

4:29

be my first film . That was my first film

4:31

about the Lawnburg Institute , but I totally

4:33

failed at it and never finished it . All

4:36

I did was really collect a lot of archival

4:38

materials , a lot of art or histories , and

4:40

so I never put it together . But recently

4:43

I was hired to actually use

4:45

a lot of my archival material for a book that's coming

4:47

out about the Lawnburg Institute . It's actually coming out

4:49

this February , coming up Great and so I supplied

4:52

all the photos for that book . But

4:54

with the documentary film I didn't

4:56

get the complete , I didn't get to finish it , but while

4:58

doing that I found out a lot of stuff

5:00

about the 1898 massacre . And when

5:02

I tell people a lot of times people think that

5:05

the Wilmington massacre is just restricted

5:07

to Wilmington and that's not true at all . This

5:09

was a statewide movement of white supremacy

5:11

. Even where I'm from , there was involvement

5:13

from people in my town . I grew up in

5:16

Lawnburg . So , for example , when you watch Wilmington

5:18

on fire and you see these pictures

5:20

where we talk about the red shirts and stuff like

5:22

that , you know the red shirts were , you know , similar

5:24

to the Klu Klux Klan . They were

5:26

white supremacists type of organization

5:28

really tried to restrict African Americans from

5:31

voting on in businesses where they didn't

5:33

wear any sheets . They came out and brought daylight

5:35

. So all the pictures that you see

5:37

of red shirts in my film , those aren't

5:40

red shirts from Wilmington . All those pictures are

5:42

red shirts from Lawnburg . Okay , then finding

5:44

out that a lot of red shirts

5:46

that participated in the Wilmington massacre of 1898

5:49

, a lot of them came from Lawnburg as

5:51

well , and so that sparked my interest

5:53

, when I didn't get to finish that film , I said

5:55

you know what ? Let me look more into this Wilmington 1898

5:58

story Because I see how it connects to Lawnburg . And

6:00

then also I started doing some research , found

6:03

out that Lawnburg really was

6:05

the kickstart to that whole election

6:07

of 1898 , that

6:09

white supremacy campaign of 1898

6:12

, they kickstarted that campaign in Lawnburg

6:14

with a huge rally in May of 1898

6:17

. That really kickstarted the rest of that year

6:19

for this whole white supremacy push which

6:22

led to the 1898 massacre . So I said

6:24

you know what ? Let me go ahead and see if

6:26

I can tell you this story because it really

6:28

relates to where I'm from .

6:30

Yeah .

6:30

And there's a lot to that , so let me go ahead

6:32

and tackle this . I didn't see that no one was doing a

6:34

documentary on it , and so you know what we're

6:36

going to give it a shot in the rest of history .

6:39

Folks that are listening , go watch

6:41

this film . It's amazing . I watched it

6:43

a second time yesterday . It's so

6:45

informative , it's so well done and

6:47

it is just a really crazy

6:49

time . I mean you can't even describe

6:52

it until you see the film and you see what happened

6:54

and how the only coup d'etat

6:56

in the United States to ever be successful

6:58

and it happened here in Wilmington they

7:00

removed the entire government and started

7:03

new , and it was all white people

7:05

. It's a pretty crazy , crazy

7:07

story .

7:07

And you know , in the cities never really fully

7:10

recovered from that event . Now

7:12

the the black population has

7:14

steadily been on the decline

7:16

. It's gotten up a little bit . I was sort

7:18

of the past couple of years To me I think that was because

7:20

of COVID where people could kind of move

7:22

around with their jobs , with their salaries

7:25

and kind of just move wherever they wanted to . So

7:27

you kind of started to see

7:29

that black population kind of go up . Even

7:31

I moved here during the pandemic , so I'm

7:33

included in that percentage

7:36

as well because we could actually move

7:38

around with some of our jobs . Now A lot

7:40

of jobs went remote , some people started their

7:42

own businesses so they could actually move

7:44

around a little bit . But it still hasn't

7:46

grown to a level of what it was

7:48

prior to the 1998 massacre . But

7:50

a lot of people are trying to change that

7:53

.

7:53

So we moved down here in 2017

7:56

. And it was right around the time that there

7:58

was just this big push to rename Humacrae

8:01

Park . And , for those listening

8:03

, humacrae Park is probably the largest park

8:05

in Wilmington . The land was donated

8:07

by this we'll just say , quote unquote

8:09

, rich guy Humacrae

8:12

. We can talk about how he got his money , but he

8:15

donated all this land for a park . And then

8:17

, when you start digging into it , the park's

8:19

main purpose was solely for white

8:21

people . It was never to be

8:23

used by anyone else besides white people . But

8:25

yet in 2016 , this guy's

8:28

damn name was still on the billboard . And

8:30

I remember getting in debates with people about

8:33

it and I'm like that's just wrong and the story

8:35

like it's just a bit shitty and it's wrong

8:37

, and people couldn't understand . I would have

8:39

these arguments , chris , and people would come back to

8:41

me and they'd be like , well , we didn't do it . Well , it's not . That's

8:43

at the point . So

8:46

since then it's obviously it has been changed

8:48

to Longleaf Park , which but

8:51

that kind of got me thinking well , what else is going

8:53

on in Wilmington ? And then I started hearing the stories and

8:55

your documentary had come out , but I hadn't gotten a chance

8:57

to see it back then . You know , brought a lot of light to

8:59

a very , very dark time in Wilmington , and

9:01

the US has passed .

9:02

For sure . And then we saw a lot of this get

9:05

exposed , especially , you know , during

9:07

the beginning of the pandemic with the murder of George

9:09

Floyd . You saw a lot of investment

9:12

, the name change kind of happened with Humacrae Park

9:14

as well , and then you started seeing a lot of the monuments

9:17

getting taken down really

9:19

across America . But specifically , you

9:21

know we're talking about Wilmington . You know we started to see

9:23

a lot of that happen throughout the city as well

9:25

. People have been telling people to change

9:27

these names for years . But it wasn't until

9:30

, you know , when George Floyd was murdered and during the

9:32

pandemic , you know , we started to finally see

9:34

some movement with those things .

9:35

Yeah , so when you start putting this film together

9:37

, obviously there's a fundraising component

9:40

to it . Yeah , did you get pushback

9:42

? Did people not want to attach money

9:44

to something that was possibly a controversial

9:46

topic ?

9:47

It was mostly because , you know , it was

9:49

my first film and also and

9:51

people don't realize this and now a lot

9:53

of people are making films on 1898

9:56

now got shorts out there

9:58

, other type of features , but when I was putting this

10:00

together no one was doing it . No one was making

10:02

it , wasn't even trying to do a film on 1898

10:04

. I didn't get the support or the

10:06

funding because of that . It was just that

10:09

I guess just no one cared about even

10:11

talking about the subject . You know what I'm saying

10:13

. It really wasn't a hot topic like that at the

10:15

time . You know , no one was really trying

10:18

to do anything on it besides

10:20

us . You know my team and stuff like

10:22

that . So we kind of went under radar with this

10:24

thing . We knew that , okay , this isn't a popular

10:26

topic at the time , we probably won't get the funding

10:29

, but let's figure out a way to get it going . Yeah , and

10:31

so it was , like you know , several different ways . I

10:33

use my own money a lot of times . A lot of

10:35

times people work for really free or cheap

10:37

a lot of times . And then also , I did a couple of

10:39

crowd funding campaigns and then

10:41

, for post-production , out the blue

10:43

, an NBA player actually gave me the remaining

10:45

post-production funds . To finish up , post-production

10:48

, david West . He's retired and , as a retired

10:50

NBA player , oh , yeah , yeah , but he actually gave

10:52

me the finishing funds on the finish and he heard

10:54

about me through like a blog , this

10:57

, mark Anthony Neal , who has a blog called Left to

10:59

Black . He's a history professor at

11:02

Duke University and he's a huge supporter

11:04

of what I've been doing over the years and he so . He wrote

11:06

a couple of stories about me doing this film

11:08

and David frequents his blog

11:10

. And he reached out . He said man , is this film

11:13

bad ? I want to get a copy of it , I want to see it

11:15

. And Mark told him , said man , it's not done

11:17

. I think he's still trying to get some money together for

11:19

post-production . And then Mark

11:21

hits me up . He said hey , david West and his people

11:23

hit me up . Man , they're interested in more

11:25

and more about your project and it could be a

11:27

way for you to finish it . And so that's

11:29

how we made that connection . Man , it's really

11:32

David West and looking at Mark's blog . And

11:34

then Mark hitting me up , letting me know

11:36

that hey , david is interesting in partnering

11:38

with you Get this thing done . And that's how we got

11:40

it done , man , that's awesome and the rest is history

11:42

. And then . So now getting Women's no Fire

11:44

2 funded was a whole lot easier , because

11:47

doing getting the first one done , getting

11:49

on the road , getting all these accolades

11:51

and doing all this stuff over the past

11:53

five , six years with that film that

11:55

kind of let people like you know

11:58

, chris , I see you want to do a part two . We're

12:00

going to get behind this now , and so funding things

12:02

went better and easier with

12:04

Women's no Fire 2 than it was with the first

12:06

one , but I wouldn't change it for the world , man , I learned

12:08

so much during the grassroots way

12:11

.

12:11

Yeah , I can't imagine how much you've learned over that

12:13

course of the whole project . One of the other people that

12:15

is coming on as , I think , an executive

12:17

producer for part two is Hilary

12:19

Burton . Yeah yeah , I want you to hear .

12:21

Yeah .

12:22

Yeah , I've got a lady friend that are

12:24

that are one tree hill freaks and like I live down here

12:26

and they're like do you drive by where they ? Yeah

12:28

, I drive by there , but yeah , so

12:30

she's going to be helping out .

12:31

Huh oh yeah , yeah , she's been . She's been a huge help and

12:33

support man . Like I said , women's

12:35

no Fire 2 has gotten a lot of support . But

12:38

the thing is , I connected with Hilary . It was during

12:40

the pandemic , you know , when a lot of stuff was

12:42

happening . You know , in our country a lot of stuff was happening

12:44

here in Women's 10 . I know I think someone sent

12:47

Hilary the video , sent the Women's

12:49

no Fire copy of it , and she checked it out and

12:51

she loved it and she's like , oh man , I never knew

12:53

about this history and I lived in Women's for 10 years

12:56

. And so she she went on

12:58

IG , on Instagram , and did a video

13:00

and gave me a shout out and so I saw all these

13:02

people started following me . That's awesome . I

13:04

like , oh , these people following me for that scroll

13:06

now . That's why it's Hilary Burton tagging

13:08

me and then . So I looked at the video . So I hit

13:10

it up in the DM and

13:12

say , hey , thank you again for the support . I really

13:15

appreciate you liking the film and liking

13:17

what I do . And she hit me back and then we just

13:19

started texting each other and you

13:21

know we talked on the phone and she said , chris

13:23

, I like what you're doing . And I tell her that's a hey , I'm

13:25

about to start production on part two . And she

13:27

was like hey , if you need anything , let me know . I

13:29

really love what you're doing . With the first one , she

13:31

brought me on our IG live I'm chat

13:33

talk that she brought us . From time to time they're like a

13:36

million viewers , wow , you know . So

13:38

I was able to tap into her audience . You know that

13:40

one tree here audience and stuff like that and

13:42

so she wanted to get involved with part

13:44

two , man , and so I say let's do it . And so

13:46

she's been a huge support over the past couple

13:48

of years , and just not only with women's

13:50

no fire , but no other questions that I

13:52

might have about doing film and trying

13:54

to grow my career she's just been more than helpful .

13:57

She's married to .

13:58

Oh , jesse , jesse , Morgan , yeah , from the walking

14:00

dead , jesse , that is husband .

14:01

So this isn't like an angle to try to get a zombie role

14:03

, is it no ?

14:06

not , at all Not at all .

14:07

Not at all . I'm a dot guy , so that's

14:09

fantastic . I mean to know that you're

14:11

going into part two with . You know

14:13

, all that weight off your shoulders that you had going into

14:15

part one is just got to be

14:17

, you know an amazing way to start it off it is .

14:19

It is , you know it's good and bad pressure

14:21

. So the pressure of thinking about the funding

14:24

aspect but the other person was that

14:26

you know you don't want to have like a soft , most you know

14:28

flop , you know type of deal

14:30

, you know , because the first

14:32

one did so much man and really , you

14:34

know , led to a lot of change , a lot of

14:36

the change that we're seeing in

14:38

North Carolina in Wilmington . Really that

14:40

film helped with that and so

14:43

that film is probably going to go down is

14:45

. You know , even if I do some

14:47

of the best films artistically

14:50

and everything , wilmington on Fire is

14:52

probably always going to be my number one film for everybody

14:54

. That's what everybody's going to know me for , and so

14:56

it's going to be hard to top that . But

14:59

I think we're going to come close with it

15:01

. For part two , because we stepped that game all

15:03

the way up , man . We stepped it up production-wise , visually

15:06

, sound-wise and story-wise as

15:08

well . So I just wanted to show , you know , the

15:10

growth as a filmmaker and storyteller

15:12

also with this next project .

15:14

So part one goes up through 1898

15:17

. I forgot to mention . One of the reasons why

15:19

I wanted to sit down with you and have this conversation

15:22

is this coming Friday , november 10th

15:24

, is the 125th anniversary

15:26

of the massacre , so I

15:28

really wanted to put a lot of emphasis on that and

15:31

make sure that people will honor those folks

15:33

that lost their lives and lost their livelihoods during

15:36

it . So we go through 1898 , correct

15:38

me if I'm wrong . You do touch up into the 1900

15:40

election , which is kind of a kind of a shady

15:42

thing , I guess . Basically 1898

15:45

, they kicked everybody out and then the white

15:47

people all ran again

15:49

for the same offices that they stole and

15:51

mysteriously they won , amazingly

15:53

.

15:55

And all over the state . You know as well . You know

15:57

what I'm saying . It was a , it was a cool . It was a cool they

15:59

taught all over the state of North Carolina . Yeah

16:01

, you know Wilmington . You know they didn't

16:04

want to wait for the

16:06

actual local elections to happen . So they just

16:08

say , you know , let's just take over the government locally

16:10

. Yeah , like you said , and then when

16:12

1900 came around , let's just revote

16:15

ourselves back in here again .

16:16

Yeah , one of the aspects was obviously

16:19

there was a massacre and the number

16:21

of folks killed fluctuates , whether you

16:23

look at it anywhere from what ? 60

16:25

to maybe a thousand .

16:26

Possibly . You know , we don't know the real game number . We

16:29

know that some people were killed and a

16:31

lot of people left the city or

16:34

run out .

16:34

There were specific trains . I mean , this is a crazy concept

16:36

. They brought trains in to truck people

16:39

out of the city . Just get your stuff and

16:41

get out , and that's . That's insane

16:43

. But you know , one of the stats that I was looking at

16:45

it was , you know , 1898 or the census

16:47

of 1897 , I think it said it

16:49

was about 60 , 40 black

16:52

to white ratio and then two

16:54

years later it was 75 , 25

16:57

, white to black . And that's another

16:59

crazy stat .

17:00

And it's still about that way now . So

17:02

I think it's about , I think , black population maybe

17:04

19 percent . Yeah , it used to be a little

17:06

than that . It used to be about 15 to 17

17:08

. Like I said , the past couple of years it's

17:11

kind of went up a little bit , but it's like at 19

17:13

, around 19 percent now . So oh , really OK

17:15

.

17:16

You know so many people lost their businesses , their

17:18

jobs , their livelihoods , their lives

17:20

, obviously , right . One of those people

17:23

was Alex Manley . Could you tell us

17:25

a little bit about him and what your opinion

17:27

is on him ? Yeah , because he did something really

17:29

brave and revolutionary back then , right , right

17:31

, I read a lot of articles that say that maybe

17:33

it wasn't the best idea at the time , but I wanted to hear what

17:36

your thoughts were .

17:36

Well , you know Alex Manley . You know he he's

17:39

pretty much known for . You

17:41

know , when people pull up a research 1898

17:44

, they see the burned down building where

17:47

you have the whole bunch of the right

17:49

mob standing in front of this burned down building

17:51

. That's his newspaper , press that was burned

17:53

down . You know he was heavily

17:55

involved in the Republican Party at the time

17:57

. You know , at that time the Republican Party was very

17:59

different than how we view it today , but

18:02

he was heavily involved in that . He was a business

18:04

owner in Wilmington at the time

18:06

had the Wilmington Daily Record , which is

18:09

a daily , you know , black owned newspaper . But

18:11

they pretty much kind of used a

18:13

controversial article that he added in

18:15

his paper to really , you

18:18

know , rally up the white supremacists

18:20

in that movement to really kickstart

18:22

and just upstart the 1898

18:24

massacre . Now I've heard other stories

18:26

that he didn't actually write the article

18:28

, you know . So , yeah , there has

18:30

been some stories about that that he didn't even write

18:33

the article but it came through his paper . So

18:35

he has to take the blame for it because he is

18:37

, he was the main editor and owner of

18:39

it and so how did they get through his credit through

18:41

the cracks ? I don't know , but it

18:44

is what it is . You know he

18:46

was very vocal about racism

18:48

at the time as well and

18:51

you know he was . They were

18:53

actually going to try to kill him but he

18:55

was able to get out of Wilmington before

18:57

, you know , the massacre happened and before

19:00

they burnt down his newspaper building him and his

19:02

brother , frank Manley , who they

19:04

ran and operated the Wilmington

19:06

Daily Record in Wilmington , and

19:08

he left and never came back to

19:10

Wilmington , you know , ever again . He lived

19:12

in Philadelphia to the day he died .

19:14

I was listening to a podcast with

19:17

Leray Umphlep , the historian

19:19

in North Carolina , and she was saying she's into film . The

19:21

person asked her had Alex Manley not

19:23

wrote that article , would this have still

19:26

happened ? And she said yes , it would have

19:28

.

19:29

Yes , which is crazy , because it is

19:31

just something they used . They were going to use

19:33

something that was just something that was convenient

19:35

at the time . Because , like I said , that's what

19:37

really sparked my interest in this , because even in

19:39

Lawnberg , you know , they

19:41

did certain things that were similar

19:43

to what happened in Wilmington . For example

19:45

, people realize that Lawnberg's

19:48

part of Scotland County , right , but prior to 1898

19:51

, scotland County didn't exist , lawnberg's

19:53

part of Richmond County . Then you look at the records

19:55

, the same type of fusion , this type

19:58

of stuff was happening in Lawnberg , and so the

20:00

white supremacists , out of things they wanted

20:03

to separate , then they were trying to create Scotland

20:05

County back then , but they couldn't do

20:07

it . And so when the massacre

20:09

happens and all this stuff starts shifting

20:11

throughout North Carolina and politics

20:13

, they then were able to break

20:15

away from Richmond County and start

20:18

Scotland County , which they wanted to do to kind of , you

20:20

know , have their own democratic rule

20:22

, white supremacy type rule . So , you

20:24

see , you saw that type of stuff happening all the time

20:26

. Man , where this type of stuff was going to happen

20:28

, yeah , they just , you know , used

20:30

certain things that were convenient at the

20:33

time to really justify , you know

20:35

doing what they were trying to do .

20:37

When we say massacre , it was a massacre

20:39

. One of the things that Ken Chapfield

20:42

in your movie talks about is the Gatling

20:44

gun that was used . And

20:46

then I did some more research on it and it

20:48

was like 25 people that were blown away by a Gatling

20:51

gun for no reason other than the color of

20:53

their skin and they were in that particular spot at that

20:55

time , right .

20:56

Right , oh , yeah , it was very . It was very bloody

20:58

. I was very bloody , like I said

21:00

. I think that's why the Wilmington

21:02

massacre really is

21:05

at the top of people list because of the bloodshed

21:07

that happened during the time , like you said

21:09

, with the Gatling gun and with the other

21:11

artillery that was used as

21:14

well during this time . Yeah

21:16

, it was definitely a massacre , man , that the

21:18

city of Wilmington , the state of

21:20

North Carolina or the federal government really hasn't

21:22

helped repair at all their damage

21:25

.

21:25

Yeah , they've done absolutely nothing . I

21:27

think the state may have apologized at one

21:29

point , or should we ? Yeah , that's it , that's

21:31

it . You know nothing from

21:34

a reparation standpoint or any

21:36

compensation for land lost , lives

21:38

lost . Anything has been given up .

21:40

Now back in , back in 2000

21:42

, and we're going to talk about this in part too that back

21:44

in 2006, . So 2006 and

21:46

2008, . Right , so when LaRae

21:48

comes out with a report that helped

21:50

push the series of bills that was

21:52

created by a few , you

21:55

know , legislator folks

21:57

, and so these bills are still

21:59

, you can still look these bills up . I

22:17

got a copy of my sentiment to you and so

22:19

this is back . These bills happened back in 2007

22:21

, 2008 . And so it was a series of reparations

22:24

bills , not only that pass now . So one

22:26

was to directly

22:28

compensate people like Dr Lauren

22:30

Manley , who's in my film Faith Chaplin

22:33

, you know , great grant . So the

22:35

compensate direct descendants that could prove losses

22:37

from the 18 idea of Massacre

22:39

. That was one bill . Another bill was

22:41

to teach this history

22:44

and implement this history into K through

22:46

12 school curriculum , you

22:48

know I'm saying . Another one was to create a

22:50

traveling museum . To

22:52

go all over the state , you know , start collecting

22:54

artifacts , photos , documents

22:56

to put together a traveling museum

22:58

, to start educating people about it , to

23:00

create two black business

23:02

incubators in the north side and then Castle

23:05

Street area home loans

23:07

for black and minority

23:10

citizens . Also , to pay

23:12

a production company 500,000 to do

23:14

what I did a documentary as

23:16

well . So there's , a series of stuff , series of bills

23:18

, a lot of stuff I passed through man . Wow , a

23:21

lot of it , and you can still look these bills

23:23

up .

23:24

It's about 10 of them you can still look them up now . That's

23:26

nuts . The other thing is all the people

23:28

that were part of it . You know there was a group of nine

23:30

of them . That's kind of started it all out . These

23:33

folks all lived pretty

23:35

prosperous lives . These white guys that

23:37

took over and stole land and everything

23:40

else .

23:41

Oh yeah , for sure , for sure . And that thing is man . They

23:43

all became big time philanthropists . So

23:46

when you look at after 1898

23:48

happens and you get towards more of

23:50

the 1900s and starting

23:52

getting to 1920 and 1930

23:55

, you see a lot of these guys' names pop

23:57

up in buildings , certain

23:59

buildings and certain universities , Because , like

24:01

I said , they're

24:03

big business guys . But then they started

24:06

getting into politics even more , they

24:08

started doing the philanthropy thing , they

24:10

started donating to certain universities

24:12

and institutions and then so people

24:14

started memorializing these folks

24:16

and then later on you find out that

24:18

they were heavily involved in the 1898

24:21

massacre and those type of things and

24:23

we saw that happen . That exposed a

24:25

lot . Not only were women to the fire , but when the pandemic

24:27

happened , when people were talking about changing

24:29

some of these , these building names and

24:31

taking down some of these statues , a lot of that stuff

24:33

started coming to light .

24:34

Yeah , yeah , it's crazy . I was looking up some

24:37

of them and I mean for the majority , it

24:39

seems that a lot of them have been pulled off . The

24:41

names have been pulled down and changed to

24:43

more respectful names , but

24:46

there's still a couple of universities

24:48

and it was Clemson that still has two or three

24:50

buildings , and they're just . That's their gig . They're

24:52

not changing it . And Duke was like that too .

24:54

Yeah , some places , man , they're not changing nothing . They

24:56

say , you can say whatever , we're not doing it . Yeah

24:59

, obviously , south Carolina man

25:01

, they're worse than North Carolina because

25:03

the guy that actually started

25:05

the whole red shirt concept was from

25:07

South Carolina , ben Tillett . Okay

25:09

, he actually he's on record saying

25:12

that the people in North Carolina , when

25:14

Manly did that article , they said

25:16

if that in-bed Manly was down

25:19

here , we would have hung him a long time ago . Jesus

25:21

, you know what I'm saying . So

25:23

, south Carolina man , they were actually way

25:26

worse than North Carolina

25:28

even during that time . And so I see

25:30

why that places like Clemson and

25:32

stuff like that are kind of behind on those things

25:34

.

25:35

And then we have to talk about Rebecca

25:37

Latimer , right , right , probably one

25:39

of the worst human beings . I would thank you .

25:42

Yeah , yeah , yeah . Yeah . Rebecca Latimer felt she

25:46

kind of moved this speech I think

25:48

it was called Women on the Farm just talking about

25:50

white men need to hold up

25:52

white supremacy , protect white

25:54

womanhood , all those

25:56

things that really rally up the troops and

25:59

just ruffle up the crowd . And then

26:01

, like say , alex Manly kind of read

26:03

that and wanted to write a rebuttal . They

26:05

said that he didn't write it we never know but

26:08

someone wrote it , the rebuttal about

26:10

what she said and that really

26:12

gave ammunition for

26:15

this whole 1898

26:17

campaign to come to life and

26:19

that eventually led to the 1898 massacre

26:21

.

26:23

To the best of your knowledge , in the film

26:25

they also talk a lot about people

26:27

and bodies and other possessions

26:29

and stuff just being thrown in the Cape Fear River Right

26:32

. Black possessions , unfortunately black

26:34

bodies just thrown in the river . To the best

26:36

of your knowledge , has the river ever been dragged

26:39

for anything or have they ever even looked

26:41

?

26:42

No one's ever done any of that . I know a lot

26:44

of people , I think since Women to no Fire

26:46

, a lot of people have asked that same

26:48

question you have been asking . I'm one

26:50

of them one of them ever but

26:53

hopefully one day we can make

26:55

something like that happen . But for right

26:57

now , no one's ever done

26:59

anything like that at all . But I know that's

27:01

something that I would love to push for and

27:03

to figure out how to actually push for it .

27:05

Yeah . So there's a lot of propaganda that

27:08

almost a year of propaganda that went out before

27:10

this really started to kick in , and then

27:12

it riled the crowd up so much that

27:14

they just couldn't control themselves . I mean there were gatling

27:16

guns and rifles and people being

27:18

beaten , and just you can't

27:21

ignore the similarities between

27:23

1898 and

27:25

January 6th . They seem

27:27

sort of connected . It seems . They gave blueprint

27:29

, so to speak , of that and

27:31

maybe all the other possible insurrections

27:33

that have happened . Did you see that while you were

27:35

creating the movie ?

27:38

I guess Omar Johnson . He has a

27:40

great segment of scene

27:42

in Women to no Fire talking about propaganda and

27:45

it was crazy when he said it because we felt

27:47

his scene that was like 2012 when he

27:49

said that and people could still

27:51

see that scene that he did and still

27:54

can see what's happening

27:56

today . It was like he was foretelling

27:58

it In a sense . We almost didn't

28:00

even get that part of the documentary . We

28:02

were actually wrapping up and I said

28:04

, let me ask you this one last question so

28:07

that was a question actually , wow About propaganda

28:09

. He did it in one take , man . It was excellent . But

28:12

yeah , he kind of eloquently says it , man

28:14

Just how this

28:17

propaganda can

28:19

really change

28:21

a lot of things , good and bad

28:23

and we saw that even with

28:25

January 6 , a few years

28:27

ago how , if you rally

28:29

and just keep throwing stuff out there and out there

28:32

and you pretty much let people

28:34

just run wild with it , there

28:36

can be some consequences and you can't

28:38

rally it . And that's what happened with 1898

28:40

. It got out of control and

28:43

they couldn't pull it back and they just

28:45

had to let the people just do what they had to do . And

28:48

so you saw that happen in January 6

28:50

, where it was just too late , it was too out of control

28:52

, they couldn't put the top back on it and

28:54

it was because of all of that stuff they were

28:56

spewing out there the hate , the

28:59

all this stuff that was happening and people just

29:01

letting loose man and it was just too late .

29:03

Yeah , I still can't get over the fact that the

29:06

state said sorry , whatever , but

29:08

nobody rallied the troops , literally or figuratively

29:10

, and said let's go down and get Wilmington some help , let's

29:12

go down and get these other towns in North Carolina

29:14

some help . And then I read a quote . They

29:17

asked President McKinley about it and McKinley

29:19

said well , I haven't heard anything about it from the governor

29:21

, so I think we're good .

29:22

Right , and there was a lot of things , man , because

29:24

one see , the people that did

29:26

the massacre of 1898 , they made sure

29:28

not to remove certain

29:30

people where the federal

29:32

government could actually intervene , you know what

29:35

I'm saying ? So they didn't remove certain people

29:37

that had direct ties to the federal

29:39

government . So they were very smart in when they

29:41

did this . Then also

29:43

, you've got to realize , man , we just got

29:45

out of a civil war like 30 years ago , and

29:48

that pretty much bankrupt this country . If

29:50

the federal government would have tried to intervene

29:52

again , we probably would have had another civil

29:54

war in our hands and they weren't

29:56

going to try to go bankrupt twice with black

29:59

people . They just weren't going to do that . And

30:01

so they just said you know what ? It's

30:03

just black people . We just let the states

30:05

handle this very situation

30:07

themselves . They might really

30:10

do anything to federal government

30:12

employees or anything like that . So

30:15

it is what it is . The states will handle

30:17

it . Let it be a state thing . We're not trying to get

30:19

into this whole civil war business again

30:21

.

30:21

Yeah , I guess it definitely left some scars on some people

30:23

and especially those people that were

31:04

kind of pissed off that they lost Right

31:06

. Exactly A

31:09

major theme of the propaganda

31:11

and the insurrectionists was voter

31:14

disenfranchisement Really

31:16

trying to push the black voter down . Women

31:18

obviously weren't voting black or white at

31:20

that time . So what

31:22

they were trying to do is disenfranchise , and they did so

31:24

with literacy concerns , they

31:27

did it with gerrymandering and redistricting

31:29

, and you see that a lot today

31:32

still too , and it's kind of crazy

31:34

how history kind of repeats itself and

31:37

lends to more and more upheaval

31:39

and you'd wish that maybe they'd catch

31:41

on and maybe read a history book once in a while

31:43

, right , Right .

31:45

And that's wondering why I did the film was

31:47

to show that , hey , we are

31:50

seeing some of the same things , and that's why

31:52

we need to learn about history , because we

31:54

like just some of the things you were talking about gerrymandering

31:57

and things like that . When you look at history , it's

31:59

like hold on , man . This is the same

32:01

playbook as they've used before . Now

32:03

he's tweaked it a little bit , but there's

32:05

still some of the same tricks of the trade , and

32:08

so that's why we need to study history , and that's

32:10

one of the reasons why I did the film that

32:12

, hey , we're not a perfect society . Some

32:14

things we did right and some a lot of things we did

32:16

wrong , and so this is kind of showing that

32:18

. And let's go back and say hold

32:20

on , where do we mess up at , especially

32:23

with this whole voting thing ? Let's go ahead

32:25

and really figure

32:27

out a way to make this thing fair and balanced

32:29

for everyone . Every US citizen has

32:31

the right to vote , period . Let's

32:33

just stop playing all these different games and

32:36

restructuring things and changing the rules around

32:39

the down the road . So that's like

32:41

I said . That's one of the reasons why I made this film . For

32:43

that exact reason .

32:45

So we discussed part one . What is part

32:48

two going to really encompass ?

32:50

Well , you , know , the first one is all history . You

32:52

know what I'm saying we really talk about . You

32:54

know the Civil War . You know what

32:57

was Wilmington like before , 1898

32:59

, 1898 , and a little bit after

33:01

. So you know we give you the whole

33:03

history lesson in the first one . And

33:05

so I felt like you know , I don't want

33:07

to give another history lesson because you have

33:09

it in the first film , yeah , and then you got other books

33:11

out here as well that you can check out . I

33:13

want to give you something that's right now tangible

33:16

, that you can actually see and

33:18

actually be a part of the change that's happening

33:20

. You know , we can't go back 100 years and change that

33:22

, but we can change what's happening right

33:24

now . And so I wanted to

33:26

do a part two that's going to really galvanize

33:29

people to really get active right

33:31

now and to do something , and so it's really showing

33:33

Wilmington and a whole new light . So we document

33:36

the city of Wilmington from 2020

33:38

to 2022 and the change

33:41

that was happening . So , like we were talking about

33:43

earlier , the pandemic , the global pandemic

33:45

that was happening murder of George Floyd

33:47

, the young people that started

33:49

protesting in front of City

33:52

Hall , other people in the community

33:54

you know that's really trying to do certain things , like

33:56

you have this organization called Genesis Block

33:58

. They came out during

34:00

this time of really trying to rebuild

34:03

the Black middle class , you know , through business and

34:05

entrepreneurship . You have people like Sajra Karasin

34:07

, who launched his Wilmington

34:09

and Keller Black History

34:11

Tour bus at the time as well . You

34:14

have folks like Cicoto House who are doing things

34:16

on the grassroots level that are trying

34:18

to tackle health and wellness

34:20

in the Black community and also violence

34:23

prevention as well , and

34:25

so we're just showing the different stages

34:27

of change that's happening in the Black community

34:30

in Wilmington during this two

34:32

year period . And so I said you know what I want

34:34

to focus on that , because

34:36

you find out that a lot of these folks were inspired

34:38

by the first film , you know as

34:40

well , and so the film actually

34:42

inspired them to do what they're doing

34:45

. And so I said you know what , let me really

34:47

highlight that , let me highlight these folks , because a lot

34:49

of times these are the folks that rarely get

34:51

talked about or highlighted out

34:53

here . And I said you know what ? I think this is a good way

34:55

to close out . There won't be any more

34:57

Wilmington fires after this . This

35:00

would be it for me and Wilmington history

35:02

. So this is a good way for

35:04

me to close it out and close it out strong

35:06

. It's really a call to action for the

35:09

community today to get active and

35:11

really change the city of Wilmington

35:13

and bring it back to what it used to be . It's

35:16

awesome .

35:16

Yeah , you mentioned that this will be your last chapter

35:18

with Wilmington Fire . Just give us a chance to

35:20

talk a little bit about your grandmaster movie . Yeah

35:23

, yeah .

35:24

Yeah , grandmaster , that's the film actually

35:26

started after the first Wilmington on fire . So

35:28

I've been filming that for a good six years now

35:31

. A couple years got delayed because of COVID

35:34

, yeah . But that film

35:36

is very special because , you know , it's another

35:38

side of Black history we're going to talk about and

35:41

those are stories we like to do . Like you know , people

35:43

weren't talking about 1898

35:45

. You did a film on it . People aren't talking about the African American

35:48

presence in martial arts . We're

35:50

doing a film on it . And so Vic Molo

35:52

was a martial arts pioneer in the 60s , one

35:54

of the first professional

35:56

Black karate champions in the United States . He's

35:59

80 years old now , has been doing martial

36:01

arts for over 70 years , wow

36:04

. And so he's a 10th degree Black belt

36:06

. He's fought people like Chuck Norris . He

36:09

did a speed competition against Bruce Lee in 1967

36:12

. He actually trained to jump karate back

36:14

in the 80s . Really , you know as well

36:16

, he's done it all . He's done it all in

36:18

martial arts , and his teacher was

36:20

Robert Treas , and Robert Treas is actually known

36:23

as the father of American karate . He actually

36:25

brought karate to the United States right

36:27

after World War II , and so

36:30

he got involved with his organization in

36:32

the 60s and became one of his chief instructors

36:34

as well during that time . So

36:36

he has that direct lineage of

36:39

Robert Treas where Robert Treas got

36:41

his training while he was stationed

36:43

in Okinawa back in World War

36:45

II . So he comes from that direct line , that direct

36:47

lineage from Okinawa . You

36:49

know karate and so you know that's

36:52

where he's from . He still teaches in that old school

36:54

type of way . He's still teaching in this day . He's still

36:56

teaching man , still teaching this day . Man Still teaching

36:58

this day . And so the film is just not

37:00

all about his history and legacy , but also how

37:02

he's been working with these two young , up-and-coming

37:05

martial artists as well , his relationship with

37:07

them but trying to pass that knowledge down

37:09

and keep that knowledge and that legacy

37:12

down through them . And so it's to me

37:14

, man , I think it's some of my best work to date , and

37:16

actually that's going to be we're going to

37:18

have that ready by the spring , okay , and so

37:20

that was coming first . And then Wilmington on

37:22

fire , two after that . And so I'm

37:24

very , I'm very excited about that . He actually

37:26

lives in Delco man . He's right across the grid , oh , that's

37:29

awesome , about 30 minutes from here , yeah . And

37:31

so I'm very excited about that . And

37:33

that project also led me

37:35

to launch my first festival , which

37:37

we did this past October here in Wilmington

37:40

. So I started a festival . It's a martial arts

37:42

, hip hop , an anime festival

37:44

called Three Chambers Fest . Yeah , and we

37:46

just did it this past October

37:48

13th and 14th in Wilmington . It was

37:50

great , man . We had a hip hop concert

37:52

, we had a Tai Chi class , we

37:55

have this interactive film screening series

37:57

called Can I Kick it , where we take

38:00

a classic action film or martial

38:02

arts movie and we rummage to score

38:04

live using hip hop and elements

38:06

like that , so you're watching the film in a whole new way

38:08

and with whole new music . And so we rummage to

38:10

score to the curl of the Brandon Lee film , and

38:13

so we're actually working on

38:15

you know next year's dates and we're going to do it again

38:17

next year . So that's kind of that

38:19

kind of goes hand in hand with the Grandmaster Project

38:22

. Because I had to figure out a way to build an audience , because everyone

38:24

just wanted me to do Wilmington on fire too and yeah

38:26

, and didn't care about the martial arts

38:29

project I was doing . So I had to figure out a way to

38:31

build some audience , build some interest , and so

38:33

doing those types of projects on the side

38:35

kind of helped build up the anticipation

38:37

for the Grandmaster Project .

38:39

Yeah , I saw some of the Can I Kick

38:41

it stuff online and it was . It was awesome

38:43

. Thanks , martial artists like all

38:45

choreographed , you know hip hop and then

38:48

some of the other you know other films . It was really

38:50

, really cool . Thank you , very cool stuff

38:52

. Well , I can't thank you enough

38:54

for coming on today . This has been an awesome

38:56

conversation about a very serious

38:58

topic that just needs to get out . We've got to get this

39:01

word out . People have to understand what happened

39:03

. You know , there's so many people out there and

39:05

this is not a joke , I swear to

39:07

God there are so many people out there that know

39:09

about Black Wall Street solely because of

39:11

the HBO show the Watchman .

39:12

You're right . You're right , man , and I know people told

39:15

me , I know people have told me , when I've done screenings

39:17

of Women's Tunnel Fire , they say , Chris , you

39:19

need to probably stop doing

39:21

documentaries and make your

39:23

films like Watchman or Lovecraft

39:25

Country . I can't

39:28

do it , I can't do it . I got to stay , maybe

39:30

down the road , maybe a hundred years from now , once

39:33

we built out a foundation of

39:35

real history , then we can explore

39:37

those type of meetings . But for right now I'm going to continue

39:40

to do it like this . And also I also

39:42

recently bought the rights to the Thomas

39:44

, the story of Thomas Day , which we're going

39:46

to be doing right after we knock out

39:48

Wilmington on fire too , and Grandmaster

39:51

. So Thomas Day is a very interesting

39:53

individual . He actually revolutionized

39:56

the furniture industry Okay , really

39:58

in the United States , and he was based in North Carolina

40:01

, but when he was doing he's African American , but

40:03

he was a free person of color , free black

40:05

person during the time of slavery , right , he was

40:07

doing this . And also he was an abolitionist

40:10

, involved in the abolitionist movement as well . And

40:12

so Thomas Day , furniture , a piece

40:14

of furniture man , it's like having a Bosch yacht . So

40:17

I think the starting price for his firms is like 300,000,

40:19

. You know , low ball , low price

40:21

, 300,000 . And so we're going to

40:23

be I'm going to be doing his project

40:26

next , starting next year , and

40:28

that's actually probably going to be my last documentary

40:30

period . I'm going to probably close it out

40:32

, yeah , cause I'm thinking about doing some martial

40:34

arts stuff , like some narrative fiction

40:37

, some things like this . I want to grow as an artist

40:39

and explore more stuff , with three chambers

40:41

fest and stuff like that . So you know

40:44

, the Thomas Day story I think is very different

40:46

. A lot of people know about him and

40:48

his contribution to

40:50

history and just the whole furniture

40:52

industry in general , and so

40:54

I think that's a good one . Just to close it out on

40:56

, you know .

40:57

Yeah , it sounds cool . I'm looking forward to it . Again

41:00

, thank you so much for this . I'm glad we

41:02

got a chance to sit down , especially before the 125th

41:04

anniversary just meant a lot to me to get a lot of

41:06

events happening .

41:07

I got a screening Thursday . Actually at

41:09

dreams , thursday was

41:11

never been my six o'clock

41:14

.

41:14

And you do still do screenings like all over

41:16

, or yeah , all the time .

41:18

I just I just came back from . I was down

41:20

in Austin , texas , this past

41:23

Thursday at Afro Tech

41:25

. Afro Tech is a huge black tech

41:27

conference and so we I showed her to me

41:29

to the fire there , so we did a screening

41:32

, I did a talk there about the film and

41:34

so I still , I still screened man . It's eight years and

41:37

we still , we still run the road , we still screen

41:39

in Wilmington , all of them of Kana

41:41

and everywhere else . You know , people

41:43

still request us for screenings .

41:46

Got some friends of teachers out there . Everybody get

41:48

in touch with Chris and try

41:51

to set up a screening . This is one of the greatest

41:53

documentaries I've honestly ever seen . It was very

41:55

eye-opening and just sad

41:57

and scary as hell All

42:00

in the same breath . How can people get

42:02

in touch and follow you and

42:04

Wilmington on fire ?

42:05

Go , go to Wilmington1898.com

42:07

. Wilmington1898.com

42:09

, we're pretty much revamping the

42:12

site Cause , like I said , you know we're Wilmington

42:14

on fire . So I'm trying to create a site where

42:16

it's not only a site for both of the films

42:18

but it's an 1898 resource

42:21

center . You know what I'm saying . So we're going

42:23

to , we're building it out now , we're revamping it now , so

42:25

we're going to have different , you know ways you can get

42:27

different books , articles , research

42:30

tools , awesome study guides

42:32

where you can watch the first film

42:34

. You know when events that we have

42:37

all type of stuff . So we're really building

42:39

that Wilmington1898.com

42:41

into the ultimate destination

42:44

of . If you want to know about what happened in 1898

42:47

, go right here to this site where we got the films

42:49

, we got books , we

42:51

got research guides , everything

42:54

. And so Wilmington1898 , you

42:56

go there , got everything , got all the social media

42:58

pages for Wilmington on fire , you

43:01

know , et cetera . Also

43:03

, if you want to know about Three Chambers , three Chamberscom

43:06

, that has everything

43:08

. We're revamping that site now . We're putting up the new

43:10

pictures and videos of the

43:12

inaugural festival up there , but it has all

43:14

our social media tags on

43:16

there as well . So definitely check out those

43:18

and also with Grandmaster GM

43:21

documentary , gm documentary

43:23

on all social media platforms to

43:26

stay up to date with that project as well .

43:28

I'll put all this in the show notes too , for everybody . So

43:31

what's the best way that people can view

43:33

the film now ? I found it online on Quelle . Yeah

43:36

, yeah so right now .

43:37

We got it just on Quelle TV . I

43:40

did that because Amazon is robbing people , so

43:42

so I'm also Quelle TV . You

43:44

know it's a black on streaming service . I

43:47

wanted to help her out . That's who actually brought me to

43:49

Afro Tech to show the film

43:51

this past weekend . So I want people to

43:53

subscribe to this , this platform

43:55

, because he needs our help . And I said you

43:58

know , let me make Women's Turn on Fire

44:00

exclusive on here for a while . Awesome

44:02

, where this is the only place you can see

44:04

. Because I want people to support , I'm going

44:06

to subscribe to Quelle TV . It's only $5.99

44:09

a month . They have some excellent programs

44:11

on there excellent films , documentaries

44:14

, shorts , features , any

44:16

moment they have it . So my film is

44:18

on there as well , so check it out , quelle

44:21

TV .

44:23

I've been messing around looking at it and I've

44:25

watched four documentaries . That's

44:27

good . My daughter hates me . She's

44:30

seven and she's like Daddy . This is boring , but

44:34

yeah , it's well worth it . There's

44:37

some awesome documentaries that I've seen already that

44:39

I'm looking forward to keep scrolling through and checking everything

44:41

else out Again . Chris , thank you so much for

44:43

doing this . Hopefully we get

44:45

a good response , get more word out . I

44:47

wish you the best of luck . I want to keep in touch . We

44:50

follow each other , definitely , definitely .

44:53

I may be doing a and I've seen it in a certain

44:55

way . We're going to probably lock it down next week or so

44:57

, but we're going to be doing a rough cut

44:59

screening of the Grand Master documentary

45:01

in February at our K-5 Community

45:04

College . It'll be free and open to the public . Grand

45:06

Master more will be there as well , so I'll keep you posted

45:08

on that . So you definitely should come through .

45:10

Yeah , absolutely , absolutely . I'll definitely

45:12

be there . I'm a volunteer in Wilmington . I'm

45:14

in Wilmington . This is the party town .

45:17

Cool , cool , cool Excellent .

45:19

When did you realize that Wilmington

45:21

on Fire was going to be so

45:23

big and that you had made something so important

45:26

?

45:26

I think , two times it happened to me . I

45:28

think the first one was when we premiered

45:30

the film at the Kukula West Film Festival

45:32

November 2015 .

45:34

Kukula West is a big deal , man .

45:36

It's a big festival here in Wilmington . They

45:39

do it every year , and so when we premiered

45:41

there , we actually broke their attendance

45:43

record and we still have the record to

45:45

this day for most attendance screening ever . We

45:48

showed it at Thirland Hall , so it was very

45:50

symbolic showing it there , because that's where

45:53

the conspirators of the massacre met

45:55

and plotted and planned , and

45:57

so I wanted to have it there , and so 600

46:00

people packed in , man . And then also

46:02

we had a line , a wait

46:04

line , that was around the block of people that couldn't

46:06

get in . So that was the first time I said you

46:08

know what ? Because I didn't know what to expect , man

46:10

. I said , man , maybe a couple hundred people , I

46:12

ain't nobody . You know what I'm saying , I'm not . You know

46:14

Spike Lee and nobody like that . So

46:17

we'll come see my film . And so that was

46:19

the first time that I knew I had something . And

46:21

then also the second time was the

46:23

summer of 2019 , where

46:25

they actually had the first congressional

46:28

hearing on reparations , and it was

46:30

big . It was all in MSNBC , all

46:33

on the internet , cnn and Dr Julian

46:35

Malvo . I was at home on my lunch break

46:37

looking at it , streaming it on my computer

46:39

while I was on Facebook and Dr Julian Malvo

46:42

was a huge fan of the film and she's seen the film

46:44

before . She actually gave me a shout out . She

46:47

urged people to watch Wilmington

46:49

on Fire and it's required

46:51

viewing and all of that . And

46:53

so soon as that happened , I had like a thousand

46:56

comments , people hitting me , tagging

46:58

me on Facebook Because I was always watching this

47:00

, because it was the first ever hearing on reparations

47:02

and we were the only film to mention

47:04

during that whole thing . And

47:06

they didn't mention Spike Lee , they didn't mention

47:09

Tarantino and those people . They mentioned Chris

47:12

Everett . They were

47:14

two moments Nobody .

47:16

It was Chris Everett man there was no John

47:18

Singleton , it was just Chris Everett and my lunch break

47:20

. So cool man . Congratulations with everything . Thank you so much . I really appreciate it

47:22

. Folks check all of Chris's stuff out . Wilmington

47:28

on Fire is , I can't

47:30

say enough , but it's such a great documentary . Check it out

47:32

and follow him on social media . Thank

47:34

you so much , chris . Like I said , I wish you the best with

47:36

everything . Thank you .