I just thought that was normal. To not be able to sit down and eat [at a counter] or to sit in the back of the bus . . . I didn’t even think about it. . . . When you’re born into it, you just do it. – Lorerean Proctor
Topics in the program range from the often underestimated and ignored undercurrent of racial tension in Bloomington’s history as shown in a segment on the Black Market fire with community elder Betty Bridgwaters; to how IU professor Jacinda Townsend worked to create “whole” black characters in her novel, which depicts life in civil rights-era northeastern Kentucky.
Dr. Lillian Dunlap of the Poynter Institute discusses her role in the creation of IU's African American Arts Institute, and producer Leah Johnson’s grandmother Lorerean Proctor talks about growing up below the Mason-Dixon line before black people were given the right to vote.