On Sept. 9, over 60 students, faculty and staff gathered on Zoom and Facebook Live to participate in the screenings of “Knoxville’s Red Summer” and “The Erwin Expulsion”.
The event was moderated by Karlota Contreras-Koterbay, the director of the Slocumb Galleries. This event was the third of four in the “Black Diaspora: From Africa to Appalachia to Affrilachia, Reclaiming History, Memory and Place” series. She hopes that students will gain context from these events to better understand the region.
“We just want to provide that avenue where they will feel safe that they can participate or at least watch and be exposed to some of this,” said Contreras-Koterbay. “Unfortunately, this is not always part of mainstream history, and so we are trying to contribute to enriching that historical kind of documentation.”
Film producer William Isom II was also present for the screening of his two films. He is a sixth generation East Tennessee resident, as well as the director of the Black in Appalachia podcast. The creation of these two projects came from the realization of a greater need for preservation and documentation of Black Appalachian narratives.
“It felt irresponsible to go into a community and produce a documentary and see this greater need without doing something about it when we have access to resources,” Isom said. “It is definitely become a part of the mission to try to grab and make available free of charge, everything that we can so people can research their own family’s histories and also white folks can also look at the history and understand and have a broader understanding of their counties.”
“Knoxville’s Red Summer” detailed what led to the Knoxville race riots in 1919 and how it panned out. Isom noted that the footage used in the narrative was merely a minute long, but it had not been seen in 100 years.
“While researching the film, trying to find materials to put in the film, I came across a newspaper article that was an advertisement for a movie theater in Chattanooga in 1919, it said: ‘View the footage of the Knoxville race riot,’” said Isom. “I sent the newspaper clip to my buddy at the Tennessee Archive of Moving Images and Sound … Low and behold about a month later he sent me an email and said, ‘I found the footage.’”
“The Erwin Expulsion” summarizes how racial cleansing impacted the community in Unicoi County. Isom explained in the Q&A following the films that the impact of these racial injustices in Erwin and Knoxville are still felt today.
“There is a reason we do not go to Corbin; there is a reason we do not go to Erwin,” Isom said. “I think people’s experiences need to be validated.”
The next “Black Diaspora” series event will be on Oct. 2 at 6 p.m. featuring ETSU alumna Amythyst Kiah. Students can watch the event live via Zoom through etsu.zoom.us/my/slocumbgalleries. For more information, reach out to Karlota Contreras-Koterbay at contrera@etsu.edu.
