Social Justice Film Series

Monday, April 7th marked the first of the YWCA Orange County's Social Justice Series of films shown in partnership with the Downing Film Center in Newburgh. "Banished" shows how American towns in the early part of the 1900's cleansed their population of Blacks. It was disheartening to see film of rocks being thrown at people participating in a peaceful march as late as 1987 because blacks were not welcome in that town. Director Marco Williams also brought up the concept of reparations - should ancestors of blacks who were forced off their land in angry racist rages be financially compensated? What will bring closure? How do we start? The group that stayed to discuss these issues had an intimate, lively, sometimes emotional, conversation. We started....
Further discussion points can be found at http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/banished/getinvolved.html
We'd like to hear from you. Let's talk about opening the wounds of history. What will help these communities heal? Is reconciliation possible? Or reparations? Or both?

Membership

The YWCA Orange County, the premier women's membership movement in Orange County, New York, invites you to join us as we work to fulfill YWCAUSA's mission of "eliminating racism and empowering women" in our community, the U.S., and around the globe. You will find us on the web at http://www.ywca-orangecty.org/.
We will post information and coming events on this blog, in addition to keeping you abreast of our growing list programs.