least in the wireless base are looking at the u.s. to see how we handle this. >> two former s.e.c. upcoming ers on the spectrum auction monday night >> this week on "q&a," shola lynch, producer and director of the newly released documentary, "free angela and all political prisoners." >> shola lynch, when did you first want to know more about angela davis? >> the truth? shirley chisholm's funeral. i had been thinking about what my next subject would be. i had previously made a film about shirley chisholm and her run for president in 1972.

i was struggling between whether i would choose another black woman or pick another topic. there was a huge collage at her funeral, all these pictures of her, various people, and in the corner, there was a picture of angela davis not with her. she was one of the people i had been thinking about. it occurred to me, that is a sign. when i looked into the story, i had no idea the story was so good. it was a political crime drama with a love story in the middle of it. >> where did you go first to try to find out? >> i read the book and looked at her notes. the book gave me some sense. it was when i started to talk to other people and i started to read the history books around

the events, it became clear there were so many questions that remained unanswered. >> where is she today? >> she is retired. she was at the time at the university of santa cruz. i believe a professor. she just retired. she is speaking all over the world on justice issues. >> we will run a clip she did in an interview with us in 2004, just for people who have never heard of angela davis, what she looked like, and the charges against her. [video clip] >> on august seventh, george jackson's younger brother, who has participated in the security detail, one might say, used the weapons registered in my name and into the court room, and california, the city closest,

and attempted to -- we are not sure exactly what he was attempting to do, but the outcome of that encounter was that a judge was killed, jurors were wounded, and prisoners were killed. i was charged then because of the fact that my weapons were found on the scene. with murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy. >> tell us more. >> one of the things about this story is so many young people at that time thought the revolution was around the corner. how do you explain that to an audience who has no idea? when i say that, it is probably funny.

it is the vietnam war. people are protesting vietnam war, women's rights, the panthers are becoming very popular, as well, and part of the urgency to create change among millions of young people was to arm themselves in self protection, particularly the panthers. a lot of groups work. having a gun was in vogue. what happened with angela is she is at the university of california teaching and she decides to become a communist. she joins the club of the communist party. ronald reagan is governor of that state. he pretty much said, not on my watch, not a state institution, not with my dollars. he tried to get her fired. this gives her an incredible platform for standing her ground, which she does.

she says, you cannot fire me. this is academic freedom. i have the right to do this. she also used it as a teaching moment to talk about political prisoners. nobody was talking about political prisoners. what she was talking about were these young men, particularly, getting caught up in the prison systems, sound familiar? on petty charges, and being given indeterminate sentences. look at george jackson, three young men in prison. george jackson had been implicated in a crime, $70, and had been in prison 10 years on an indeterminate sentence on one year to life based on good behavior. she is trying to categorize, not only panthers coming in and out of prison, and protesters coming in and out of risen as political prisoners, but young people getting swept up and bodies being used for the system to be called political sisters.

>> when did you first meet her? >> it took me about a year to connect with her. >> why? >> she was not very interested in talking about that time, the crime, the implications by the fbi. she was not the love story, not that interested in talking about it. she was also one of those people you do not necessarily go to directly. i would get to her directly. i figured out there were in port and people in her life and i chipped away at the people she knew and trusted. i was able to get them involved, let them see my previous work, and, slowly, she came around. she agreed to meet me. this is only after other people met me. each one of them had seen my documentary. angela finally watched it and agreed to meet me.

we sat down, and i was nervous. [laughter] and she is shy. we sat there like this, believe it or not. i think her niece said, will you two to each other? we started to talk. the way she said it made me realize there is so much about this story she cannot know. i am a historian. i love weaving together various points of view with footage, facts, and creating a collage that makes you feel a moment. i have been able to do that. she was trusting that i would do that for this very difficult, very intense, very political time.

>> let's watch a minute from your documentary. [video clip] [applause] >> i stand before you today as a candidate for the democratic nomination for the presidency of the united states of america. [applause] i am not a candidate for black america, although i am black and proud. >> if the quality is the most important thing, why does it have to be just be white males? i am a woman and am equally proud of that. i am the candidate of the people of america. [applause] my presence before you now symbolizes a new era in

america's political history. [applause] if you cannot support me or endorse me, get out of my way. you do your thing and let me do mine. >> that is the best trailer that i have ever seen for it. it is better than anything we created, that trailer. i want a copy. >> when did she die? >> just after the film was released. january, 2005. >> were you able to talk to her? >> yes. she was feeling ill, feeling frail. after sunday, i went down to florida, i had to bring a vcr with me. we only had a vcr. i set it up and went to her house and showed it to her.

it was a spectacular moment for me because she talked to her younger self. she got lost in the movie, in the moment. >> what had gotten you into that whole issue with her in the first place? >> i worked on his piece, and the 10-part, 20-hour jazz series, and they cannot get any better than that. i started to think, why can i not direct, i want to direct, so challenged myself. herbert that was announced on npr when i was thinking about that. i thought, wait a second, why do i wait until everyone passes away and is gone so i cannot participate in the telling of the story. i realized she was the first

black woman in congress. i did research and i was like, how did i forget? how did i recognize not wreck it dies she ran for president, not as a third-party candidate but as a democratic party in 1972. how do we not know this? >> what about that 1972 election, for people who do not know anything, did you find most important part of her involvement? >> the thing to remember is that robert kennedy had been killed, so there was no front runner. he had been assassinated. hubert humphrey, george mcgovern, who became the front runner. it was not obvious in the beginning. there were about 10 or 12 candidates total, all vying for the same number of votes. what she decided, what i found out, she put her bonnet on the

dash into the presidential ring. but she had a strategy. it was not just a vanity run. she knew if she traveled around the country and collected delegates, she could get attention. her 150 delegates could be the difference between the nominee, which could give her political capital and leverage. you can yell women's power, purple power, black power, whatever you want. i want to know how many delegates you have. >> why did hubert humphrey releases black delegates to vote for her? >> he knew he would not be a nominee. he knew. he knew. it was a last minute thing. not all did. >> let's watch a little bit more shirley chisholm and go back to davis. >> a black woman for the first time in the united states of

america had the audacity and the nerve to say she wanted to guide the ship, be the president. it was so exciting, but also, the need the excitement, the idea that a person other than a white male could and should be president was part of the entire drama. why is it in the united states of america, only white males could be president. i was not only a woman, but a black person. i was representing anything, a black person and a female person. my campaign in the beginning was swamped with a lot of blacks and women around me. that is how it got off the ground. it was not easy. >> that was from a 1992 interview on c-span. how did that documentary do?

>> we got picked up by 20th century fox. it has done quite well on dvd. we have sold close to 50,000 dvds over time. on presidents' day a couple of years ago, 20th century fox went out an announcement for presidents' day and had all their documentaries about president or presidential candidates. this is before barack obama. >> so much of your documentary is used in any kind of educational places? >> i get e-mails from teachers and teachers who use the film as an tool. the thing about history is that young people are not necessarily going to connect to it without stories. we have forgotten about our storytelling.

it is not just facts. who cares? what is the narrative? with my work, i always want to tell you a really good story. with good music and great visuals, all of that collage working together, then yes, kids will recognize it is important and they will remember it. the people will become part of the american family. >> shola lynch started where in life? >> [laughter] wow. new york. my father was a professor of columbia. my mother was a homemaker. she had a nursing degree and part of an m.d. and they split up, she got her mba. neither one of them were american. they are part of that immigrant american story.

>> your school? >> hunter elementary, and then stayed through high school, a fantastic liberal arts education. we got to think about and talk about a range of issues. thinking was important. it was not just knowing facts. it was, how do you analyze them? what do they mean? >> a very serious discussion so far. i have to interrupt to show you the following clip of you. >> i know where this is going. [video clip] >> my friend bert. now, who is between? who is between? >> you are next to me. >> i am next to you. >> i am next to you, too.

>> but shola is between ernie and bert. [laughter] >> how did that happen? >> i was a talkative little kid and used to run ahead of my mom in our neighborhood. we had neighbors. one neighbor said, i work for a new show called sesame street. we are looking for kids. my mom said, ok and took me down to the studio. i like playing games. >> how many shows did you do? >> i do not know. i was really early. at the earliest, 2.5. i was a tiny little thing. they loved putting the next a big bird. i was small. i did it between the ages of 2.5 and six, regularly. >> have you shown your kids?

>> they were amazed. they think it is the funniest thing on the planet. >> how old were you there? >> about four. >> how old are your kids? >> 3.5 is my daughter. this young person reminds me of my daughter. >> would you let your daughter or son do what you did with sesame street today? >> yes, with a show like sesame street. it was not professional. it was fun. it was games. you were not brought in as an actor. you were who you were. i am not a big fan of her fashion rising your kids early for any reason. >> your college education was where? >> university of texas.

i was a lady longhorn. >> how did that happen? [laughter] >> generally, that is the way the question is asked. >> how did you get from new york city to boston? >> i discovered track and field when i was in sixth grade and seventh grade. i was really bad at it at first. within a year, i became very good at it and began breaking records. my first was when i was 14. it will be a huge time in my life. that was great at hunter. i wanted to go to a school where i could be intellectually challenged, but also athletically. that is how i ended up at the university of texas. i thought it would be the best place for me. >> we will come back to a little bit of your background after we watch clips. [video clip] >> when these new development in the black movement happened, the emergence of the black panther party, i wanted to be there. this is earthshaking.

i wanted to be a part of that. [siren] >> the revolution is about thinking about things in a radically different way. in america, the idea that black people should be equal, really equal, was a revolutionary thing. >> america, black people are treated very much as vietnamese people. the police do not promote our welfare, but are there to detain us, to brutalize us and murder us. >> do you know what black power means? black power means dignity. >> some of our fellow citizens have turned against our society

and government. the fact that you cannot get a job. 40% of the men that live in the ghetto had job that paid more than $60 a week. how can you support a family and bring up children? >> what is your reaction to seeing that from your perspective, your age? >> it is interesting you showed that clip after talking about the university of texas. i was not prepared for life outside of our liberal enclave in manhattan. i really believed the album, free to be you and me, from the 1970's. i was sure that was the world. so leaving that enclave, i could have gone anywhere, really. i went to the university of texas. race and gender were the most important thing and how people evaluated you.

i became a very angry person. once i started to figure it out, i looked at the history. i think i had a great history and philosophy professor, etc. i began investigating that kind of radicalness and began to understand why the civil rights movement happened. you are tired of waiting and you want to be insistent. one of the things that comes up in angela davis's story is this is the moment of the panthers and the shift of civil rights to black power. what i want to younger audiences to understand is why and what it was about. it was not flip and about wearing jackets, and that was cool, and carrying guns. it was really about creating community. and saying, i will not be seen as the victim in my own community. that is powerful.

>> how did you show your anger when you are at the university of texas? >> i marched, i rallied, i was part of student government. i became very interested in academics. i wanted to change the world. >> what was your major? >> liberal arts honors. i really could take all the classes i wanted to. >> did people think you were angry at school? how were you treated as a black woman? >> i do not think they would say i was angry. i was also an athlete. i was treated as a black woman depending on the context. as an athlete, i was treated like a star. when you are a lady longhorn, that is incredible. the racial part of politics on the team, not so incredible.

two, it was not particularly diverse. there was a lot of curiosity about blackness. one blonde woman in a sorority said, i cannot even imagine your life, what do you do after classes? it was innocent, but at the same time, really? >> why did she not think you do what she did? >> that was not her idea of race, of blackness. there was an aspect of, you are not really black because you do not talk a particular way. because of the way that you think and all that stuff. i had only known black people and people like me across all colors and nationalities.

that was the way i had grown up here that was the craziest thing in the world to me. i did not understand slavery. it seeped into our culture in such a strong way that we take on, we have the residue of it in terms of race. >> what has your mother told you about race in canada? >> she did not like to talk about race. she felt like she would be left out of that discussion. i do remember, i came home one break and i was like, white people this and white people that. i was sitting with my mom at breakfast. and my mom started to cry. she said, this was my worst nightmare that you would go to college and become a militant and denounce me for my race. i said, you are different.

all of a sudden, i realized i was insane. race was insane. that saved me from really becoming, investigating. my interest in history and storytelling comes from there. the investigation. what is our narrative? who are we? democracy is great. we are a plurality. to recognize those stories and weave them into the greater arc of american history will only make us longer. >> here is your favorite clip of the documentary. [video clip] >> part of the policy of the governor was to do everything possible to repress the political radical movement, as they saw it, developing. students for a democratic society, and angela becomes a symbol of all of the movements at the same time.

>> there was no precedent in my life for this kind of public exposure. then, of course, there were all of the threats. i was told to go back to africa. i was told to go back to russia. often times, i would receive letters saying i would be dead by sundown. my life completely changed. i bought my first gun because i really feared i might be in a situation where police or other people would take my life. >> what they are doing to her is an exaggerated form of what happens every day to black people in this country. they are saying through her that people have to straighten up and

fly right and be good niggers. >> we have to make sure we have unity in a black community so when someone's bands up, they do not wipe her out as one person. they have to wipe out more than one person. >> do you know if she still has a gun? >> i do not think she has guns anymore. >> where does she live now? >> oakland. >> what is residual for her, personally, after all these years? >> related to this story? >> what is her mood? she was acquitted. why? >> there were basically two theories. those were her guns. she never said they were not. the prosecutors' theory was that

she was a mastermind of the plot, the kidnapper of a judge for the exchange of her daughter. >> how old was jonathan jackson? >> 17. he was enraged by what was going on with his brother, one of his favorite people. he had been in prison for 10 years for this petty crime. >> george jackson. was jonathan ever in prison? >> no, he was a bright kid. he was writing angry letters to the school paper about george, letting people know. kids wanted to hang out and he was like, there are people in prison. he was impatient. >> who were the soledad brothers? >> it was a prison where george was being held. one of the things george would do -- the panthers are coming in and out of prison and people are becoming radicalized and politicized.

in the tv room, if it was segregated, he would sit in the front were all the white guys were sitting, not in the back. this made him a bad prisoner. he is on an indeterminate sentence based on good behavior. so things escalate very >> what did he do originally? >> $70. he had been in a car where another young man walked into a store. he took $70 from the clerk and he was in the car when he drove away. davis fell in love with him, the first time they met. it was not a social gathering. he was in court. she was part of -- just to get back to the brothers, george jackson and two other young men were implicated in a crime, a violent crime, in the prison. you are often in prison for one thing and then you are charged

with additional crime. it was to say these guys are being penalized because they are being political in prison. >> she met him in the courtroom. >> yes. she was there to support the brothers. in the 70's, there were no metal detectors. security was some guy in the back of the room. literally, there would be a banister, kind of like watching to kill a mockingbird, and george would walk up to the banister, and they had one moment before the guard took him away and their eyes met. in the film, i wanted angela to be, "when i first met george" -- that is not her. it is not her personality. she says, when i met george, and

she fixes her hair. when a woman fixes her hair, and she is talking about a man, she just revealed a lot. >> what ever happened to their relationship? >> he was killed. a couple of years later in prison. apparently, a prison break. most people believe it was not a prison break. you know. they started writing letters. the letters increasingly became more political and more about their passion for each other personally. >> had it ever crossed her mind in your research that george jackson was the bad guy? >> sure. it crossed my mind that maybe angela davis was a bad gal. >> did you ask her about that? >> i did. not in those terms i asked everyone around her. if someone is guilty or innocent

and i asked them, what are you going to say? that is like a bad tv documentary to me. but there are facts and proof and there is evidence. i had access to the fbi files. they had so little to pull this all together. i wish the prosecutor had still been alive. he had been dead for decades. >> her lawyer just died. >> he did, but he is in the film. he is excellent. >> here is another clip. before we go there, about the two funerals, the judge was killed where? >> he was killed in the parking lot. >> who killed him? >> let's watch the clip here that is an interesting question. [video clip]

>> the funeral was a major event. judge haley, after all, was an abomination. his death deeply shocked and angered his peers. the kidnappers were called hoodlums, and they call themselves revolutionaries. across the bay, in oakland, there is another funeral for jonathan jackson, the young panther who supposedly staged a bloody kidnap attempt. >> i and my husband went to the funeral. everybody in their sunday best. many people weeping. mrs. jackson followed. people holding her up and a handkerchief to her face. they said to me, that was thousands of people out there on

the street. people just came.♪ while we were standing there, franklin alexander comes up. we were standing in such a way he was next to us while looking straight, as though he were not talking to us. he said, angela has gone underground. he said, i am just letting you know. he just disappeared into the crowd. >> who was that woman? >> she wrote a great book about this time. one of the books i read when i was investigating. >> herb's daughter? >> yes. he was a known communist.

>> in those days, does it look attractive to you? >> the idea of economic and social justice is attractive. the practical reality of communism, not so much. >> she went to the soviet union and was lauded. went to cuba, and was praised. did she really think they had a better deal? >> in a lot of ways, yes, i believe during that time she did. did she have criticism for the practice of communism? absolutely. part of the reason she was interested in it is because of the economic and social justice. that has really been the problem, especially for people of color. >> it sounded like richard's voice from cbs. is that where you got that clip? >> you know, i cannot quite

remember. i do want to say one of the things about the revolutionary time, a lot of people died. a lot of people were killed unnecessarily. it was really important to have not one funeral but two. this is a scene right after the august 7 incident. no matter what side politically you were on, you were going to funerals. there was deep regret and sadness about that. this is the thing. the ballistics that were measures taken from that august 7 event, it was not clear who shot who and how that happened. it was also very unclear as to whether the guards shot first. >> guards of what? >> it is a court. out in the radio call boat, there is a kidnapping going on,

the prison is nearby. every bit of law enforcement was on those radio waves and came to the civic center. they are all outside. how we have evidence of what happened is there were two photojournalist, one who happened to be there, and one who heard the call and ran over there. there are two different vantage points while the whole thing is unraveling, taking photographs. it is a documentary filmmakers dream. >> where did you find all of that? >> one photographer has passed. the other is still alive. he also had some of the photographs. there is evidence of things. they exist. >> the judge was killed, two of the prisoners were killed, jonathan was killed, the jurors taken hostage were wounded

slightly, the women, but not majorly. the prosecuting lawyer was paralyzed. there was major death and injury. >> did you say the prosecutor is dead? >> i do not know whether he is alive or not. he was injured badly. in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. >> what happened after this? >> for whom? >> angela davis? >> she got wind of the event. they were her guns. one had been purchased two weeks before this event. the brothers house was being opened in san francisco, where the trial was going to be.

it was in vogue to have a gun in your political office. when she bought the gun, she was very well known. the clerk was like, you are angela davis, and she was like, yes, and she signed an autograph. the two competing theories of the crime are, either she is the mastermind and did this, and she put the 17-year-old jonathan jackson up to this. the defense was angela davis is not stupid. if she were going to do this, at the bare minimum, she would not be using her own gun. so, you know, it plays out over details in the court room. >> here is, from your documentary, where the fbi began to search public enemy number one or three. [video clip] >> the fbi dissented over the black community all over the country and stopped any young black woman because they had

this description. >> her fingerprints and photograph of the girl with a big afro. every office gets a box full of those things. >> there were unmarked cars parked across the street. this was the fbi. hundreds of african american women with big afro's were stopped. >> where did you find all that? >> from the collection of the court, the court collection. we also knew from talking to the fbi agent, and we had some of the stuff from the fbi files. some of that is archival footage. the fbi and law enforcement were not incredibly well practiced at

identifying and distinguishing black women at that time. >> the split in the teeth, she still had split teeth? >> i think she still has a little gap. i did not check, like the fbi agent. >> it looked like some of the women you show did not have a gap. was that the main criteria? >> the main criteria was the basic description. black women were getting stopped. if you were tall, light, medium skinned, and had an afro, you were getting stop. she was stopped and follow. various women. every screening i go to, somebody comes up and says, yes, the local police thought i was angela davis. part of it is the police are not well practiced. it is also a form of harassment in a way. then there were a lot of these black women, a sense of pride. "i am leading them off the

trail." >> what did angela davis do next in that whole time frame? >> she was hiding out in l.a. at first when she was discovered. she was always ahead of law enforcement. when she was told about the news report, she went immediately to her gun closet. all the guns were gone. she said, use my gun. so, she hides out in l.a. it becomes clear she will have to leave the area. >> where was her closet? >> in l.a., in an apartment she had lived in previously that had become the brothers meetinghouse. >> the murders happened where? >> this is l.a. they happened in the county outside of san francisco. >> when did she discover her guns were missing? >> sometime after the seventh.

the eighth or when it started hitting the news and she was in l.a. and she went and checked the gun closet. >> what happened, how long did she stay on the run and how did she come public? >> she was captured in october. new york city, time square. >> why was she here and why was she public? >> she was disguised. she was not public. she was running out of money. they had been -- first she had gone to las vegas, then chicago, where she conducted with david, whose father was a big person in the communist party and his mom was a white woman and very wealthy. he had a little bit of cash and was able to help out. they ended up in miami. that was the time where she remained the longest, hold up in miami. i think she was contemplating

whether she was going to leave the country or not, whether she was going to go to cuba. when she decided not to, the fbi is closing in. they have figured out she is somehow connected to david poindexter. they had been tracking him. >> who is that? >> a young man who was a member of the communist party. a black man. primarily, it was his father's party. he was just a little bit of a businessman in chicago. >> did she ever marry? >> she did, in the 80's. i was very surprised, she has a magazine from the early 80's. angela davis marries photographer. they were divorced later in the decade. >> is she married now? >> she is not. >> the trial and the jury, when was she tried and what was the jury made up of? >> it took a long time to get to

trial and figure out the judge and all the parties to agree. the location of the trial, so angela and her team wanted it in san francisco. the prosecution did not. there had to be a compromise. >> explain the difference. >> marin is where august 7 happened. there was a community of people, most likely where she would have been committed. >> across the golden gate bridge, san francisco. >> exactly. the county courthouse is actually a franklin right building, beautiful, like ace they ship landing. so, they ended up in san jose, south of san francisco, a working farmer community, not particularly diverse, but more diverse than marin county.

they had a hispanic male. if you are a registered voter, you are up for jury. that is how it happens. >> were there any black people available? >> there were. in fact, the one black person that had come up, the prosecutor got rid of. the defense tried to keep her on. one of the things the defense did which is not in the film, they were very good about jury selection. they got the list of voters. they had an army of volunteers and they literally went out to canvass and get basic surveillance, what they could about each voter. what were the bumper stickers on their car? who had they voted for? public record stuff. they figured out, of the potential voters, these were the people that were interested. they had spreadsheets, all by hand, no computers. >> how long did the trial go?

>> the trial was not over until june of 1972. >> and the decision? >> she was acquitted of all charges. >> did it surprise you when you went back and looked at everything? >> absolutely. when i went into this, you had a sense of her guilt. part of it is, if you literally stack up all the articles about being chased by the fbi and conspiracy charges, etc., it is probably this big. if you take a stack of all the articles and include the acquittal and the trial, it is probably this big. what are we going to remember? people go, you have to go to cuba to interview angela, that is so amazing. >> where did you interview her? >> oakland, in her home. >> what is her sister doing? >> she was a lawyer, a

nonprofit. >> here is a clip of angela talking. [video clip] >> angela sat down next to her two temporary lawyers. the judge ordered a copy of the charge delivered to her and advised her of her right to an attorney. >> when the attorney general arrange me in california, he indicated he wanted the death penalty on each of the three charges. he wanted the death penalty three times. that made me realize how serious they were. it made me realize it was not about me. i could not be killed three times. it was about the construction of this imaginary enemy and i was the embodiment of the enemy.

>> angela must be freed now. >> angela must be freed now. >> angela must be freed now. >> she is in very high spirits, feeling good. >> right on. >> she is feeling good because she knows the movement to see our political presence is growing everyday. that is what makes us feel good >> who were the two people there in the clip? >> angela's sister and her brother. >> so, what happened after the acquittal verdict to angela davis? >> she did a tour all over the world come a thank you tour to all the people who had been a part of the movement. she thought, i will do that for a year or two and talk about justice issues. it has become her life. she returned to academia. she still travels and talks and

is a public intellectual. >> after this -- how long is this? >> 100 and one minutes. feature-length. it is essentially the story of how a 26-year-old floss graduate student becomes an international political icon. you are really seeing her make the choices and the repercussions of them and how it grows into something so much larger than her as an individual. >> from the time you graduated from the university of texas, up to your first documentary on shirley, what did you do in that time? >> i got my masters in american history at the university of california riverside. i was also continued to run track eared i was running for foot locker, competing nationally and internationally. i ran until i was 27. i would not give up the olympic dream. i qualified for the 96 trials.

i damaged my back, my disk, and i knew i was getting too old. i came back to new york looking for a job. i wanted to tell historical stories in multimedia. i could not get a job doing that. that was during newt gingrich and the cutbacks in the art. by luck, i landed a job in films. >> there has got to be more to it than that. how did that happen? >> i had gone to the brooklyn historical society and i wanted the job so badly. it was low-paying. they said, we hope you are unemployed in six months. but i looked nice and i had my bag and i was depressed and i went to an art gallery event right after. free wine and cheese was my main motivation. before i had the wine, in my corner were two men talking

about my film. i went up to them and said, you guys had been talking about films. i thought filmmakers were such geeks. these guys were talking about film. i said, are you involved in the film business? they said, yes, not in a friendly way. i said, how about documentary filmmaking? yes. historical documentary filmmaking? one of them said yes. i gave them my sad story, two minutes of their time. i said i cannot find a job, my athlete story, and he gave me a card. i had already sent my resume. he said, i might be able to help you. why don't you give me your resume and i will take it to the office? booya. [laughter] i knew how to annotate. >> you had interesting financial backers.

>> yes. raising funds for films is not easy. you sometimes find out you do not have enough. i have been very lucky with both films, through friends, to be able to get celebrity money. oprah gave a little bit of money, halley berry did, and the cosby's. the angela davis phone, we got close to the end and the cost of the footage was enormous. three times more than what we had budgeted. the foundation came in, our french partners came in, and we were still short. i sent a hail mary e-mail to everybody who at everest said they could raise money. a girlfriend in harlem said, i can do it. she was good friends with will smith's wife. when she saw the film, she said, what do you want, how can i help

help? she really has stood up for the film and she is the one who showed it to her husband. i get so pissed when people say jay-z is behind it. she brought the guys, we love the guys. when women stand up for women's stories, they will be made. they went to jay-z and showed him the film. i never met him, but he said he is down. >> your husband, manhattan? his name? >> morgan. a very gutsy man. he believes as a politician, he can do right by the citizens. he ran for congress and is now running for city council here in harlem. he has a great chance of actually being in the mix and winning the seat. his idea is, there are so many resources available to us we are not taking advantage of.

we are part of the generation where you think a little outside of the box and you take resources and make them work. >> where did you meet? >> in a bar. >> in manhattan? >> in harlem. >> how long have you been married? >> he has never not known me working on this angela davis film. now that it is over we wonder what we will have to talk about. >> what is the next documentary? >> i would like to write a book. the film, there is so much original research that i am in the process of writing a book. in the film, i would like to reimagine harriet tubman as a heroine. i would like to do the documentary but it would be a major action movie. how is it possible she could see herself as a whole person under

the violence of slavery? the physical, the emotional, the psychological, and that she had the ability, literally, to cloak herself in invisibility, run to freedom, be a freedom fighter, and to return over and over again, to be a general in the union army. that is an action story. >> the book will come out when? >> i am working on that. but it will happen. i am one of those types. when i say i will do it, i will do it. >> can you buy "free angela?" >> it will be on dvd soon. next year, it will be on television. through tug.com, you can tug it to a local theater near you. you need to talk afterwards. you need to talk.

>> shola lynch. we are out of time and we thank you very much. >> thank you. this has been wonderful, really. >> for a dvd copy of this program call 1-877-662-7726. for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at www.q-and- a.org. "q & a" programs are also available as c-span podcasts. >> a discussion about president obama commencement speech. his impact on young african- americans.

a look at the top energy issues facing the u.s. a conversation with a supreme court justice. of the next washington at the, jonathan looks republican strategy at the returns from a recess. the democrat plans. director of transportation for america how america gauges the safety of bridges and upkeep. "washington journal" live on c- span. she makes the first reached by a sitting first lady. should because the first president of them -- of the daughters of the american revolution. she is the first to have a christmas tree in the white house. , thecaroline harrison

president of the 23rd president as we continue our series on the first lady's. at 9:00 p.m.live eastern on >> the british house of commons was in recess last week. prime minister's question time returns wednesday, june 5. you can watch it live on c-span 27 :00 a.m. eastern and sunday night at 9:00 eastern and pacific here on c-span. you can watch previous sessions anytime at c-span.org or you will find video of past prime minister's questions and other british public affairs programming. now a discussion about president obama's commencement speech at morehouse college in atlanta and its impact on young african-american men. this is 90 minutes.