An unflinching look at the past helps Old Fort move forward
John Kennedy
Guest columnist
The Valley Echo
March 10, 2021
John Kennedy discusses "PBS Frontline’s “Life on Parole,” a documentary he produced about individuals leaving the prison system. Kennedy, who lives in Black Mountain, recently produced a documentary on a mural in Old Fort that commemorates the efforts of Albert Joyner to desegregate local schools in 1955. Photo courtesy of John Kennedy
Jen and David Billstrom are important people to me. They run the Kitsbow Cycling Apparel company in Old Fort. They listen and they are some of the most quietly effective people I know.
A few years ago I produced a documentary “Life on Parole” for PBS Frontline and spent a year following individuals churning in-and-out out of the prison system in Connecticut. The issues of racial injustice that broke to the surface with the Black Lives Matter movement last year - these injustices are clear and undebatable when you examine a criminal justice system up close.
During the Black Lives Matter protests I sat at home and watched the news over the internet. Then Jen and David Billstrom invited me into a project. They were involved with People On The Move Old Fort, a community organization that focuses on building relationships with the Black community and creating community equity and empowerment. They were helping to create a mural to commemorate Albert Joyner and his attempts to desegregate the school system in Old Fort in 1955.
I reached out to David Siach of Fiasco Pictures to help with the camera work and the edit. Here’s a secret about creating a documentary - work with the best camera and best editor you can find. Then Jen and David introduced me to the mural organizers Lavita Logan, Paula Avery and Mary Snow, and I started to learn about this amazing story.
In 1950 the students in the Old Fort area marched in protest about the closing of their Catawba View Grammar School, which forced them to be bussed to Marion. In 1955 the students protested the segregated school system again and Albert Joyner, an African American World War II Veteran, with no children of his own, said he had a call from God and joined the student protest.
There is a photo of Joyner and the children speaking to the school superintendent at the door of the school in Look magazine - which became the inspiration for the mural.
A mural painted by Brooklyn artist Don Rimx on the former Sanderlin Theater in Old Fort was inspired by a photo of Albert Joyner and his attempt to enroll local children in a segregated school in 1955. Photo by Fred McCormick
We had a pretty simple goal - film a short documentary about the painting of the mural, intertwining the narrative of Don Rimx painting with the stories from the individuals in the community who lived through desegregation. When I started listening to Old Fort residents - I just didn’t know the local history. I was so naive.
I sat down with longtime residents Ruth “Pepper” Gardner, Tonia Plummer, Janet Lytle Green and Coretha Lytle. I didn’t know. You don’t really feel it in the history books - but to sit across from these individuals and hear about how they had to go in through back doors and how crosses were burned. The history books make it sound like when the schools were desegregated then everything was fine - but these women explained that when schools were finally desegregated then they were put in the most basic classes with disinterested teachers. Their chance at an equal education still didn’t happen. I asked Coretha Lytle how her family came to live in Old Fort. She said her grandmother was a slave and she was brought here.
Sometimes I have projects when everything seems a struggle - and sometimes I have projects where everything works. This project was absolutely wonderful. My good friend David LaMotte joined the project and wrote the song “Ballad of Catawba View” for the documentary. The residents were truly present as they shared the history of the community. The painting of the mural was a fantastic visual. And Old Fort held a wonderful community party when the mural was finished, and I got to meet Chloe Joyner, Albert’s granddaughter.
Last year the pandemic raged and the economy crashed - and 63% of the population reported that they are living paycheck to paycheck. This country needs renewal. But we won’t be able to move forward as long as we ignore the horrors of the past - racism, slavery, the treatment of the indigenous peoples, the treatment of immigrants.
Being able to film the story of Albert Joyner has been one of my favorite and most fulfilling projects of my life. If we are going to move forward - people should pay attention to the community of Old Fort, a community that came together to tell the unflinching story of its past.
This was a community listening, coming together, and moving forward together.
John Kennedy moved to Black Mountain in 2002. He, his wife Cinnamon and their three children are active members of the community. Kennedy produced PBS Frontline’s “Life on Parole,” a documentary about people leaving the prison system that aired in July of 2017. He has directed and produced several award-winning films and his work as a journalist has been published in The USA Today, The Washington Post and The New York Times. His art activism includes the Gerrymander 5K, Drag Queens of Queen City Mural Project and Reimagining the Statue of Liberty. Kennedy is an avid musician and soccer player for the Watershed Soccer Club and is currently collecting 100 oral histories of people using or in recovery for a project entitled “Let Us Now Listen.” His documentary on the Old Fort mural debuted Feb. 24 in a virtual celebration and can be viewed here.