Can films truly capture the essence of history and spark meaningful conversations? Join us as we talk with Gordon Williams, a talented filmmaker who recently received a congressional commendation for his work in telling Black history in Beaumont, Texas. We discuss how documentaries can artfully blend education and entertainment, while also fostering deep, emotional connections with audiences.
Watch the trailer of Gordon's film, They Will Talk About Us: The Charlton-Pollard Story on YouTube https://youtu.be/xLt1EKnuL34?si=1oIh1BFm-9Jjh4uX
A short film, The Example, is available on Amazon Prime https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B076H9FDK4/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r
Can films truly capture the essence of history and spark meaningful conversations? Join us as we talk with Gordon Williams, a talented filmmaker who recently received a congressional commendation for his work in telling Black history in Beaumont, Texas. We discuss how documentaries can artfully blend education and entertainment, while also fostering deep, emotional connections with audiences.
Watch the trailer of Gordon's film, They Will Talk About Us: The Charlton-Pollard Story on YouTube https://youtu.be/xLt1EKnuL34?si=1oIh1BFm-9Jjh4uX
A short film, The Example, is available on Amazon Prime https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B076H9FDK4/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r
This podcast is not sponsored by. It does not reflect the views of the institutions that employ us. It is solely our thoughts and ideas, based upon our professional training and study of the past. ["texas History"].
Gene Preuss:Welcome to Talking Texas History, the podcast that explores Texas history before and beyond the Alamo. Not only will we talk Texas history, we'll visit with folks who teach it, write it, support it, and with some who've made it And, of course, all of us who live it and love it. I'm Scott Sosebee And I'm Gene Preuss, and this is Talking Texas History. ["texas History"]. Well, welcome to another edition of Talking Texas History. I'm Gene Preuss.
Scott Sosebee:I'm Scott Sosebee, Gene, we have a very special guest with us today, i think, because we've never had anybody like this before On this. We have Gordon Williams with us today. Gordon is a native East Texan, so there we go. I like that already, and he's the studio operations manager at LUTV, which is the campus television station at Lamar University in Beaumont. But more than that, i think. Besides being an adjunct instructor there at Lamar is he is also an award-winning journalist, documentary maker. He's made a number of ones that I've seen. I've seen two of his that were outstanding And I should have already logged on and seen more And we're going to talk about making I think, making documentaries and what that takes and how he's presenting that as a historical context. So, Gordon, thanks for being with us.
Gordon Williams:I greatly appreciate the invitation.
Gene Preuss:Well, we want to say congratulations, because you just won another award, didn't you?
Gordon Williams:Yeah, it's definitely unexpected And I'm still kind of wrapping my head and heart around it, But due to my work in telling Black history in the area of Beaumont and my work at Lamar University, working with students and such, I'm being honored with a congressional commendation. So this is. It's been a lot of process And there's a lot going on. So trying to make sure the work gets done and the project gets out, but also making sure everything is in line for that event And I'm getting the question often So what's next? So also figuring that in the process.
Gene Preuss:Well, congratulations, that's wonderful That would have been my question. Thank you, People may have seen you before. You have been a speaker at the East Texas Historical Association a couple of years ago And then recently we saw you in March in, of all places, el Paso, texas, where you were there presenting at the Texas State Historical Association. So let me ask you a question, gordon. How did you get? just a basic question how did you get involved in filmmaking?
Gordon Williams:Growing up as a child in Cleveland, texas, i always had a interest in television and film and just put that curiosity of how does it work. So I was always a writer and had interest in art And that kind of led me to go to Lamar University back in the mid-'90s where television program was just coming back online. So I kind of saw that as an opportunity to come in and learn and had the opportunity to create a music video entertainment program called G-Sharp And that was kind of my start into media and broadcasting.
Scott Sosebee:That's great. Yeah, i think it's a medium And this is kind of a comment, but I want you to comment on this That it's so effective for presenting historical context. Jean and I, as historians, we research and we write. We do it with the written word And when I watch this, take, for example, i shouldn't have said example, because I'm going to say take, for The Example, short film that it's done about race relations in the whole situation. Beaumont, south Texas. How long is that film? We're 30 minutes. Is that what the short film is? I?
Gordon Williams:think we're running right at 23. 23 minutes It's a short film.
Scott Sosebee:So 23 minutes I would be. What a presentation for me in a written word at a conference. But it captures, i mean in those 23 minutes it captures and encapsulates the race situation in the South and Texas so much And it's so much to me more impactful almost in the written word. I mean they say a picture is worth 1,000 words, a moving picture must be worth 10,000 words. So tell us what your philosophy is that is about documentaries, and how come they are so impactful and why they have become so important to exploring the past.
Gordon Williams:I believe that if you can entertain and educate, so with the example, having the opportunity to put historical context of the 1943 Beaumont race riot with fictional characters that people can relate and connect to, you're hitting people on an emotional level but you're also informing them, whether they know or not. A lot of people were not aware of the race riot until this project And on the day of the commendation is actually going to be the 80th anniversary of the race riot here in Beaumont. It brings Oh really It educates people about history And I'm hoping it's an introduction for them to want to go and learn more about historical events or, with the Charleston Pollard documentary, learn more about that community or their community, in which they grew up.
Scott Sosebee:We saw that in Nacogdoches when you were there. We saw that film with two films, I'll just say. When it was over with, there was applause, But you could. I mean there was powerful murmuring through the audience because it had been. That's what it's coming. It was so impactful to them And it's like wow, we didn't know it was like this. And then the way it was presented, It was fantastic.
Gene Preuss:You know, that's the first way I got to know you, gordon is somebody I was doing some research on the Beaumont race riot, which happened in June 15, 1943. So as you said, about 80 years ago. And it was a terrible thing that happened at that little, On that little kind of little island there in Beaumont. That started there and spread across the city. I think the black community was burned, some people were killed And I mean certainly people were terrorized.
Gene Preuss:And I think in that little 23 minute film and you know it's not really a history piece, scott, it's a drama It's about a conflict, a moral conflict between two couples, one black, one white, in that community. And as it's going on, the race riot itself is really kind of a backdrop, it's kind of the background scene, and in the movie itself you don't see anything really having to do with the riot but you see the impact of domestic violence or terrorism going on in the lives of people who were involved there. It's so beautiful, i mean it's tragically beautiful, and the way it resolves is also so moving and so suspenseful. So I got to say that is, you know, in 23 minutes. It runs the gamut of emotion. How in the world did you get on this topic And how did you write this?
Gordon Williams:So I'm eternally grateful for my fellow producers, Wyatt Kagle and Kenneth. We all worked together to tell this powerful story. So when we initially shared the script with people in the community and we had a script reading, some people felt like the script was not violent enough to show what happened during the race riot. And we're independent filmmakers, so we're not from Hollywood. We don't have money to burn down buildings and have hundreds of people in the streets. So we had to take the story and boil it down to a very human level with a small amount of actors, with resources we had. So the context of the history of the race riot was very important, but it's that human element that was necessary to create that suspense and that drama And we wanted this project to be something that people would pause and think about.
Gordon Williams:At screenings we've after the screenings, it's been difficult discussions, powerful discussions. People that don't know each other are talking about racial issues, and to hear that dialogue as filmmakers we feel that that's healing and it's important. But again, it's also historical. People are learning more about what happened in the past So hopefully it doesn't happen again in the future.
Scott Sosebee:Yeah, and you know you say that the violence of people may want it, but I think that's why it's so powerful. In some sense it's that hint of violence, you know that's there that makes it so. I think it makes it more personal for people as well. It's just wonderful. It's an example of so many of the good things that you've done.
Scott Sosebee:I want to ask you this question, Gordon, that you can talk on and that it's more poignant and it may be getting deeper and a little bit personal, but as an African-American man who grew up in Southeast Texas and East Texas and has gone on to become an advocate for us, having a relation, a racial dialogue in this nation and knowing what you see, just tell our audience about. I mean, we take this opportunity. We have someone. You grew up, you lived it, you knew these things. What is it that you want the white audience to know? that, what it was like growing up as an African-American man in East Texas, that there's the gulf between us, while we don't seem to understand sometimes. I know that might be a little deep, but I think it's important.
Gordon Williams:I think it's a lack of communication, Example, with similar concerns between the black family and the white family, but they are not in that time they would not be communicating. But communication leads to finding commonality When we're able. The fact that a group of diverse filmmakers, cast members came together to make this project and then we're able to sit in the theater with a diverse group of people and talk about it after such a tragic event, that's when things start happening. I feel like my purpose is about love and creativity for my life and I just feel like through creativity we can do a lot of healing, we can do a lot of nurturing and such With these projects. History is kind of the venue.
Scott Sosebee:I think that's exactly right. You're right. I'd like to say I've said this before in public and private settings is that we've talked for my whole life probably and I'm older than all of us here that we need to talk about, we need to have a conversation about the racial division of this nation. The thing is we've never really had a conversation about it because we don't know how to converse about it. I think it's a nation to some extent. We don't know how. I think too many whites just avoid the issue and that causes that lack of communication we're talking about. But we're going to really have a conversation. We have to agree. We're going to have to actually confront it head on. I think that's what your answer says. I like that.
Gene Preuss:Well, i think it's about the at the end of the film. It's really about, as you're saying, two people, two groups of people, two couples, that if you strip away everything else, they see the humanity in each other, and I think that does a lot to help foster communication. So I appreciate that. What other works have you been doing? I mean, that's not your only film. You've got other works. You also work for Lamar and you do broadcasting with the students there and for the university. You make films there. Tell us a little bit about your other work.
Gordon Williams:Well, the day job is working here in the television studio, to where I had the opportunity to help students become content creators. So we have a lot of students that are currently in graduate studies, that are currently in local television stations here in Beaumont And we've had a number of others gain quite a bit of success once leaving here. So I don't consider myself an academic. I've always seen myself as a creative, good, level-of-त sittie. This educational aspect that I have with my life is definitely more rewarding than I thought it would be And through those opportunities I've had the opportunity to work with our students here to do projects like They Will Talk About Us: The Charlton-Pollard Story to where those students got hands-on experience to work on a documentary.
Gordon Williams:We received a grant from ExxonMobile and with their help students got paid. This is something they could put on their resumes. And then they also get to go to screenings and go to the premieres and learn more about the production aspect of it, kind of going from idea to production, post-production and then marketing and learning those aspects of the entire business And then also being educated by history. So I mean it's what we're doing here across several disciplines, for students to have the opportunity to connect with people that are 50 to 60 years their senior and be just as emotional as the people on the screen or in front of the camera, behind the camera, because they connect with what's being said. That's a powerful learning experience.
Gene Preuss:I think that's a wonderful tool And you know I do some work with a local studio here in Houston And one of the things that occurs to me is that, aside from a few programs I know of, there isn't much merger between the academic side of history and the creative side of something like production. So do you get students with history backgrounds who are interested in making, And if so, how do you get them started in documentary filmmaking?
Gordon Williams:Well, I'm hoping projects like this will encourage that. I believe that there is a gap between creatives and historians and that gap needs to be filled because there are stories that need to be told And those stories can be told by students or independent filmmakers or larger companies. It is just making those connections. Being able to go to East Texas and the Texas State Historical Association meeting in El Paso has been out opening for me because I get to learn about a new discipline But also, being out of it, I could see where media or content creation can help historians tell these powerful stories that need to be shared.
Scott Sosebee:That's exactly right, And I think that's the beauty of this. Let's talk more about the other one, the one on the Troughton neighborhood, a little bit. How did that, how the genesis of that, come up? I even talked I was very surprised after that one. So we saw an actress too. I talked to a lady that. She said that she grew up in Beaumont. She said, "I didn't know that about, I didn't know that about the Charlton neighborhood and things like that. So tell us how the genesis of that project happened and how that's been received.
Gordon Williams:The mobile approach to the department. They were wanting to give students the opportunity to learn And the idea was proposed to do a documentary about that neighborhood. So within that, myself and Jonathan Tippett, previous co-worker here, we started researching the project And we talked to maybe 30 or 40 people before we finally settled on the eight people that we chose for the documentary And there was so much information that the amount of information and footage that was left on the editing floor it's amazing. It's a. This community is built on education and they thrived. they had a lot of revenue that stayed within the community, so there was entertainment, there was doctors, lawyers. It was a Mecca for blacks in the Southeast Texas region Being able to watch people connect with that story because it brings about nostalgia for their specific community, no matter the race.
Gene Preuss:Well, i think that's very true. One of the things about segregation and it wasn't just in the black community, other communities face segregation as well is that and of course, as historians we teach that and that was a time and we don't wanna go back to that period. but at the same time is people made the best of their situation, whatever their situation was, and created communities and businesses and culture within those communities, segregated or not. And I think that we all I mean I think about growing up where I grew up in Central Texas, and there is a lot of nostalgia there and people like that nostalgia, people like going back and seeing. we wanna call it the good old days, but my mother always used to say that everybody talks about the good old days and the good thing about it was you were younger then or that idea of nostalgia.
Gene Preuss:And Scott, at Stephen F Austin they found a film that was made in 1938 and reshowed it to a lot of older people and some of them had been in that film as young people. It was a film project, i think. a filmmaker went around and to various communities, the Chamber of Commerce, to hype their communities. Well, this film was lost And when it showed up and people were talking about it. it brought back so many memories, and I think that's what films like yours do, is they help bring about these older patterns of living, but it connects them to younger people through the use of media, and I think that's the important thing that I saw in things like They Will Talk About Us for example, or is that it brings immediacy and relevancy to the past, and that's what interests people.
Gordon Williams:No, i agree And I tell students or just people all the time that you have a phone in your pocket, you have a camera you can record, being able to document history of what's going on around you At that moment in time. It may not be anything but 10, 15, 20 years from now or even longer. It's going to be a signpost for a specific time in history And, as creatives, i want people to kind of take that context in mind. Creatives are making signposts for history, whether they realize it or not, for historians to come back and look at a specific area?
Scott Sosebee:Yeah, you're absolutely right. We're sitting here talking about films that we've seen and there may be some of our audience who have not seen these films and would like to. So do you have an outlet that people are listening to us and say, hey, i want to watch those. They can go to watch these films.
Gordon Williams:The Example is currently on Amazon Prime Video, so you can find it there. They Will Talk About Us - we're actually still taking that around to film festivals and have been screening. So if you go to our LUTV News Facebook page, that's where we're keeping people informed about upcoming screenings and such, And then on Friday, June 16th, at the LeMond University Theater where the foundation is happening, we're also going to have a screening of both projects.
Scott Sosebee:Okay, great, that's good to know. Sorry, i may absolutely know that. So we said this earlier in Quish Morning and Stuff and we were talking about these fine films that you're making. but what's next? What are you working on? Give us some ideas of what you're working on now. What's your thing? What's percolating at this point?
Gordon Williams:Well, i'm stepping outside the historical vein for a second. I host a salsa event in Beaumont called Salsa at Cotton Creek Winery, and I've been. I was doing that for 11 and a half years, until the pandemic. So for two and a half years we were not. This community that's been created was not able to congregate or be together. So we had our first night back at the winery in November 2022.
Gordon Williams:So my friends and I, we decided to document that night And I was not aware of what that night meant to people in the community, because it was at one night a month to where they would make sure they had a babysitter, or it was date night, or it was their time to come be social. So I think, years from now, like I kind of mentioned before, it's gonna give some insight about the pandemic and what was lost, but there's also a human element to it, because during that time, people were dealing with personal battles of their own And they shared that within interviews. So dancing is the surface level of it, but it's more about humanity and the commonality. I believe it's the most diverse night in Beaumont.
Scott Sosebee:That sounds nice. I wanna watch it already, so you better hurry up and get it finished. That sounds great.
Gene Preuss:You can't go wrong with salsa and wine.
Scott Sosebee:No, it's a good life.
Gene Preuss:Let me ask you a question about putting together a project. whatever project you're working on, i, as a historian, when I'm putting together a project I'm sure much different from you I do have to do a lot of background research, do a lot of reading, go looking for sources. But what about putting together a film? I mean, they don't just put themselves together right. There's a lot of planning and free a lot of things that go on behind the scenes before you get started. So what are some of the steps you take whenever you're working on a project?
Gordon Williams:Well, it definitely depends on what John looks like. I don't think it's any different than how you would, as a historian, start a project. I mean, there's definitely research involved. If it's a narrative and it's fiction, well, i need to create these characters. And then what are these people like? So sometimes it's going to research. Okay, this person is going to be a stockbroker. What do stockbrokers do?
Gordon Williams:I need to go and research and be able to develop that character and get an idea of how they're going to be within this world that I've created More documentary sense. It is definitely that research and talking to a number of people and finding sources and making sure all these stories have some connecting point. And it's finding all of those points and hopefully building a timeline or finding that thread that connects everything to bring the story to life. And it's not even getting into the actual production aspects of finding a crew and cameras and making sure people are fed during the production and all those elements you get to production and then, as post-production, you want to find appropriate music and have a good editor and it is definitely multi-layered. If I think about it all at one time, i question why I do this to myself. But you have to break it up into research, reproduction production and post-production and just kind of take it in those segments as you're going through a project.
Scott Sosebee:Well, we've come to that time in our podcast and we have to do the thing, so we have to ask our question. Gordon Scott Williams, what do you know?
Gordon Williams:That my life is about love and creativity and I'm hoping, through interworking those things, i am able to tell powerful stories, storytelling. It's all about creativity and I want to have, i want to create content that makes people feel good but also causes them to think, step outside of their box at times. Again, to be in a room to where, at the beginning of screening, you see people kind of in their segregated spaces or they came with just the people that they came with and they're all talking, but to go through the presentation and show both films and have a question and answer session, and then you see these people intermingling and introducing themselves and saying, hey, you made a really good point and having that range of dialogue. I think that's the power of creativity.
Scott Sosebee:Well, you know what. I think you've accomplished that. I think I've seen that in that. I think they've accomplished it and you're doing great work. This has been fantastic, gordon, thanks for joining us. Hopefully we'll see you again at one of our conferences where East Texas meets in October I think it's 5th through 7th, as when we'll be back in Nacodotus. So if you get the chance, make sure you come back. Thanks, gordon. Hey, thanks a lot.
Gene Preuss:Thank you very much.
Scott Sosebee:Well, do talk to you soon..