Defending Our Stories: Inside Black Public Media with Leslie Fields-Cruz (Part 1)

🎙 Episode 4 Show Notes
Title: Defending Our Stories: Inside Black Public Media with Leslie Fields-Cruz (Part 1)

Description:
In this episode of Our Truth Our History Our Story: Our THS, host Rita Coburn sits down with Leslie Fields-Cruz to explore the critical role of supporting and protecting Black storytelling. 

This conversation explores the power behind the stories we see on screen and the institutions that make them possible. This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation with Leslie Fields-Cruz. Be sure to return next week for Part 2 as we continue exploring the future of Black storytelling and the work of Black Public Media.

Leslie Fields-Cruz serves as Executive Director of Black Public Media, an organization that has spent decades supporting independent filmmakers and ensuring that stories about the Black experience reach audiences through public media. From documentaries about icons like Maya Angelou and Marian Anderson to the upcoming PBS film W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel With a Cause, Black Public Media has played a vital role behind the scenes in bringing these stories to the screen.

Rita and Leslie discuss the importance of documentary storytelling in a time when history is often challenged, censored, or misunderstood. They explore why art can be powerful—and sometimes dangerous—when it tells the truth. The conversation also highlights the growing need for public support to ensure that Black stories, history, and culture continue to be documented and shared.

As funding landscapes shift and traditional support for public media faces uncertainty, Leslie shares an ambitious vision: building a community of 1.8 million supporters who believe in preserving and telling the stories that shape our collective understanding of history.

This episode is a reminder that storytelling is not just about the past—it is about the present and the future. When we support storytellers, we defend the truth itself.

Tune in every week as we explore:

Our Truth
Our History
Our Stories

Because in our stories, we find our truth.

Special Thanks To:

Head of Production
Jeannette Santiago

Recording Studio
Manhattan Neighborhood Network Studios

Links & Resources:

Watch this episode on YouTube
https://youtu.be/qZn2TcoLlj4 

Follow Episodes on 
Listen and subscribe to the podcast on your favorite platforms
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2598323/follow 

Read the transcript
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2598323/episodes/18852069 

Learn more about and support Black Public Media
https://blackpublicmedia.org

Learn more about Manhattan Neighborhood Network
https://www.mnn.org

Learn more about Rita Coburn’s documentary W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel With a Cause, airing on American Masters on PBS on May 19, 2026

Follow updates from Rita Coburn Media
https://linktr.ee/ritacoburnmedia

Social / Call to Action:

Share your family stories using #OurTHS

Record the elders in your family. Preserve their stories, their memories, and their truth.

Learn more about Black Public Media and help support the future of Black storytelling. Join the movement to build 1.8 million voices standing behind our stories.
https://blackpublicmedia.org/donate

Follow us on social media
https://linktr.ee/ritacoburnmedia

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I am the producer, director, and writer of W.E.B. Du Bois Rebel with a Cause, a PBS documentary that will air on American Masters PBS May 19th of this year, 2026. Leslie Fields Cruz. What I see you as, and my daughter is near, and she said this to me, she says, those are the Tubman sisters. Leslie and Denise from Black Public Media. And the reason being, you know how Harriet Tubman said, some people who wouldn't do what they needed to do at the time, those were not her people. You are doing what you need to do at the time. The zeitgeist of this time is trying to erase history and erase creativity and tell us that we don't know what we see. So I want you to tell people what does black public media do? Because a lot of people go, we're getting defunded from the corporation from public broadcasting. We're losing public television. But black public media has had a stand in the space of telling stories. So first tell us what you do.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Well, um, I I serve as the executive director at Black Public Media. I've actually been with the organization for it's been 20, almost 25 years, uh, because I started in December of 2001. So by December of 20, yeah, I will have been with the organization for 25 years. And I originally started just working with the filmmakers on the granting, um, our granting programs. And so, and then from there I I grew into um or I started wearing other hats that went into distribution through public media. Um, I launched the Afropop series when Jackie Jones was the executive director. I was hired by the founder, Mabel Haddock, and that was a gift in and of itself. Um and then when I took over as the executive director, I think that, you know, I I had worked, I've worked in nonprofit my entire career. I've worked at a community center, I worked at a youth theater company, um, let's see, I worked at uh Creative Capital, so I've dibbled and dabbled in philanthropy. And one of the things that struck me about uh black public media at the time, or NBP NBPC, the National Black Programming Consortium, which was what we were known for for a very long time, was that the funding that we received from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was great. But we did not have any room for error if that money disappeared. And having worked at all of these other nonprofits that got not even 10% of any federal dollars, I knew that that if I stepped into this role as the exec as the executive director, I would have to figure out how to bring in new money that wasn't federal, uh, you know, more philanthropy, and and then figure out more earned income streams and um identify how we can work with individual donors. And so one in in this time that I've served as the executive director, I've been fortunate to have the support of several philanthropic organizations. MacArthur Foundation is one of our supporters, Act and Family Giving, Jerome. You know, we're happy, so glad to have their support. The um the nut that's been a little bit more difficult for us to crack has been identifying individual donors. And that's because at Black Public Media, we're a behind-the-scenes organization. We're funding the independent filmmakers like yourself, your stories, right? Uh we're working with the public television stations, trying to make sure that those stories that we funded find distribution throughout public through through at through PBS. And so a lot of people just don't know who we are.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

I think it's really important for people to understand that art is dangerous from the comedians who are intelligently telling the truth, like town criers on the corner right now, um, to documentaries that are about history, such as the one that I've done every documentary with you. Maya Angelo and Still I Rise. Who was telling Maya Angelo's story? American Masters certainly was there, but black public media was there. Then we had Marian Anderson, the whole world in her hands. Here's black public media again. And now for W. E. B. Du Bois, Rebel with the Cause, here's black public media again. But you're also with Afropop, you're also with other stories helping to tell the stories of people. I think it was prophetic that you knew that you had to get money outside of the government 12 years ago. Yes. So now, what do we do in this time to keep telling our stories when funding is crunching down? What do we do?

SPEAKER_01 5:25

I mean, I think that, yeah, I know for black public media, our our focus right now is to identify those individuals. We received $1.8 million every year from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Someone, you know, there there were folks who were like, well, you lost that $1.8 million, or for us it was 2.6 because it was a two-year contract. But they, you know, it was like, do you want just $1.8 million? And the bottom line is it was never enough.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

It was never enough.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

It was never enough. So what I, you know, I talked with my board, I have an amazing board, and I said, listen, it's not enough for us to just ask for $1.8 million. We need $1.8 million supporters. We need the American public to come in and support black public media. And by them supporting us, they are saying we value black history, we value documentaries that cover black history, uh that cover unknown or untold stories about the black experience, and we value public media because the stories that we do support, the stories that we're funding, when they're on public television, public media, they're available to anyone for free. Right? A lot of these films that we have funded, they find their ways into libraries, into educational institutions. And even though we're in this moment where they're trying to censor our history, we also know, like our ancestors have always done, we will find a way and our stories will get out there, but we need to make sure that they continue to get out there. So we're looking at identifying and trying to bring in 1.8 million people to support black public media, in addition to continuing to do the outreach to the philanthropic community, as well as looking at earned revenue streams around distribution. Um I work with, there are four other organizations called the National Multicultural Alliance. Um, the they are Center for Asian American Media, Vision Maker Media, uh, Latino Public Broadcasting, and Pacific Islanders in Communication. We were working collectively to try to figure out maybe there's an opportunity for us to create a fast channel where all of these stories by and about people of color that are public interest stories can exist.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

So these are all the things that is a place where what we're trying to say to the broader public right now, everybody's heard that the NEH was defunded, the uh Corporation for Public Broadcasting. But these stories that get out to people, our history can't be stopped. And so if you get 1.8 million people with a dollar, if you get 1.8 million people with $10, if you get, you have more than what the public uh what you what was lost. And in the scheme of things, that's not a lot of money. But what I want people to understand is when we are making films and we can get some money from various streams, that's how these films get made. And we have to be as excited about our history as people are about taking it away from us. If you want to take down signs, if you want to say certain things didn't exist right in front of our eyes, then we have to give some money to get this history out there. So I want to ask you a question about the truth at this time in our culture. Because I find that right now we're being told what we see isn't true. We've been told that things are fake. For what you do, what is a truth that you hold on to that helps you to keep trying to support artists and do what you do? What is it that what is that belief?

SPEAKER_01 9:24

It's honestly, Rita, you're that belief, right? You as a filmmaker, as a producer who is out there finding the stories, telling the stories. When I mean, I love black people and I love our stories. And there's so many stories that still need to be told. And I think I know or I know just through my lifetime, the untruths that I've heard and the truth that I found through documentary films, um, through books, through educators who are like, listen, I got some truth through journalists. And that's why I feel this work that we must continue to do no matter what. I feel like um, I shouldn't say I feel like I know that our young people who are out there documenting what's happening right now in this moment with their phones. Thank you. I want to be able to uh I I want black public media to be there when they say, listen, I've got all of this footage, this is the truth, I need to tell this story. We need to be there for them when they do that. And so it's knowing that there's history that still needs to be told, and it's also history that's happening right now that will need to be told. And if we're not here to support the makers as at the beginning stages or at the end stages of their their production, I'm not quite sure who else is going to do it. I personally do not have full faith in the commercial world. I I I love some of the the documentaries that have that have been on HBO or on you know CNN, but it's not like the content that we have funded that have that has been on public television. Also, if you don't have HBO, if you're you know, if you if you don't not subscribe to HBO, you're not gonna get to watch it.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Right? So we're making history available for free. And what we can't say is they're taking our history. We have to have an interest in it. One to make it, I as a filmmaker to make as much as I can add creativity to the facts, but bring you facts. There's enough fiction, there's enough artistry, those things are okay. But if we don't tell the truth as much as we can and we miss out on the history, as well as what you're saying, we're making history every day. When we had leaders, when Maya Angelo was working and doing her poetry, she wasn't saying, I'm making history. She was getting through the day, the moment, and that history was made. Nelson Mandela, King, all of these people, Du Bois, were getting through the day. And as they got through the day and saw injustices and wanted to bring them to our attention, these are the things that we need to now know in order to move forward. So your truth is in the filmmakers. Everybody has a story, and here's a woman that helps you to tell it. Thank you, Leslie.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Thank you, Rita.