Defending Our Stories: Inside Black Public Media with Leslie Fields-Cruz (Part 2)

🎙️ Episode 14

Defending Our Stories: Inside Black Public Media with Leslie Fields-Cruz (Part 2)

In Part 2 of Rita Coburn’s conversation with Leslie Fields-Cruz, we go beyond funding and filmmaking to explore the deeper question: Why do stories matter?

Leslie shares her personal journey from a family of educators to becoming one of the most influential advocates for Black storytelling in America. Through her leadership at Black Public Media, she has helped filmmakers bring important stories to audiences while ensuring that Black history, culture, and lived experiences are documented, preserved, and shared.

Together, Rita and Leslie discuss the power of documentary film, the importance of representation, and why history must be actively preserved rather than passively inherited. From discovering Black cinema as a student to supporting groundbreaking filmmakers across generations, Leslie reflects on the work of making sure our stories remain visible and accessible.

This episode is a reminder that history is not only something we study. It is something we create every day.

🔍 What You'll Hear in This Episode

• Leslie Fields-Cruz's journey into media and storytelling
• How a family of educators shaped her mission
• The impact of discovering Black film history as a student
• Why documentaries help us understand ourselves and our communities
• The role of Black Public Media in supporting filmmakers
• The importance of preserving Black history through visual storytelling
• How local history can inspire new generations
• Why representation matters in media and culture
• The connection between education, art, and social change

🧠 Key Themes

• Black storytelling
• Documentary filmmaking
• Black Public Media
• Representation in media
• Education and cultural preservation
• Independent filmmaking
• Community history
• Black arts and culture
• Historical memory
• Visual storytelling

💬 A Defining Idea from This Episode

History survives when people are willing to document it, preserve it, and share it. Every generation has a responsibility to tell its stories and protect the stories that came before.

📣 Resources / Links 

Watch THS Episode

https://youtu.be/46o542zZvU4 

Learn more about Black Public Media and help fund future storytellers and documentaries
https://blackpublicmedia.org/donate/

Explore Black Public Media grants, fellowships, and funding opportunities for filmmakers and creators
https://blackpublicmedia.org/programs/ 

Watch W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel with a Cause on American Masters (available through June 16, 2026)
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/w-e-b-du-bois-documentary/34807/

Watch the W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel with a Cause trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kMsik6rDQM

Transcript available here
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2598323

Watch Our Truth, Our History, Our Story on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/@ritacoburn9240

Listen to the podcast
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2598323/episodes

Stay connected with Rita Coburn
https://linktr.ee/ritacoburnmedia

Upcoming events and screenings
https://www.ritacoburn.com/upcoming-events

Download event photos
https://www.ritacoburn.com/event-photos

Social Media Toolkit
https://www.ritacoburn.com/social-media-tool-kit

🎬 About the Series

Our Truth, Our History, Our Story (Our THS) explores the people, ideas, and cultural forces shaping Black history and storytelling today.

👥 Production Credits

Host: Rita Coburn
 Executive Producer: Andrew T. Carr
 Producers: Christine Coburn Whack, H. Lee Whack

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I am Rita Coburn, the writer, producer, and director of W.E.B. Du Bois, Rebel with a Cause. Thank you for the wonderful reception of Rebel with a Cause. Your viewership, your social media posts, and comments all point to a successful launch. We have together platformed and elevated the nation's knowledge of WEB Du Bois, and I am grateful to our team and to you, our new partners, in staying inspired and learning our history. We will continue airing the documentary on the American Masters YouTube channel through June 16th. One of the ways we're able to make documentaries like this is through the support of extraordinary partners. American Masters is one. Black public media has also truly been a partner. The organization helps emerging mid-career veteran filmmakers bring their stories to life, to bring African American stories to life. If you'd like to learn more about how documentaries are brought to life through the financing and how that happens, and how you can support work that ensures more of these important stories are available to audiences, let's hear from its director, Leslie Phil's Cruz. And you can also follow up by looking at their website. You'll find grants as well as opportunities to give. We will make sure that our truth, our history, and our stories are available by supporting one another. 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. Your story, you told us about what you did in terms of uh black public media. But what is it in you that makes you, was it something that you found out as a young woman, as a child? What happened to make Leslie say, I'm going to end up working to help other people tell their stories? Ooh, that's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Um I come from a long line of educators. Uh one of my uncles was the first uh black dean at Princeton University, Carl Fields. My mother was an early childhood educator. Um, and I have a lot of cousins who are principals and at elementary schools, high schools, they're professors. So I think for me, trying to find and I'm an artist as well. I started out as an actor and I was like, I can't do that. I can't do that, because I just would didn't want to do certain types of roles. And it was just wasn't me, but I knew that I wanted to work or help those who were trying to tell stories that I knew were the truth about black people. I wanted to make sure that there was representation. And I guess I can I can pinpoint it to I took a course at UC Berkeley where I got my undergrad, and it was a black film course. And I had no idea that there were all these other black films that had been made. And I used to watch television all the time. And I walked away from that course, and I was like, oh, you know, this is really interesting. There's a lot of information there. I also saw Eyes on the Prize when I was a college student, right? Blew my mind. My parents had participated in the civil rights movement. My auntie was at, you know, the March on Washington. Um but you know, you you hear those stories, but to see it represented, to see it told and borne out in actual footage that we know exists. Yes, it was mind-blowing for me. So, you know, fast forward a few years later, I started working at uh at the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers, and I realized that my gift was to like, okay, so how can I help you? How can I get this? Who do you who who do you need information about? Okay, let me try to find that person. So, and I think that is connected to this desire to educate and inform and keep and and to have people find their truth through story. And yeah, I I continue to do some theater work with young people. Um, we have a theater by me class and we use local history. I were I live in Peaksgill, and I didn't know that Paul Robeson was there. There was a Peakskill riot. So that just I said, hey kids, we're gonna do this year's story on the Peakskill riots. They got to learn about Paul Robeson, they got to learn about their hometown that was racist, it still is kind of, but not so much anymore. Um, and they created this 10-minute piece. So being able to look at history, find stories that haven't been told, and use art as a way to express it. For me, it's the internet's documentary film. And I wasn't gonna be a documentary filmmaker. I think the work that you guys do is like birthing a baby. It really is. Um, but I am the person who's trying to, who's your advocate, who's trying to be, who's out there trying to get you the funding, uh, get you the visibility. That's my job. And I'm happy to do it.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

A modern-day Harriet Tubman. Free us, tell our stories, and you come from a line. When when people read the Bible, they'll they'll go over these names and it'll say, those were the toolmakers, those were the priests, those were the water carriers. It seems like you came from a family of educators, and now you are helping to still educate us all in the new wave of education. Education used to be books and to some extent still is, but education is now being able to see it, that visceral feeling that you get when you see the march on Washington, when you see millions of people collect. And we're seeing that around the country in protest today. If we didn't have those pictures, if we didn't document that, we would be missing something. So I want to say thank you for being a part of our truth, our history, and our stories. You are that and more, and this is important. This is a place to give to black public media to keep black stories and stories for people of color alive and growing. So thank you. Thank you. And uh, I'm a recipient of funds from black public media and have for all of my major documentaries, and have been proud to put your name on the credits and know that you're here for us. So art is dangerous, culture is important, and everybody has a story, and here's a woman that helps you to tell it. Thank you, Leslie. Thank you, Rita.