Athens, Ga. – A free screening of the Peabody Award-winning HBO film, Something the Lord Made, will be offered at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 19, at Ciné, 234 W. Hancock Street.
The screening is the first of three planned as part of “Telling the Story: Education and Equality through the Peabody Lens” being sponsored by the University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication in celebration of UGA’s 50th anniversary of desegregation.
Something the Lord Made is the story of two men, Dr. Alfred Blalock, an ambitious white surgeon and UGA graduate, and Vivien Thomas, a brilliant black carpenter turned lab technician. Together they defied the racial strictures of the Jim Crow South, devised groundbreaking surgical techniques, and pioneered the field of heart surgery.
Special guest Katie McCabe, author of the 1989 Washingtonian profile that formed the basis for the film, will join the post film discussion. Her article won a National Magazine Award, generated widespread interest in the story and precipitated the making of a 2003 public television documentary on Thomas and Blalock, Partners of the Heart. Her current book, Justice Older than the Law, will also be available for purchase and signing.
Something the Lord Made was nominated for nine Emmy Awards (including acting nominations for both principals) and won three, for Best Made for Television Movie, Best Cinematography and Best Picture Editing. It also received two Golden Globe nominations, Black Reel Awards for Best Film and Best Supporting Actor, a NAACP Image Award, a Directors Guild of America Award and a Writers Guild of America Award.
The American Film Institute, which named Something the Lord Made the Best Television Movie of the Year for 2004, called it “a revelation…a bittersweet story [that] is an important tool for America as it continues to search for a public vocabulary to discuss issues of race.”
The second and third installments of “Telling the Story: Education and Equality through the Peabody Lens” will take place on Wednesday, Feb. 2 and Wednesday, Feb.16, also at Ciné.
The Feb. 2 program will feature Hoxie: The First Stand. The film presents the story of a small Arkansas town whose school board chose to integrate its classrooms in the summer of 1955. The Feb. 16 screening will highlight The Search for Quality Education: Busing – Voices from the South. The documentary looks at what happens to some Southern communities after a busing program goes into effect. Both programs will begin at 5 p.m.
Established in 1915, the UGA Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication offers undergraduate majors in advertising, digital and broadcast journalism, magazines, newspapers, public relations, publication management and mass media arts. The college offers two graduate degrees, and is home to the Knight Chair in Health and Medical Journalism and the Peabody Awards, internationally recognized as one of the most prestigious prizes for excellence in electronic media. For more information, see https://pod51004.outlook.com/owa/redir.aspx?C=08f23f9b81b24813a15c13e24a0035a3&URL=https%3a%2f%2fpod51004.outlook.com%3a443%2fowa%2fredir.aspx%3fC%3df87288792efd469b841a960259c8726e%26URL%3dhttp%253a%252f%252fwww.grady.uga.edu%252f or follow @UGAGrady on Twitter.
For more information on the Peabody Lens screenings, see www.grady.uga.edu/diversity.
