Documentary Film Can Reach Both Heart and Head

Like Julia Reichert’s Union Maids and Seeing Red: Stories of American Communists, Daniel Pierce Bergin’s films use the documentary form to revisit history and address our miseducation and absent narratives, providing new evidence as well as perspectives to make today’s issues more clear so we can talk about them. Bergin frequently screens his documentaries on race in Minnesota in diverse community spaces as “restorative storytelling” to encourage conversation and new understanding of shared history. Here, discussing his role as a senior producer for Twin Cities PBS, Bergin looks at the power of story in the overlooked history in Jim Crow of the North.

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“This is helping us … change the narrative and reclaim truth. I also want to say how proud I am of my people. Thank you for producing this.” —African American viewer of Jim Crow of the North 

Twin Cities Public Television’s history documentary Jim Crow of the North was created to reveal the roots of Minnesota’s worst-in-the-nation racial disparities. It’s based on the groundbreaking research of the Mapping Prejudice project, which has charted racist, restrictive covenants in housing deeds in Hennepin County. The early 20^th-century practice of adding restrictive covenants to the growing city’s housing stock laid out a grid for redlining and other discriminatory policies and practices that fostered the inequities we suffer from today.

The story of restrictive covenants and the devastating disparities that they fostered has been a heartbreaking history lesson for Minnesotans. But with hearts broken open, there has been an openness to candid dialogue, a push for policy change, and an opportunity for healing.

The film now finds itself within the tradition of documentaries throughout the century of cinema that have been woven into social justice movements. In the words of Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman, media must “go to where the silence is.” Since its premiere in early 2019, Jim Crow of the North has helped break the silence on the history and impact of northern segregation as the film has been carried across the community as a catalyst for convening, conversation, consternation, and change.

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  Still from Jim Crow of the North, courtesy Twin Cities PBS
  
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  Still from Jim Crow of the North, courtesy Twin Cities PBS
  

Campus viewing events have been hosted at the University of Minnesota, St. Olaf College, Mankato State University, and Augsburg College. In these spaces of scholarship, the film has supplemented coursework ranging from history to health and wellness. Jim Crow of the North, and the forums that followed, have offered a kind of profound professional development opportunity in a range of public sector and corporate settings including the City of Minneapolis, St. Paul Area Association of Realtors, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and US Bank.

Notably, many screening/discussion events have been convened in places of faith. This recalls the role that interfaith alliances played in the Civil Rights movement. Sandra Wolfe Wood, with the Social Justice Ministry at Westminster Presbyterian Church in downtown Minneapolis, organized a screening of the film and conversations around the research. She described the unique impact the documentary had on the congregants. “Your stories left an indelible impression,” she wrote. “Understanding why race-based housing practices have created inequities in education, health, and economic security inspires us all to action—which is the goal of our forums.” The anti-racism cohort at St. Joan of Arc, a progressive Catholic

church in South Minneapolis, weaved the film into other educational and motivational programs, including the church’s ISAIAH Project participants who lobby the legislature on social justice issues.

The heightened awareness that the documentary brought to the hidden history of restrictive covenants added energy to an effort during Minnesota’s 2019 legislative session. This led to the passage of a bipartisan bill that allows homeowners to expunge the racist covenants from their property. The language is not deleted. The documentation is important to preserve. But homeowners can formally renounce the bigoted sections of the contract.

“I don’t think most people knew this before it was brought up,” Gov. Tim Walz said at the bill’s ceremonial signing in June. He affirmed the need to “clean up some things that are stains on the state of Minnesota.”  Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (White Earth Band of Ojibwe) added, “If we are going to turn the curve on equity issues in this state, one of the first steps is making sure that we have laws that clearly and accurately reflect the kind of Minnesota that we want to be. This is really an important step.”

Dr. Kirsten Delegard, founder of the Mapping Prejudice project, describes how the film has animated her ongoing research and outreach efforts on restrictive covenants. “Since it reaches both heart and head, it works well in a variety of venues and has been used in spiritual communities and policymaking groups. It is a rare work of art that plays well in these different contexts, leaving audiences spellbound and eager for change.”

Viewing the documentary and engaging in a difficult but relevant discussion offered “a form of healing” and “validation” of lived experiences for one African American audience member. A white audience member found the film eye opening: “Jim Crow of the North is a wonderful program. I knew nothing of covenants in my 72 years. When we know better, we do better.”  These responses suggest the documentary has tapped into Roger Ebert’s idea of film as an “empathy machine.” If watching a film as a community is, as many have mused, a kind of collective dream, then Jim Crow of the North has used that power to take on the collective nightmare of racial disparities.

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