[piano intro] - [Announcer] Visibly Speaking is a production of PBS North Carolina in association with the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation.

[gentle orchestral music] - [Man] Most people don't know us and we have an important story that people wanna hear.

- [Woman] He knew that this was sacred ground.

- [Man] There's so much history here, and if we don't capture it, this will be lost history.

- [Woman] We had a dream of an actual public artwork on the site and ventured forth with a grant proposal.

- [Man] That was our first little pitch at this, to see if they would even consider us.

- Well, guess what?

We got it.

We got it!

- [Man] If you are proud of something, make it big as you can, wide as you can, and as large as you can.

- [Woman] We're the only people who know our story.

No one can tell it the way we can.

- [Woman] This project brought together more folks of a united heart and desire than anything that I can remember 'cause art does do that.

[gentle music] [inspiring orchestral music] ♪ [gentle music] ♪ - The Black Light Project is a film and photography project that is based upon sharing positive narratives of black males because they don't get a lotta positive press unfortunately.

A lotta the media surrounding black males is very negative and we wanted to do something to change that.

- With this project, shine a light on black men that have done very well to the community.

We have great young men, great people here in Rocky Mount that are doing great things.

These are heroes in Rocky Mount.

[gentle upbeat music] ♪ - The Black Light Project is part of the Z. Smith Reynolds Public Arts Grant, and so we have eight subjects who are gonna be featured and they come from different walks of life and they're gonna go up on these banners.

These images are taken by black male photographers and what the people of Rocky Mount will be able to see is the product of that work, and the product of that conversation is more than simply a photograph.

It's a story captured in that photograph.

So this project brings that, on this huge scale, this potential to create something that shifted that narrative away from the negative things over to the beauty that they contain and the possibilities and potential, what black men contribute to society.

[gentle upbeat music] [peaceful music] The goal of the Black Light Project and partnership with Z. Smith Reynolds is to spark healthy dialogue, and these are conversations that we should not only be having locally, but having nationally.

And so I'm very proud to say that Z. Smith Reynolds wanted to partner in continuing a positive narrative where black males are concerned, and I'm really proud to say they were able to do that in eastern North Carolina.

- Art is important because it's probably one of the most universal ways to communicate with others.

That's one of my biggest reasons why I feel is, if everybody throughout the world, everybody speaks a different language, but as far as art goes, everybody can understand art.

- Art is gonna communicate something that you can't deny, whether it's visual or music, so art is extremely important to communicate when you feel like there's a barrier.

I feel like the photographs are important because they communicate that we are human too and we deserve the same treatment as everybody else.

- The exhibit is what's on display now.

We have a total of 13 Rocky Mount gentlemen, but the eight that are selected for the Z. Smith Reynolds project will be on big banners and that project is funded by Z. Smith Reynolds Inclusive Public Art Grant.

- Also a part of the Black Light Project that we're doing here in Rocky Mount is something called Otocast, and you can visit the website of the museum and you can click on each subject.

You can actually hear them talk about who they are, they give an interview, so that's a really cool part of it too.

- The way we chose subjects overall was we took community nominations.

We pushed it out with the help of our PR department and also with the Black Light Project.

A local Alpha Kappa Alpha Chi Omega chapter also helped us push out, and we selected them as wide a variety of demographics as we could.

So we were trying to get someone in their twenties, someone in their thirties, different backgrounds, so we were trying to get as wide a variety as possible.

[gentle upbeat music] - When people are traveling, when they see these banners, I want them to think about what the heart of the Black Light Project is, and that is to realize everybody has a story.

And that's the most human thing that we can do is to connect and to understand that there's context to who we are.

And what I want them to do is decide that they'll have more meaningful conversations and more meaningful thought processes about some of the communities they otherwise don't give much of a pass.

[gentle upbeat music] - Growing up in Edgecombe County, living and working here in Rocky Mount, I wouldn't have it any other way.

I work with planning and land development and got into that with the goal that I would work right here in this region to try to make a difference and make an impact.

- I want this project, the Black Light Project, to show the community that you have men who grew up in this community, who are still here, who don't mind coming back to help tell the story of Rocky Mount.

This project will help build a community in showing that Rocky Mount is just not a place where there's violence, where there's also a place of fellowship and a strong will to be a part of the community, be engaged and help it grow.

- When we began to write the grant, I discovered some history I didn't know, for instance, that Dr. Martin Luther King first gave his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Booker T. Washington gym.

No idea.

Most people actually do not know that.

There's just a lot of rich history here, and it's nice to see it become uncovered.

[gentle upbeat music] - [Martin] For my friends at Rocky Mount, I have a dream tonight.

I have a dream that one day little black boys and little black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and little white girls and walk the streets as brothers and sisters.

I have a dream.

- A lot of kids today don't know the history of this place, a young man that came out that fought for equality for them.

I was a young boy.

I was outside.

He inspired me way back then when he came to Rocky Mount.

It ain't nothing, no words ever spoken, no powerful to bring the human race together, to come back here and work in parks and recs.

I saw a need here in the city, where young men were just falling by the wayside.

Gangs were forming.

They never been a bad kid.

It just a bad situation.

A lot of 'em went on to college, finished high school.

Those are things that I wanted to bring to the city of Rocky Mount.

Black Light Project!

This is a good thing.

They bringing out the best that we have here in Rocky Mount.

God gave me an opportunity to stand here before I leave here that somebody can hear the message that was told to me early on in life, and I'm just giving it back.

[gentle music] - A lot of what you hear in regards to Rocky Mount is extremely negative.

I want people to see Rocky Mount for the beauty of it as opposed to seeing it for the statistics, and I think the Black Light Project is doing a great job to help move Rocky Mount forward in that place.

- The Black Light Project is really, really important because it's dangerous.

When you have a negative story constantly pumped into mainstream media about you, one that's full of fear, degradation, then those who aren't a part of your culture or the people who see you and make rapid judgements can make those judgements out of fear.

And when people make those immediate judgements without understanding that black men are more than what you see on the evening news.

- The community should see the very essence of black manhood.

I think through the photos, the community should be willing to shift their perspectives about what the black man is, be willing to open up and actually ask questions, hear our stories.

- When we celebrate the good in our community, when we recognize the good in our community, when we humanize the people in our community, like we actually treat them as vital, as important, then they rise to that.

So the more that we do that, the more we'll see our communities band together and the more they'll grow and the more they'll produce, and the more we're proud of our communities, the more we have to be proud of in our communities.

[gentle music] [peaceful music] ♪ [gravel crunching] [bird cawing] [cardboard scraping] [gentle guitar music] - [Woman] Just pull the buckets out.

[plastic popping] - Being a Native American community, art is very important.

It's very cultural.

I mean, that's just so much of who you are.

The Haliwa-Saponi are made up of remnants of known tribes that were in this area that we call The Meadows, and Haliwa comes from Halifax in Warren County.

This is where my tribe and my ancestors and relatives are from, and it's important to get people to realize that we're still here and we didn't disappear throughout time.

- Well, I hope this artwork that we're putting out here will be able to put us on the map to the general public.

We talk about it all the time how there can be people that stay in the next towns over that don't know that we're here.

The things that are depicted in each mural, this one at the library or the multipurpose building, is centered around healing, and then the other mural at the old council house, it'll be depictions of us since it's telling our story, where we come from and wanting to own our identity and have people acknowledge that this is our identity.

[peaceful piano music] - For me, the mural represents power.

The Public Arts Initiative is a way to help bring about understanding about who we are as a people.

The old cliche, of course, is that you don't know where you're going unless you know where you come from, and we will not survive as the native peoples without knowing who we are and where we come from, without knowing the struggle that our elders dealt with over the years in order for us to have an organized tribal government, in order for us to be able to dance and sing in our ceremonies, in order for us to have kinship and peoplehood with each other.

These are all integral for us to be who we are as [speaks in foreign language], as Haliwa-Saponi native peoples.

- Most people don't know us, and we have an important story that people wanna hear.

We as a people are proud of our history, our ancestors and what they've done, so any opportunity that we have to tell the rich story of our people is very important to us.

- The goal of the mural project and also the Haliwa-Saponi Historic Legacy Project is to educate our young people and to bring our elders and adults together with our young people to pass on the knowledge about our history, about our culture to the next generation.

- We want people to feel like they could walk in and outta this building and be a leader within the community.

We really just wanted to tell, really tell our story through this artwork, how we came to be here, what we've gone through, and the many triumphs and tragedies that we've experienced.

I think that people need to know that our community is very strong in its heritage and in its culture and that we're very proud in ourselves, and we just hope that the artwork will be able to shed light on it and be able to expose it more to the general public.

[gentle guitar music] - Well, the way I see it, art plays a very important role in that it gives us a great opportunity to tell our story again to the world.

The goal was to give us some form of identification in the community.

Quite often, people ride through this community and unless they see the tribal government building, they don't realize they're in Indian Territory.

Most people don't realize that we're still here.

Most people look at us as museum artifacts or existing only in museums and history, and then quite often the history's wrong, so Z. Smith Reynolds enables us to tell the story from our point of view.

- [Karen] We have the circle of life in here and just representing just the generations of our people.

- So we initially found the Z. Smith Reynolds grant because we were kinda looking for something we could go after that complemented our historic legacy project, and it lined right up.

It was telling our own story, and that's what we work with every day.

We're trying to put together all the pieces so that the story can be complete.

- The murals and the wood sculptures that are being done are very important to this community.

We have had people come in and participate in discussion of what we would have on the mural, and the community as a whole decided what they wanted to see.

- The community engagement sessions, we basically had what we call talking circles.

We talk about our history, we talk about our culture and collaborating with artists who can display our history and culture.

- The goal for me at first was really personal, just because I wanted people to talk about things that I know for a fact aren't really talked about.

People like to beat around the bush when it comes to the topic of race or discrimination or the feeling of being isolated.

After we had these conversations, we spoke about how we could have a piece of artwork that represents what we talked about or how to portray what came out of those discussions.

- We went with the idea of telling our story of our community and basing it on our native roots here.

[hammer tapping] [gentle guitar music] [hammer tapping] [drum thumping] - I think art has always been strong in this community and I think it's getting stronger.

For the community, it is empowering.

It shows that the past is still here.

The culture itself brings attention to people.

[hammer tapping] [drum thumping] - With our artists, in many ways, they are helping to put us on the map and to receive recognition that otherwise we wouldn't get.

Karen and her husband, they are extremely well-recognized and they're able to showcase their work, to show just what our tribal members are capable of doing.

- The pose represents the people, what the people look like, the spiritual aspect of the people and how they represent the area.

The Haliwa-Saponi was made up of several tribes, and they represent all those tribes in different ways.

[gentle flute music] [drum thumping] [gentle upbeat music] - The mural that we will be doing by the old council house, that mural will depict a native person in a canoe going down the river, the Roanoke River, and telling the story of the tribe.

As he goes down the river, he'll see things that represent us here.

- In looking at our records, looking at the history over time, we've had to stand up for ourselves to be recognized as native peoples, as Indian peoples, so this project is a way for us to visualize, to see our history on canvas, and then to ask questions.

How did our tribe reorganize itself?

How has our people survived?

Why is that important?

I believe that it's a way for our young people and others that are interested, both native and non-native peoples, to create a dialogue, to learn from the elders, and to go to our elders to realize that we do have a strong history.

We are survivors.

We are the ultimate American survivors.

- Again, I want you guys to remember when you're at a gathering, whether it's a pow wow or some type of native celebration, if you're in regalia, what are you?

A target.

It means that they're gonna come to you and they're gonna ask questions about, why do you do this?

Why are you wearing this?

Why do you dance in a circle?

Why is your hair braided that way?

They wanna know everything, so be able to, don't let someone define you by someone walking up to you saying, oh, you dressed in costume.

When they use that, that's your responsibility to correct it and tell them the appropriate word.

I want them to be educated, okay?

And remember what I always say.

I want y'all to know all the things that I know and even more, okay?

- The feeling that we wanted people to have when they saw all these murals was healing and that this would be a place of healing.

We have our youth programs here, we have tribal meetings here, so we're constantly discussing and trying to better the future for our tribe.

The sculptures that are going along, both murals actually, are considered spirit poles, and the whole group actually thought it was fitting that they be represented by women because that's who historically have worked inside of this building.

It's been our women who have kind of carried the culture on, who have picked up the baton and kept teaching our youth.

It's been largely our women who have facilitated things for the youth and that always make it a point to reach out to the youth, and I kind of just thought it was really fitting, too, the fact that it's flowers and it's nature and kind of represents that Mother Earth that we always talk about.

- It's always important to pass your stories down to your next generation.

By knowing your culture, you understand why your parents are the way they are, your grandparents are the way they are, why you still do some of the things that you do.

It's important to native people to remember where they came from because it's important to have a connection in this community.

[gentle guitar music] - As I look at the mural, I recall the night that we were here in our tribal meeting and we shared the vision with our tribal citizens, how elated and excited they were to tell our stories, the stories about our tribe.

And to think of what we have painted now on the front of this building, we can say to everyone that if you have a story to tell, there are agencies out there.

They are willing to help you.

We're the only people who know our story, and we need to be able to go tell the story ourselves and not wait for other people to tell it because no one can tell it the way we can.

- It's a source of pride that we were able to start something from just talking to materializing itself in a form of art.

It provides a landmark.

This is the land of the Haliwa-Saponi people and we're known for our artwork.

People are depending on us to do great things in the community, and art is one of the things that people come to see.

- It'll be a constant reminder about this community and about this place that we call home, and for us to receive this grant, it really meant a lot because our art is furthering our culture by letting people know that we're still here and that we still have a claim to something, that we still exist.

To see that our story was something that they thought was worth telling was pretty great.

- I hope anyone that sees these murals, these sculpture pieces, will leave with a better understanding of our community and our people, and hopefully they will, when someone says Haliwa-Saponi to them, they will be able to say, I know who those people are and I know what they went through.

[gentle music] [singers vocalizing] ♪ - [Announcer] Visibly Speaking is a production of PBS North Carolina in association with the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation.

[gentle music] [singers vocalizing]