- From 1929 to 2010, there had never been an African-American to win an Oscar for directing.

Racism and prejudice hindered, blocked and discriminated against African-American directors, many of them worthy of winning the prize.

However, in 2010, Roger Ross Williams became the first African-American to claim that coveted prize winning the 82nd annual Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject, which was the first film Roger directed and produced, thereby shattering the glass ceiling and paving the way for other directors of color to come behind him.

Roger is from eastern Pennsylvania, a graduate of Easton Area High School, Northampton Community College and New York University School of Film.

Hello, I'm Phillip Davis, host of Courageous Conversations.

We are broadcasting from the PPL Public Media Center in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Roger, thanks for taking the time out of your extremely busy schedule to join me today to discuss the challenges, barriers, boundaries and, yes, the victories of your journey thus far in the entertainment industry.

Let me let me just ask a question.

Jump right in, Rog, since we're just having a conversation.

How did you become interested in film?

- Well, first of all, thanks for having me, Reverend Phil.

it's great to be here and how I became interested in film, well, I think, you know, from a young age, I always lived in sort of my own sort of fantasy world.

You know, I always I always had sort of this sort of very, very sort of wild and active imagination.

And movies were a way for me to escape.

You know, film was a way for me to escape to another world.

It wasn't always easy for me as a kid.

So I could escape through cinema.

And I think it just left an impression on me.

It took me a while to get there because I started out as a journalist working for all the major networks, for ABC, NBC, CNN, PBS.

And then I just said, you know, "I'm just going to take the jump and actually make a film."

- That's that's pretty amazing.

And the first film you directed and produced actually won an Oscar.

I mean, shattering, you know, all of the historical realities, like how was that for you and was that your expectation?

- No, it wasn't my expectation for sure.

I was as surprised as anyone else.

I mean, I think because I took such a risk, I quit my job at CNN.

I got on a plane and went to Zimbabwe, to Africa with whatever savings I had left.

And I just took a took a chance and it paid off.

You know... That was a scary decision for me.

But I can I can say this the first, when I landed in Zimbabwe and I met the subject of the film, Prudence Mabhena, a severely, person with disabilities, which she doesn't she doesn't have she didn't have legs.

She doesn't have legs.

She doesn't have arms.

She has arthrogryposis which is a fusing of the joints.

And she was considered, they considered it witchcraft in Zimbabwe to be to be a person with a disability.

And they consider the mother of the child cursed, and she lived like an animal, but had this incredible voice.

And when she was, she was rescued by an organization and they discovered her incredible voice.

And I mean, she can sing like Aretha Franklin.

It's incredible.

And when I met her, I was so moved by her story, I remember the first meeting with her, I started crying and I and I actually this is...

I never told anyone this, but I actually went after that.

After that meeting, I went back to where I was staying.

And I remember looking in the mirror and I was like, "This is the most important story of my life."

- Wow.

- "I could even win an Oscar..." I actually thought the first day.

So I couldn't believe that.

It was a long journey till the stage of the Kodak Theater.

But but I actually knew this was a really pivotal, pivotal moment for me.

- That's that's amazing.

I mean, just to have the courage to take that huge leap, quit your job and really follow your passion, you actually shared with me that while you were in school, your guidance counselor told you that you shouldn't you should be a civil servant, right?

And that you were discouraged by your guidance counselor.

That's that's just amazing.

But you had the courage to really pursue your passion.

Which of your works do you think really embody, you know, Roger Ross Williams as as a director, as a producer, as a filmmaker?

- Well, I mean, for me, I think, all my works embody who I am because because for me, making films like being a storyteller, it's all my stories are personal to me because you have to have that personal passion to be able to to tell, especially in nonfiction and documentary, which just takes so much time and effort from the, you know, sort of sort of the idea.

You may have an idea for a documentary until it is completed.

It's a long journey and you have to have that passion and you have to have in that... And so it has to be personal to you.

So for me, every one of the films that I've made have a personal connection to me.

- Yeah, it's amazing.

You know, Music by Prudence, of course, won this amazing Oscar.

And, you know, you're shattering glass windows and we're all celebrating and clapping for you.

Did the industry receive you and what happened like after that, did people just come running to you and say, "Roger, we want you to lead and direct our films"?

Talk about that.

Do you believe there was any racism that was involved in maybe how they responded to you as a as a producer and a producer?

- Yeah, not at all.

No doors opened for me after Music by Prudence, you know, you'd think, you know, I was there at the theater and people that I, filmmakers that I admire were coming up to me and congratulating me.

People like John Singleton and Spike Lee, all these sort of iconic.

people who made...

They'd been making incredible work for years and were not getting acknowledged by the Academy were coming up to me.

So I thought, you know, at that moment when you win the Oscar, I thought, "OK, well, maybe everything "is going to change for me."

My phone did not ring.

No one called me.

I, I wasn't offered any jobs.

And I just sort of...

It was eye opening and it was shocking to me.

I think...

I think the reason for that is that, you know, Hollywood is...was built on racism, really.

Hollywood was built on, the first blockbuster movie in Hollywood was Birth of a Nation, a movie about the Ku Klux Klan.

- Yes, sir.

- And so Hollywood, you know, it's still playing catch up.

And what the issue is that all the executives, the people in the studios that make the decision, the agents that run the agencies that represent people were not people who look like me.

They weren't people of color.

And so those, so they gravitate towards the stories and towards giving those jobs to people who look like them, people they connect with, people they identify with.

They weren't identifying with with black men.

So they weren't, you know, and it was look, I mean, even Spike Lee and John Singleton, great directors like that, they had their own struggles in getting their films made, even at their level.

So, you know, Hollywood was playing catch up.

And so that's why I wasn't getting any calls, because because they just, they just, you know, they didn't even realize the importance of of black cinema, that they didn't think that there was even an audience.

They didn't even think that black people went to the theater, you know, went to the movies to watch movies!

So it's still, you know, we have a long way to go.

You know, I've been doing this work now in the Academy and in Hollywood, and we still have a long way to go.

- I think your acclaim has given you some opportunities to serve in leadership roles.

What leadership roles are you serving in right now as it relates to the Academy?

And how are you trying to bring diversity and equity to the conversation?

- Yeah.

Well, in 2016, I was elected to the board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science.

What that means is that the the Oscars, the Academy is made up of 17 branches and each branch, the directing branch, acting branch makeup, hair and makeup...

I was elected to it as the governor of the documentary branch.

That means I represent the documentary members of the Academy, but I sit, more importantly, I sit on the board like any board that really runs the organization.

So everything from hiring the CEO to to the to the, you know, the $300 million a year budget of the of the Academy to the details of the Oscars.

And I am walking in that room for the first time when I was elected, which I was only the second black person elected to the board after Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the legendary Cheryl Boone Isaacs, who was also the president of the board.

I walked into that room and you know, Tom Hanks is the president of...is the governor of the acting branch.

Steven Spielberg is the governor of the directing branch.

So I walk into this room and it's like Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg and I!

And I get to sit at the table and I'm like, I'm like, whoa, I have a seat at this table of incredible power.

I'm not going to take this for granted.

I'm going to use this seat to open the doors for others like me.

So so for me, it was about starting with my own branch, with the documentary branch, it's about diversifying that branch, bringing in new members, bringing in an unprecedented amount of people of color, of international members, of women.

Our branch in the documentary branch didn't even have gender parity.

So I had to to sort of, I headed up the diversity committee and I ushered in hundreds of new members.

And we really it really changed the documentary branch, which then led the way to the other branches.

And now the board is much more diversified.

- Wonderful.

- We have Whoopi Goldberg serving for the actors, Ava DuVernay for directors.

You know, just just it's a different board now.

But but it was a struggle.

And that was because of #OscarsSoWhite.

And that was because there was one year, a couple of years, where no African-Americans were nominated and there was an outcry.

And social media, thanks to social media, they they you know, the Academy had to respond to that.

And they started something called the A2020 Initiative, which was to double the number of women and people of color into the Academy because the Academy was overwhelmingly white and male.

- Yeah.

- And so we worked really hard to to get that.

We met that goal.

And now it's about changing the industry from the executive side.

So it's about really creating opportunities for young people of color to basically rise through the ranks, to become executives, to make empowered positions where they can make decisions about what movies get greenlit.

- You started a production company, if I'm not mistaken, right?

Can you talk a little bit about, like, what the vision was for that?

Why you why you went down this path and what you hope to accomplish with One Story Up?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So, you know, there are you know, there aren't...

Besides the fact that, you know, all of these kind of amazing talent, amazing African-American talent wasn't getting recognized, there weren't especially in documentaries, there were no sort of black-run production companies, black-owned production companies creating content.

And I was being called when I started, finally started getting called after I made a couple more films and people were like, "OK, he's not going to go away."

- It wasn't a once-and-done, right?

- They were saying you weren't a longshot.

- They were like, "OK, this guy's here to stay."

I was just getting calls.

And I was like, you know, "I don't want to be a work-for-hire "for white-owned production companies.

"I want to create something that I control "and that I can bring in others like me."

So I started One Story Up production company three years ago.

- Wow.

- And I and I started to build a stable of young, talented filmmakers of color.

And I and and because I have the connection and the sort of power with the streamers, with the networks, to basically take the projects and have them greenlight projects.

And I could put these young filmmakers in, you know, in positions, in directing jobs, in positions of power, and they and they would take the chance on them because I would sort of guarantee their success, I would say, "I'm going to mentor them, "I'm going to work with them.

"I'm going to make sure they deliver for you."

So so they took the chance.

And I've and it's been really successful.

You know, I did the first film of young a filmmaker named Nadia Hallgren.

She did a short film about Hurricane Maria and the refugees from Hurricane Maria in the Bronx called "After Maria".

And then, you know, and we did that with Netflix.

I took that to Netflix.

And then Netflix said, you know, "This is great.

"She's so talented."

And they gave her the Michelle Obama documentary, "Becoming".

And, you know, and which is, you know, like I mean, to go from doing a short film to spending a year on the road with Michelle... - That's amazing.

- Like following her on her book tour was like, you know, obviously that's a life changing experience for her.

And now she's doing her next film for Netflix, which is Ben Crump.

And she is on the road with Ben.

She's been on the road with Ben for almost a year.

You know, Ben is a legendary, legendary civil rights lawyer representing representing George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and many, many, many others.

But this all this project started because Kenya Barris, who created "Black-ish" and "BlackAF" on Netflix, came to me and said, you know, "I have been embedded with Ben Crump," right, kind of around the time of Ahmaud Arbery.

And he was embedded with him through George Floyd.

So so basically they were on the inside.

So when when George Floyd's family called Ben Crump and Jay-Z sent his jet to go pick up Ben Crump and bring them to the Floyd family, our crews were there and our crews were there through the entire, through the, through the entire racial reckoning happening in this country with the Floyd family, with the Arbery family, with Breonna Taylor's mother, with all of them.

And we have it all.

And we are there shooting right now today as the trial, the criminal trial is going on.

And it's I'm very excited about the film.

So it's you know, so it was an opportunity like this was an opportunity.

We took, you know, a young first-time director and look what she's doing now.

- How important is mentoring, right?

So we see the value of having someone like yourself who has the success but then doesn't forget about those that come behind.

And that's what helps to blaze a trail, blaze a path and lift one another up.

It's just amazing the work that you're doing.

So you just signed, if I'm not mistaken, with UTA.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

And how is that significant to One Story Up and what you all are hoping to accomplish?

- Yeah, well, so agencies are crucial in in Hollywood, in the business.

They are the ones who, you know, basically are there, you know, calling people, pushing your name and your projects forward, dealing with studio heads and executives.

They're the ones dealing with the executives.

I don't have time to be sitting here all day calling executives, saying, you know, talking about my accomplishments.

But but that's what they do.

And so signing with UTA was really important because for a couple of reasons.

A, is that I signed with an incredible team of black agents.

UTA is building a boutique of of, you know, black talent.

And and I hadn't really seen black agents, you know.

You know, when I when I my first time going into, like CAA, Creative Artists Agency, a big, huge agency in Hollywood, it was all like kind of, you know, white men.

It looked like, I felt like I was on the set of Entourage, the television show, like it was like white men, very, you know, very sort of aggressive sort of scene.

And with UTA now with with my agents, they are they're black and they represent black clients, you know, like Stacey Abrams.

You know, they actually just signed the Apollo Theater, just endless, Lisa Cortes, who I'm doing a project with Ebony Jet.

So it's just great to be represented by black agents and sort of there's sort of understanding.

There's a shorthand.

And right now in the industry, there is a there is a racial reckoning going on.

Black creators are busier than ever because everyone's coming to us now.

All of a sudden they're like, "Uh-oh!"

You know, there's a there's some, "We got some issues here in America.

"And you guys, we need content.

"We need content."

So the streamers are going to black people now for the for the first time, everyone's working.

- Yeah.

Do you feel that you get pushback from our white brothers and sisters when we talk about doing the type of movie documentaries, films, whatever?

I know you said like there's a racial reckoning going on, but can you talk a little bit about the historical struggles that you may have experienced leading up to this this moment?

- Yeah, well, for so long, our stories, as African-Americans were told by white filmmakers, were told through someone else's lens, not through our own lens.

And that was a... You know, that was the biggest problem in the documentary industry.

But in, you know, across the board in entertainment and and and I think that we kind of as a community, as a community of people of color BIPOC people, we put our foot down.

And I think with what happened with the racial reckoning is that the the streamers, the the networks, the entertainment companies, the studios had to take notice.

And we're like, "This isn't acceptable anymore.

"Our stories, we own our stories.

"We are the best people to tell our stories."

And and it is it is crucial that that that, you know, black stories are told by black creators that understand the nuances, because what we're getting is because, you know, is that what had happened before is that we were getting these sort of racial tropes.

We were getting these sort of these sort of, these racial ideas presented in the material, whether it's, you know... "Green Book" or "Gone with the Wind".

You know, there's you know, or or "The Help", you know, it's it's these were you know, these are sort of racist ideas presented through film because they weren't being presented by us, there weren't the nuances and complexity of who we are as a people, weren't being presented in films.

So that is what's really, really now.

This is this is happening.

And where we are, we're holding them accountable.

We've started organizations and we're holding studios accountable.

And we're saying that like, "No, this isn't acceptable anymore.

We're going to tell our own stories.

We're going to own stories.

- Right.

And that's so important because, you know, kind of Courageous Conversations came online.

This show literally came online because I looked at a television station.

There was someone in the Valley trying to talk about race, but they would bring us on as guests, you know, for a few minutes.

And it's like, "OK, well, thank you for your seven minutes "and your summary of the problems "in the African-American community."

And I was like, "Look, enough, we have to really stop this "and we have to own and tell our own stories "because we have a perspective, a filter "that it's a lived experience.

"I can't get out of my brown skin, right?"

And I'm actually reading the book "Four Hundred Souls".

Pretty amazing, actually.

It's actually it's on Audible, so I'm listening to it.

And it is intense work to really be able to educate folks on the historical realities that we are dealing with.

Let me ask you a question, Roger.

You know, you've really been able to break down so many barriers.

You came out as a gay black man.

How was that for you?

And did it impact what you're doing within the film industry?

- Yeah, um, well, two things before I answer that question.

Four Hundred Souls, so I am working with Dr Ibram X Kendi right now.

- Wonderful.

- We're doing a Netflix...

It's going to be my next documentary, which is "Stamped from the Beginning," which is Ibram's last book, a New York Times Best Seller.

Incredible book, "The History of Racist Ideas in America".

- Yes.

- And it's a it's a heavy read.

So you should you should read that one next, it's like 600 pages!

It's 600 dense pages.

But it's an eye-opener because you realize you realize exactly how we got to where we are today.

And and about being a black gay man in the in the industry, I think, you know, for, you know, for me, I was always an outsider.

You know, my whole life I was an outsider.

I always and that's why I tell films about outsiders, because I identify with outsiders, you know, from Prudence Mabhena he was thrown away and an outsider in her in her community and her culture in Zimbabwe to even to Owen Suskind, a young man living with autism who feels disconnected from the world.

For me, it's about embracing that.

It's embracing that what makes you different, what makes you special, which makes you unique and about, you know, leaning into that.

And I've I've once I decided to lean into that, once I decided to to to sort of own who I am, what I am, things changed for me.

Then doors started to open because I was true to myself and to who I was and and that and I think that's also reflected in the work that I do.

You know, the reason I do the work that I do, which is whether it's about the black experience or the gay experience or whatever experience it's about, but it's about experience.

It's about for me, it's about telling sort of truths.

That's what documentary is.

It's about telling you know lean into the truth and just face the truth and the reality of the situation that we live in as human beings.

- That's very powerful, brother.

What would you say to a young African-American or LGBTQ or a minority filmmaker to encourage them in this field?

What advice would you give them?

- I would say to stay true to who you are and tell the stories of your own lived experience, not to run away from that, lean into the pain, you know, if you lean into the pain of your life, then people are going to be interested.

People are going to want to hear those stories.

Don't be afraid of that.

You know, it is as an artist, it is the the pain and the challenges we face in our lives that make us great artists.

No matter what, whether you're Pablo Picasso, whoever you are as an artist, it's about you lean into that pain, you lean into that struggle, and you use that struggle in your art.

You use it to tell to tell you whether it's and if it's you're filmmaker, it's to tell your stories.

That's your material.

That's the material you work with to create great works of art.

- Wow.

That, that, that right there I think can empower someone who may be struggling, right, and has not really embraced their truth or come to the reality that they're special, they're unique, right?

I still believe that they're made in the image of God and that they have purpose and in many times our pain leads to our purpose.

And so I got to say, Roger, I am extremely blessed to be able to have this conversation with you.

It's inspirational.

Your story needs to be told, and I'm sure you will tell it someday.

But thank you for taking the time to join me today and just to hang out.

My friend and my brother, Roger Ross Williams.

Thanks again, Roger.

- Thank you, Pastor Phil.

It's been great to be here.

- You're very welcome.

You know, there's many people in the Valley that are doing courageous work to engage and enhance the lives of others.

And we would like to put them in the spotlight.

If you would like to highlight someone who's doing courageous work in your community, let us know by going to... We'd love to hear all of your suggestions.

Viewers, make sure you stick around for Counter Culture with Grover Silcox.

His show is straight ahead.

I'm Pastor Phil Davis.

And on behalf of everyone here at PBS39, thanks for watching.

Make sure that you tune in Tuesday night 6:30 right here on PBS39.

We'll talk to you soon.