committment to social values-jackson

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A Commitment to Social Values and Racial Justice

Jackson, Lynne.

Wide Angle, Volume 21, Number 2, March 1999, pp. 31-40 (Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University PressDOI: 10.1353/wan.1999.0022

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A Commitment toSocial Values and

Racial Justiceby Lynne Jackson

The community at the core of Stoneys professional life, which had its begin-nings in his college years at Chapel Hill, was extended by the activists he met

at the Henry Street Settlement on New York Citys Lower East Side. Stoneywas often in the company of prominent New Dealers and socialists. Commu-

nists had some influence there, he recalls,

but I very soon learned that I didnt want to be a Communist. My God, they

sounded like the [Southern] Evangelicals I had gotten away from. The onlycompany I remember being ill at ease with was upper class male Southernersand it is their judgments that I not only dont have any sympathy for, but I wasafraid of. I know the consequences. 1

This period marks the beginning of a lifetime of work on behalf of racial justice.

Helen Hall, director of the Henry Street Settlement, hired Stoney as a researcher

in 1938, and he soon began receiving writing assignments from Halls husband,Paul Kellogg, editor of Survey Graphic . With photographer Lewis Hine, Stoney

did stories on the Tennessee Valley Authority, the poll tax, and the poor, espe-cially African Americans, his awareness of race and class divisions sharpening

as he traveled through the South. It was intensified on his next project, theGunnar Myrdal study of race relations in America, on which Stoneys official

charge was to give evidence of the factor of race in Southern politics as exem-plified by fifteen counties. 2

Lynne Jackson is Professor of Communications at St. Francis College in Brooklyn.

WIDE ANGLE NO . 2 (M ARCH 1999), pp. 31-40.V O L . 2 1

O HIO U NIVERSITY S CHOOL OF F ILM


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After his six-month assignment with Ralph Bunche, Stoney landed a job with the

Farm Security Administration (FSA), as Associate Information Advisor for the FSAin the Southeast, with headquarters in Montgomery, Alabama. From 1940 to

1942, his job was to sell middle class voters on a New Deal program designedto assist tenant farmers and sharecroppers. According to Stoney, Most of [the

FSA] clients couldnt vote. It was the poll tax in some cases, the white primary

in others. Votes were [restricted to] the middle class, and all those conservativeCongressmen and Senators had to be convinced by these middle class voters. 3

Stoney wrote press releases and radio programs that FSA agents could adapt to

local angles. His radio programs frequently included the voices of sharecroppersand tenant farmers, white and black, who were recipients of New Deal programs.

Here Stoney developed techniques for establishing rapport with his subjectsthat he later applied to working with non-actors: he learned to paraphrase what

he wanted the subjects to say, allowing them say it in their own words.

Stoney, like many others, felt that the FSA was pushing them in two directions:

Be cautious and be bold. Stoney tells a story that illustrates this dilemma.

On the steps of the State House in Montgomery, Alabama, Stoney ran into anAfrican American man with whom he was working on an FSA program for blacktenant farmers. Both men spontaneously shook hands. Stoney remembers:

I can still, to this day, feel [his] hand. We knew that we shouldnt have done it.This was in public. And yet neither one could pull away. Well, by the time Igot back to the regional office, there was a call for me to come up to see thedirector and he said, George what are you doing, do you want to ruin thewhole program? Twenty years later, this fellow is a big executive at HUD[U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development] and he brings hisgranddaughter up to New York City and comes by the Alternate Media Centeron Bleecker Street. He laughed and told me his end of the story: When I gotback to the office there was, You are going to get yourself lynched! Well,that was the reality, you see.

It was Roy Stryker, head of the Historical Section of the FSA, says Stoney, whofound the means to bridge the contradictions of the agency with marvelous

photographs, which both celebrated what [the FSA was] doing and illustratedthe problems. 4


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From 1942 to 1945, Stoney saw World War II service in England with a U.S. Air

Force photo intelligence unit. In 1946 he returned home, joining the SouthernEducational Film Production Service (SEFPS). With the exception of a year

spent abroad on a Rosenwald Fellowship, he worked at SEFPS until 1950,writing, directing, and producing three films, including Palmour Street: A Studyof Family Life , one of the earliest U.S. mental health films. 5 This thirty-minute

film, which was targeted to black families, is about the ways in which parentsinfluence the mental and emotional development of their children. 6 It was

sponsored by the Mental Health Division of the State of Georgia Health Depart-ment, with funding through the National Institute of Mental Health that was

intended to encourage states to promote mental health work. Stoney recalls:

That was when the National Film Board of Canadas Mental Mechanismseries was hugely popular among our little crowd of applied documentary.Films like Feeling of Rejection, Feeling of Over-Dependence, and Shyness weredesigned to teach lay people about mental health, and groups in the Southhad been using the series. But they didnt seem to work with the Negroaudiences. Of course, they were completely segregated at this time. 7

Stoneys friend Nell McLochlain, head of the State of Georgias Mental Health

Division, suggested making a film for black families. With a black cast fromthe South and a white crew from the North, Stoney directed Palmour Street as a

reenacted documentary. Stoney saw no contradiction between the documentary

and the dramatic. He and his colleagues were inspired by post-war neorealistfilms Open City, Paisan , and especially Shoeshine , which were dramatic films

with a documentary sensibility.

Reenactment was the way we made films. Reenacted documentaries werepart of the mode, just as the Film Board was doing. The redefinition of thedocumentary came with vrit , which I still think is pretty limited. What wedidnt know was how shopworn the traditions could get after a while. 8

For Palmour Street , Stoney drew on experiences on the Myrdal project, the FSA

and SEFPS, and his observations of the Grierson school. His signature style of documentary film, based on intense research and featuring reenactments by

people playing themselves, was now mature. He listened closely to his subjectsand remained aware of prospective audiences, as he considered carefully what


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form would be most useful and clear.

But most important, Stoney said, Iknew the first thing I had to do was pro-

tect the cast, particularly in the tenseracial climate in Georgia in the late for-

ties. Stoney took care to work in a town

where he knew the editor of the localpaper, helping set a positive climate

for the biracial production. His prepro-duction research was done with Dr.

William Mason, an African-Americanphysician, who patiently waited while

Stoney learned to see members of theblack community as they were and not

as he had imagined they ought to be. 9

Stoney used a subject-centered production method. He recalls, I realized

very early on that I was making films about people in their lives and it would

be far better if they could make the films themselves. And so, almost from thebeginning I began to work through them. 10

The cast of Palmour Street persuaded Stoney to change several scenes he hadwritten, including one in which the father comes home from work and plays

with his children (instead of helping with the dishes, as Stoney had written it).Stoney realized that some of his scenes were just wrong. Script changes, he

believes, made a significant difference, both in reaching the intended audienceand in establishing rapport with his cast and the community. Palmour Street was

well received by black parents and was praised by members of health depart-

ments throughout the country.11

It helped set the stage for future biracial pro-ductions, and stands as one of the few films from that period to record African

Americans in a respectful and intelligent manner. 12

After completing Palmour Street , Stoney made a medical teaching film, A Con-

cept of Maternal and Neonatal Care , which was produced by the Obstetrics and

Pediatric Divisons of the George Washington University Hospital and the

Fig. 1. Miss Mary (Mrs. Mary Coley),from All My Babies. (GSPC)


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Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). The film was a report to

the profession, introducing the concept of rooming-in, which combines someadvantages inherent in having a baby at home with the safety of a hospital en-

vironment. This film received a highly satisfactory review in Journal of the

American Medical Association , thus assuring the AAMC audio-visual director, Dr.

David Ruhe, that Stoney was to be trusted.

Stoneys next major project, All My Babies: A Midwifes Own Story, is widely re-

garded as a landmark film, remarkable in its time for its respect for AfricanAmericans [A] visual version of a training manual for black midwives[that]

includes an actual birth, 13 All My Babies follows a remarkable midwife, MaryColey (Miss Mary), through three deliveries in a series of reenactments shot

on location in rural Georgia.

The film was made on a contract between the State of Georgias Departmentof Public Health and the Audio-Visual Division of the AAMC. 14 Dr. Guy Rice,

Director of the Division of Maternal and Child Health, headed a committee

Fig. 2. Miss Mary (Mrs. Mary Coley) and a newborn baby, from All My Babies.Photo by Robert Galbraith.


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established to supervise by the film. Although

the committee prepared a list of 118 pointsthey wanted incorporated into the film, Stoney

was otherwise given considerable freedom.With this film, a fluent and loving study of

one particular black midwife, 15 Stoney was

dealing with subject matter that challengedracial taboos. In encouraging physicians to

respect midwives as professionals, says Stoney,it involved the glorification of a figure [the

midwife] whom the Southern medical estab-lishment wasnt at all anxious to glorify, although it was highly dependent upon

her. And in view of the racial climate in Georgia at the time, Stoney knewthat he would have to spend a significant amount of time setting the stage for

an interracial production.

Dr. William Mason, with whom Stoney had worked on Palmour Street and who

was now with the Georgia Health Department, served as liaison between Stoney,

his all-white production crew, and the black community. He also helped to developconfidence in the black community. According to Mason, Stoney was to assurethe white community that there was no sabotage intended of the white South,

and no intention of even suggesting that an unhappy relationship existed betweenwhites and blacks, not in any way promoting a change in black-white relation-

ships. The film, the sponsors felt, should manifest interest in the health of blacksand how it might be improved within the Souths traditional way of life. 16

Erik Barnouw points out how racial tensions affected the structure of the film:

The main delivery takes place in a home that is modest but spotless, andwhere everything is made ready for the midwife. If midwives only hadsuch homes to contend with, the training film might not have been needed.But a feeling that Northerners were trying to bolster stereotypes of howblacks lived had to be avoided. At the same time, to make the film mean-ingful as a training film, a more miserable home had to be included. 17

All My Babies represented several advanced views. It challenged the idea that

Fig. 3. George Stoney and child.(GSPC)


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a hospital was the only appropriate place for childbirth. Its consideration of

birth as a natural process rather than a trauma was quite unusual at that time.And its psychological approach, which stressed, for example, the importance of

paying attention to other children in the family, was quite new. According toStoney, one of the best things that All My Babies accomplished was to show doctors

in the South that working with midwives offered unique and rich clinical ex-perience. A lot of younger doctors began to take those assignments. 18

The film was distributed by the Center for Mass Communication at ColumbiaUniversity, headed by Erik Barnouw. After screening the film for a group of

U.S. Navy medical men, and seeing them laugh, taking the film out of context,Stoney limited distribution to professional use by doctors, midwives, schools,

and health departments. He didnt want people he admired and who trustedhim to be misunderstood by insensitive audiences. Designed to train African

Fig. 4. George Stoney and a neighbor of Miss Mary. Albany, Georgia, 1972,twenty years after making All My Babies. (GSPC)


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American midwives in the South, the film has since been seen by health care

providers in India, Pakistan, Thailand, Venezuela, Sweden, Panama, Brazil,Lebanon, Liberia, Guatemala, Costa Rica, British Honduras, and Tanganyika.

As an independent filmmaker with a growing family to support, 19 Stoney workedon sponsored films during much of the fifties and sixties, including The New-comers, a film on migrants from Appalachia, produced for the Methodist Church;

a series of police training films; a city planning series made for the Adult Edu-cation Association and WNET; 20 and several films on medical subjects. 21 Stoneys

practice was to show rough cuts of his films to cast and crew, as well as to pro-spective audiences, soliciting feedback for the final version.

Driven by the need to make a living, Stoney says he often made films he wouldnt

have made otherwise. A good example is The American Road , a sponsored filmhe made for industrial film company MPO, to celebrate Henry Ford and the

Ford Motor Companys fiftieth anniversary of the Model T. In line with docu-mentary practices of the time, Stoney directed scenes that portrayed a benevo-

lent Henry Ford so authentically that this footage has since appeared in

several documentary films. 22 Stoney says:

Here we thought we were pulling the wool over the eyes of this great company.I directed the historical recreations. Joe Marsh, a blacklisted Hollywoodwriter, did the script. Alex North, the famous Hollywood composer, alsoblacklisted, did the music. We all needed the money. We were very proud of the fact that [we were hiring blacklisted talent], but in the process wed madeHenry Ford into this lovely old folk hero. Hell, we just thought we weremaking an industrial film, but for two generations the reenactment scenes Icreated have been leading other people to get a false impression of that sonof a bitch. I didnt know I was falsifying history. It never occurred to me. 23

Reflecting on the past, Stoney describes the disillusionment of the late forties

and the intimidation of the McCarthy period that followed. He suggests thatsome of the sponsored film work taken on by documentary filmmakers, de-

stroyed our political underpinnings:

However justified we thought we were in making these films, by doing so welost the respect we once had as documentary filmmakers on the part of theintellectual and artistic community. 24


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The restoration of political credibility, says Stoney, began with a new approach

(direct cinema) and a new concept (the independent filmmaker) to inspirethem and refresh their resolves. 25 Stoneys approach is passed to a second and

now third generation of young filmmakers through his teaching, networking,and media production. Continuing his collaborations, Stoney is currently in

production on a film about the life and work of Paulo Freire, Brazilian educator

and global activist, with Julio Wainer and Emanuel Fontabella. Stoney is alsoworking with David Bagnall on a documentary on the late Erik Barnouw and a

project on theater work in Sing Sing prison. After five decades in film, GeorgeStoney continues to be true to his longstanding principles with his own brand

of committed filmmaking.

Notes

1. George Stoney, interview with Barbara Abrash, Daniel J. Walkowitz, and FayeGinsburg, Center for Media, Culture, and History, New York University, 1995.2. Ibid.3. Ibid.4. Ibid.5. Lynne Jackson, The production of George Stoneys film All My Babies: A MidwifesOwn Story (1952), Film History 1 (1987).6. Stoney interview.7. Ibid.8. In making reenacted documentaries, Stoney found himself going back to his firstenthusiasm at Chapel Hill, the Playmakers, with director Paul Green:And so I saw myself as dramaticmost of the stuff was dramatic reenactments at thattime. [With Palmour Street , I was] the director of the action, I was writing dialoguewhich I learned very quickly not to give people but to have them paraphrase, and I wasdirector of that, taking me right back to the things I had watched Paul Green do atChapel Hill. (Ibid.).9. It was after the completion of Palmour Street that Stoney learned that one of his castmembers (the father) was the clandestine leader of the local NAACP. Ibid. and Jack-son, 369.

10. Stoney interview. For more on the subject-centered production method, seeThomas Waugh, Show Us Life: Toward a History and Aesthetics of the Committed Documen-tary (Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1984). A number of other documentaryfilmmakers have embraced this method. Joris Ivens described his approach:You shouldnt illustrate the superficial authenticity of events, you must go deeper andthat means really coming to terms with people. If you want to win the confidence of people in struggle you have to tell them why you are making the film. Who you wantto address. And they will want to discuss with you what they can do about that. You


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must always try to establish a relationship of equality in front of and behind the cam-era. But confidence alone isnt enough. Each must also be ready to learn from theother. Every time you find yourself in a new situation you have to be a bit modest.You must not think that you possess the correct ideology and the necessary enthusiasm.That isnt enough. (Joris Ivens, Interview with Joris Ivens, interview by AlexanderKluge and Bion Steinborn, Joris Ivens: 50 Years of Film-Making , Rosalind Delmar, ed.[London: British Film Institute, 1979], 118).11. Jackson, 369.12. Documentary filmmaker Marion Riggs included clips from Palmour Street in hisfilm Black IsBlack Aint (87 min., color, 1984).13. Liz-Anne Bawden, ed., The Oxford Companion to Film (New York: Oxford Univer-

sity Press, 1976), 66162.14. Stoney worked as an employee of the AAMC from January 1950 until the end of 1953, making films for the state under similar contracts. All rights of ownership tothese films rest with the State of Georgia.15. Baden.16. Jackson, 360.17. Ibid., 372.18. Ibid., 388.19. Stoney had three children, Kate Cashel, Mary Louise, and James Bruce.20. This series of six films, How to Live in a City (19631965) is being preserved by theNew York Public Library with the help of Marie Nesthus.21. Stoney worked with Dr. David Ruhe, who had been with the Center for DiseaseControl in Atlanta, then moved to the Association of American Medical Colleges wherehe started a film arm (Stoney interview).

22. See, for example, the Tom Johnson and Lance Birds documentary, America: Lost and Found (1979).23. Stoney interview.24. George Stoney, Documentary in the United States in the immediate post-WorldWar II years, appendix, in Jack C. Ellis, The Documentary Idea: A Critical History of En-

glish-Language Documentary Film and Video (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1989),302.25. Ibid.

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