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The Singing Stream series : the life and legacy of Mrs. Bertha Landis from Creedmoor, North Carolina.
The 1985 "Singing Stream: A Black Family Chronicle" was the first film to document twentieth-century African American history through the musical traditions and experiences of one family. The central figure in that film was Bertha Landis, born in 1898, who died in 2000 at the age of 102. Whether making their way from tenant farmers to landowners during the Depression or later migrating northward for jobs or finding new careers through education, the Landises kept their sense of kinship and identity. On "any list of the ingredients of black progress in America," Frye Gaillard wrote, "there is probably none more important than the historic strength of the extended black family." At the invitation of several of Bertha Landis' grandchildren, Tom Davenport, filmmaker and Folkstreams founder, returned to North Carolina, to work with the family and continue its story into the twenty-first century. The new film--"A Singing Stream: Reunion"--focuses on two groups of grandchildren: the children of Bertha's youngest and only surviving daughter, Priscilla Landis Daniel, who have stayed on and near the home farm in Creedmoor; and the children of Bertha's fourth son, Fleming Landis (d. 2006), who moved to Ohio to work in the tire factories in Akron. The annual family reunion that Bertha Landis helped establish in the 1930s still holds the family together, despite distance and all social and generational changes.
Record details
- Physical Description: 1 videodisc (158 min.) : sound, color 4 3/4 in.
- Publisher: Delaplane, VA : Davenport Films, [2015]
Content descriptions
General Note: | "100 years of an American family told through song, stories, and scenes of daily life." -- container. |
Formatted Contents Note: | A Singing Stream: A Black Family Chronicle (1985) -- A singing Stream: Reunion, The Grandchildren (2015). |
Creation/Production Credits Note: | Directed by Tom Davenport and produced with the Landis family grandchildren, with grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. |
System Details Note: | DVD. |
Terms Governing Use and Reproduction Note: | This video has limited public performance rights and may be shown in a classroom, screened by a public group that is not charged for the viewing, or transmitted on a closed-circuit system within a building or single campus. |
Language Note: | English. |
Search for related items by subject
Genre: | Biographical films. Documentary films. Feature films. Nonfiction films. |