JUNE 4, 2024
BLACK PUBLIC MEDIA
WEEKLY DISPATCH
By Leslie Fields-Cruz
This Sunday, I will join filmmakers Rosalynde LeBlanc and Tom Hurwitz at the 84th Annual Peabody Awards ceremony in Beverly Hills. Together with WORLD’s Editor-in-Chief/Executive Producer Chris Hastings, BPM Engagement Manager Eboni Johnson-Kaba, and three BPM board members — Deniese Davis (chair), Allison Simmons and Jon Walls — we’ll accept a Peabody award for Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters.
Last year, the film opened Season 15 of BPM’s AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange series. Can You Bring It is the first AfroPoP film to have received a Peabody after airing on the series. We were pleased to have been able to share this spectacular film with public television viewers and are thrilled that the Peabody jurors selected it for an award.
Showcasing the African diaspora on public TV
BPM launched AfroPoP back in 2008 to provide public media audiences an opportunity to view contemporary stories from across the African diaspora. Over the years, it has featured documentaries about the arts, politics, family, culture, education, the environment, and more. The series remains the only one of its kind on public TV. Season 16, which is streaming now on our website and WORLD’s YouTube channel, is the first to include a slate of both documentary and narrative features.
If you haven’t already watched Can You Bring It, I encourage you to catch its limited public media run before the engagement ends this Sunday (June 9). Beyond celebrating the work of one of our nation’s most celebrated performing artists — Bill T. Jones — it lovingly captures the story of the AIDS epidemic and illustrates the power of intergenerational collaboration through the arts.
Black Public Media thanks WORLD and PBS for helping us bring the film to the public. And we thank Rosalynde and Tom for reminding us that though life is challenging, we are not meant to endure it alone. When we work together and bring our whole selves to the effort, what we can achieve is magnificent.