Attendees at the Past President’s Club Celebration Luncheon at Texas Folklore Society’s 107th Annual Meeting will have the chance to hear about the creative process behind Raise Your Head Up: Freedom Colonies in America from documentary filmmaker and TFS board member Richard Orton.
Raise Your Head Up recently made its public television debut, and audiences across the nation are getting a glimpse into East Texas freedom colonies. By the time of the Annual Meeting, the documentary will have aired more than 800 times across more than 300 channels in 45 states.
Richard spent eight years making the film but said it really began in 1988 when he first visited the County Line freedom colony in northwest Nacogdoches County.
“That was when Monel and Leota Upshaw agreed to allow me to come to their home, make photographs, and learn about the history of County Line,” Richard said.
Monel was the 16th of 17 children born to Guss and Ella Upshaw, who co-founded the community beginning the 1870s.
“I had learned in my history classes that emancipated African Americans only became domestic servants and/or sharecroppers on a white person’s land,” Richard said. “That turns out to be false… and an example of how the basic human qualities that Black people always possessed continued to be ignored and dismissed after they became free. Many emancipated African Americans had the agency to form their own communities and provide for most or all their needs under very difficult circumstances.”
Richard’s relationship with the Upshaws of County Line led him to meet descendants from three other freedom colonies and learn their histories. The film follows the four communities as they struggle to keep their legacies alive.
Raise Your Head Up can be viewed online via the PBS website here or on the dates and times below on your local Texas public television station.
“My licensing agreement with KLRU allows them to distribute the film for three years (for free). My hope is that such distribution will help correct the historical gap in our understanding of the agency of many African Americans immediately after being enslaved.”
Texas Folklore Society’s 107th Annual Meeting will be held April 2–4 at the Embassy Suites San Marcos. Meeting registration is $50 per person, which includes admittance to two days of folklore presentation and evening hootenannies. Tickets for the Celebration Luncheon are $10 per person. You can register for the Annual Meeting here.
KERA, Dallas
- 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. February 16
- 7 a.m. February 17
- 3 a.m. February 22
KUHT, Houston
- 3 a.m. February 8
- 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. February 16
- 7 a.m. February 17
- 3 a.m. February 22
KLRN, San Antonio
- 8 p.m. February 13
- 11 p.m. February 16
- 7 a.m. February 17
- 3 a.m. February 22
KLRU, Austin
- 12:30 a.m. February 6
- 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. February 16
- 7 a.m. February 17
- 3 a.m. February 22
KRWG, El Paso
- 5p.m. and 10 p.m. February 16
- 6 a.m. February 17
- 2 a.m. February 22