FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 5, 2009
CONTACT: Meg Fullwood
214-740-9377
mfullwood@kera.org
Bishop College: A Bridge Between the Worlds Celebrates Historic Dallas Institution
DALLAS/FORT WORTH - During its 107 years of existence, Bishop College provided teachers for a region and religious leaders for a nation. A new documentary celebrates the collective contributions of this historic African American institution. Bishop College: A Bridge Between the Worlds airs at 8:00 p.m. Monday, February 16, 2009 on KERA 13.
Bishop College: The Bridge Between Two Worlds uses historic photographs and current interviews to tell the story of this small Texas school that made big contributions to the history of education, religion and African American culture. Bishop was founded in Marshall, Texas in 1881. David Abner became the first African American person to graduate from a Texas institution of higher learning. He received his degree from Bishop College in 1884.
The documentary traces the history of the school’s ministerial program, which began in the early 20th century and gained national attention in the 1930s and 1940s. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave the commencement speech to Bishop graduates in 1959. The program follows Bishop’s history through the historic Marshall sit down strikes and ultimate death of a student and an attorney who were killed in a train wreck as the cases were going to trial.
Bishop College relocated to Dallas in 1961. The film includes interviews with several of the school’s notable graduates including Dr. Frederick D. Haynes III, senior pastor of Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas. Bishop filed for bankruptcy and closed in 1988 amid accusations of financial improprieties. Norma Wade Adams, columnist with The Dallas Morning News, is interviewed regarding her coverage of the Bishop College federal trials. Dr. Harry Robinson Jr., president and CEO of the African American Museum at Fair Park, was museum director and librarian at Bishop College. He discusses moving the Bishop collection to the museum in Fair Park which now houses one of the largest African American folk art collections in the United States.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
Bishop College: A Bridge Between Two Worlds was directed and edited by Rick Thompson, KERA’s director of multimedia production and an independent producer. He is part of a larger team at KERA that creates documentaries and news and public affairs programming for television, radio and the Web. Thompson serves as executive producer of the Texas Debates and KERA’s CEO and Think. He’s been involved with many local and statewide documentaries including Nowhere But Texas, JFK: Breaking the News, Matisse & Picasso: A Gentle Rivalry, Richard Avedon: In the American West – A Twentieth Anniversary Special, Finding Our Voice: The Dallas Gay & Lesbian Community, Freedman’s Cemetery Memorial: A Place of Healing, New Tastes From Texas With Chef Stephan Pyles, Life in the Balance: The Health Care Crisis in Texas and On the Record, among others.
The documentary was produced in association with the Bishop Blue Foundation. Bishop Blue’s mission is to celebrate the history of Bishop College from its inception in Marshall, Texas to its closing in Dallas. The organization is seeking to record the history of Bishop College from the perspective of the graduates and others who contributed to the institution, to trace the history of Bishop’s legacy in the education of religious leaders and teachers and to report on the success of Bishop College graduates throughout America.
Additional funding was provided by a grant from Humanities Texas, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Established by the Congress in 1965, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) supports research, education, and public programs in the humanities.
