Freedom Hill Film Screening Planned for September 19

Meredith College will host a screening of the documentary Freedom Hill by Resita Cox on September 19, 2023, at 7 p.m. in Jones Auditorium. 

The film, which addresses the issue of environmental justice in Princeville, N.C., will be followed by a panel discussion featuring the filmmaker and Meredith faculty members. Faculty panelists are Professor of History Dan Fountain; Associate Professor of English Alisa Johnson, Assistant Professor of Social Work Anthony Reid, and Associate Professor of Geoscience Matthew Stutz.

The event is free and open to the public.  The screening of Freedom Hill is sponsored by the Environmental Sustainability Program, the School of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, and alumna Carla Ashley ’78.

About Freedom Hill

Princeville, NC is the first town incorporated by freed, enslaved Africans in America. This historical significance sits on a precipice: it is gradually being washed away.

Synopsis:
Princeville sits atop swampy land along the Tar River in North Carolina. In the 1800s this land was disregarded and deemed uninhabitable by white people. After the Civil War, this indifference left it available for freed Africans to settle. Before its incorporation, residents called it ‘Freedom Hill,’ gradually establishing a self-sufficient town. Resting along the floodplain of the river, Princeville residents are no strangers to adversity. The historical town has been inundated with flooding over the centuries. Freedom Hill is a documentary that explores the environmental racism that is washing away the town of 2,000 through the lens of Marquetta Dickens, a Princeville native who recently moved back to help save her hometown and whose grandmother cast the historic vote in 1999 as mayor against the federal and state government’s recommendation to simply move the town elsewhere.

Visit thefreedomhilldoc.com/ for more information.