PR: The Powerbroker: Whitney Young's Fight for Civil Rights on DVD Apr 30

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Release Date: April 30, 2013, 7:45 am
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During the 1960s, as the executive director of the National Urban League, Whitney Young was one of the few African Americans who had the ear of those who controlled the levers of power: Fortune 500 CEOs, governors, senators, and presidents. He used these relationships to gain better access to employment, education, housing, and healthcare for African Americans, other minorities, and those in need.

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The Powerbroker: Whitney Young's Fight for Civil Rights IS A NEW FILM ABOUT AN UNSUNG HERO OF THE MOVEMENT

Features Interviews with Howard Zinn, Donald Rumsfeld, Dorothy Height, •Ossie Davis, Julian Bond, Vernon Jordan, John Lewis, Kenneth Chenault, and More
Available on DVD from PBS Distribution April 30th



Arlington, Va. - March 26, 2013 - PBS Distribution today announced it is releasing The Powerbroker: Whitney Young's Fight for Civil Rights on DVD. During the 1960s, as the executive director of the National Urban League, Whitney Young was one of the few African Americans who had the ear of those who controlled the levers of power: Fortune 500 CEOs, governors, senators, and presidents. He used these relationships to gain better access to employment, education, housing, and healthcare for African Americans, other minorities, and those in need. His unique position and approach earned him praise, but also scorn from the Black Power movement for being too close to the white establishment. While he is less known today than other leaders of the era because of the behind-the-scenes nature of his work, Young's legacy and influence are still felt profoundly.



The Powerbroker will be available on DVD April 30, 2013. The run time of the program is 60 minutes and the DVD SRP is $24.99. Narrated by Alfre Woodard ("Primal Fear"), The Powerbroker is executive produced by Young's niece, Emmy(R) Award-winning journalist Bonnie Boswell and produced by Ms. Boswell, her son, Taylor Hamilton, and Christine Khalafian.

"I realized several years ago that while I knew Uncle Whitney through my personal relationship with him, my appreciation and understanding of his role in the Civil Rights movement was not all that different from the general public's, which is to say, somewhat limited," said Boswell. "During my college days, I was one of those who was critical of 'Establishment' leaders like Uncle Whitney. The older I got, the more I began to appreciate his unique role as a mediator between racial and economic groups during one of the most divisive periods in American history. I decided to make this film because I believed his story could teach us today about what it takes to make a democracy work."

Ten years in the making, The Powerbroker is both a personal portrait of Young, drawing on the reflections of family members and never-before-seen home movies, personal photographs, and audio recordings, and a historical chronicle of how he applied the social service mission of the Urban League to realize the rhetoric of the Civil Rights movement. The film features rare archival footage and exclusive interviews with a diverse array of people who worked with Young and who have been shaped by his work, including the late Dorothy Height, Pulitzer Prize winner Manning Marable, John Hope Franklin, Ossie Davis, and Howard Zinn, as well as, Julian Bond, Vernon Jordan, John Lewis, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Young's biographer Dennis C. Dickerson, Donald Rumsfeld, Ramsey Clark, and others.

Born in 1921 in rural Kentucky, Young was the son of Whitney and Laura Ray Young. He attended the Lincoln Institute, a segregated school where his father served as principal. His mother was the country's second African American postmistress. His parents had a powerful influence on him, instilling confidence, dignity, and a strong belief in empowerment through education.
Young served in a segregated unit in the Army during World War II, where he frequently mediated tensions between the white and African American service members. The experience inspired Young to work in civil rights when he returned from the war.

After earning a master's degree from the University of Minnesota School of Social Work, he began working for different branches of the Urban League, and eventually became the executive director of the National Urban League in 1961. As the civil rights movement was gaining steam in the South, Young saw that the resolution-focused approach of social work was key to truly creating a society where minorities would have power and status equal to that of white Americans. This would require that they have access to the same pillars of the American Dream: jobs, healthcare, education, and housing.

To achieve this, Young believed those who controlled these institutions - policymakers, business leaders, and political leaders - would need to understand that creating greater racial diversity in these institutions was in both their moral and financial interest.

Young's intelligence, humor and charm made him welcome company among the power establishment, many of whom had had little contact with African Americans and held stereotypes that soon faded through their relationship with him. His insider status made him indispensable in helping broker some of the key events of the civil rights era - the 1963 March on Washington and the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

At the same time, younger black activists became disillusioned with the slow pace of change and began taking a more militant stance. Young became a target of intense scorn among Black Power leaders for his close relationships with those in the power elite, whom they saw as antithetical to their goals. They labeled him "Uncle Tom" and "Oreo" and Young received death threats. He also faced criticism from Martin Luther King, Jr. for not opposing the Vietnam War. Young later said that he did oppose the war, but did not want publicly to criticize President Johnson, with whom he had worked closely to pass the Civil Rights Act.

Young died tragically in a drowning accident in Africa in 1971 at the age of 49. In the years following his death, many of those within the civil rights and Black Power movements who had criticized Young would come to acknowledge the enormous breakthroughs he achieved and admire the methodology and wisdom of his approach.

As President Nixon said at his funeral, "He knew how to accomplish what other people were merely for."

To learn more about the film, visit The Powerbroker interactive companion website (http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/powerbroker), which features detailed information on the film, including an interview with the filmmaker and links and resources pertaining to the film's subject matter. The site also features a Talkback section, where viewers can share their ideas and opinions, preview clips of the film, and more.

Funding for The Powerbroker is provided, in part, by The Ford Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, and Carnegie Corporation of New York.

The Powerbroker is a production of Bluegate, LLC. The executive producer is Bonnie Boswell. The film is produced by Bonnie Boswell, Christine Khalafian, and Taylor Hamilton.

About the Filmmakers
BONNIE BOSWELL (Executive Producer/Producer) is an award-winning reporter, producer, TED talk presenter, commentator, and talk show host. A graduate of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boswell won a Golden Mike Award for a one-hour news program she created for NBC. Boswell has been a news reporter for NBC-TV, Los Angeles, the co-host of a national cable television news talk show, and an associate producer for ABC's 20/20.

CHRISTINE KHALAFIAN (Director, Producer, Editor) is a filmmaker whose short films have premiered at the Sundance, SXSW, Los Angeles and Rotterdam film festivals, among others. She has worked as an editor on such feature documentaries as This Film is Not Yet Rated, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and The Dungeon Masters, premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival.

TAYLOR HAMILTON (Director, Producer, Associate Editor) is a filmmaker with extensive experience in broadcast television. As a director and engineer, he has executed the physical production of talk shows, live shots, infomercials and celebrity junkets for a broadcast studio whose clients include ABC, CNN, CBS, E!, HDNet, Comedy Central and Fox News. Hamilton is the Video Producer for frogDesign, Inc.

About Independent Lens
Independent Lens is an Emmy(R) Award winning weekly series airing on PBS. The acclaimed anthology series features documentaries united by the creative freedom, artistic achievement, and unflinching visions of independent filmmakers. Presented by Independent Television Service (ITVS), the series is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a private corporation funded by the American people, with additional funding provided by PBS, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the MacArthur Foundation. The senior series producer is Lois Vossen. More information at www.pbs.org/independentlens. Join Independent Lens on Facebook at www.facebook.com/independentlens.

About PBS Distribution
PBS Distribution is the leading media distributor for the public television community, both domestically and internationally, extending the reach of these programs beyond broadcast while generating revenue for the public television system and our production partners.

PBS Distribution offers a diverse range of programming to our customers, including Ken Burns's films, documentaries from award-winning series such as NOVA, FRONTLINE, AMERICAN MASTERS, NATURE, and AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, dramas from MASTERPIECE, as well as films from independent producers and popular children's programming. As a multi-channel distributor, PBS Distribution pursues wholesale/retail sales, consumer and educational sales through PBS-branded catalogs and online shops, and international broadcast and video sales. PBS Distribution is also a leader in offering programming through digital platforms including internet and mobile devices.

The Powerbroker: Whitney Young's Fight for Civil Rights
Street Date: April 30, 2013
Genre: Documentary
Run Time: 60 Minutes
SRP: $24.99
Format: DVD

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News Editor April 30, 2013, 7:45 am