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Bound By Blood looks at a massacre of African American sharecroppers in Elaine, Arkansas who were secretly trying to create a farmers’ union in 1919. Over a matter of days local white posses joined with the U.S. Army to murder as many as two hundred black man and women. Surviving families were run out of town.

Our story examines the contemporary social, economic, and psychological consequences of these events for white and black families whose ancestors were connected to the 1919 massacre through history to the present time— and how this history continues to reverberate in unexpected ways throughout the lives families generations later.

The narrative explores how trauma of the past may be shaping the present, taking hold of choices, behavior, identity and meaning. History becomes not simply a recollected legacy but a living intergenerational force. We received an initial leadership grant from the LEF foundation to begin filming and development funding from ITVS diversity fund. And in May 2016 we received an additional grant from LEF to continue production in the fall.