Cary filmmaker Hal Goodtree and two colleagues recently won a 2020 Emmy Award for “Shaw Rising,” a documentary about the South’s first HBCU.
“Shaw Rising,” which originated to celebrate Shaw’s 150th anniversary, depicts the history of the university and its impact on the course of education and social justice in the United States. The documentary follows Shaw’s journey from its founding by Dr. Henry Martin Tupper in 1865, through extremes of difficulty and success, to the inauguration of its 18th president, Dr. Paulette Dillard.
Goodtree, producer with Goodtree Studio, created the project in partnership with Donna Mitchell and Tim Finkbiner of Durham-based Horizon Productions. All three are named on the award, which was announced March 6.
“We are so proud of the work that was accomplished,” said Goodtree, who wrote and produced the film. “Shaw’s place in the history of the Civil Rights Movement is important to our collective local and national history.”
At the start of the movie, Tupper, a Baptist minister from Massachusetts, comes to Raleigh shortly after the end of the Civil War and is shocked by homelessness and joblessness of the freed slaves, who were wandering the streets of Raleigh. Determined to help, he founded Shaw University on land that was purchased through a third party in the Southeast area of Raleigh. Shaw University stands there today.
A reenactment for the film “Shaw Rising” was shot on location at Durham’s Bennett Place.
“I didn’t really know much about Shaw before starting to work on the project,” said Tim Finkbiner, the film’s director. “It was founded nine months after the Civil War ended. Early in the project the story started out to tell the founding of the university, but we realized there was a much bigger story to tell.”
The movie also portrays Shaw’s place in the beginnings of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee which organized the first lunch counter sit-ins in Raleigh and Greensboro during the Civil Rights Movement.
One of the biggest challenges of telling the history of Shaw was the lack of historical records owned by the university.
“The hardest aspect of my job was in trying to locate the original pictures of Ella Baker and her family that were included in Joanne Grant’s book called ‘Freedom Bound.’ I talked to many folks, libraries, publishers, etc. around the nation looking for those original pictures. I was never able to locate the original pictures and we ultimately had to use the images that were in the ‘Freedom Bound’ book,” said Donna Mitchell.
Another way to breathe life into a movie depicting events more than a century in the past, was to use live reenactments. Mitchell says one reenactment in particular, shot on location at Durham’s Bennett Place, enabled the entire film crew to experience the heat of the moment.
“We shot the scenes to depict when folks came to scare Henry Martin Tupper and his wife,” she said. “The scene called for shooting inside of a cabin and for exterior shots of torches. It was a VERY hot day and all of us were melting from the heat. Inside the cabin was even hotter, so that was a challenge.”
The film also won a Telly Award in June 2020 after airing on WUNC-TV in February 2020.
For more information on the film visit goodtree.studio. To view the entire documentary visit Shaw University’s YouTube channel.
