On the Battlefield

We see a man with a microphone walking through green fields. He listens intently to the grass, the air and the trees around him. His microphone also picks up sounds from the past: the voices of Black people singing about having to obey a master, about a white villain who shot a Black woman and reports about protest that lasted 86 nights.

Just a few visual remnants remain of this dark history, such as faded graffiti on a wall showing Martin Luther King Jr. being arrested by white police officers. Microphone in hand, the sound man is making an audio archive in an attempt to connect the past and present.

The contrast between the turbulent fragments of sound and the seemingly peaceful green surroundings echoes the struggles of the Black community. Looking at these empty fields now, you wouldn't suspect that this was the site of a huge housing project, the hub of the Black community in Cairo, Illinois. In a city where North meets South and major clashes took place between the Black liberation movement and the white oppressors.