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Media Mobilizing Projects makes the big time, for the little guy.
MMP helped produce a five-part documentary for The Poverty Tour: A Call to Conscience, teaming up with Tavis Smiley and Cornel West for poverty documentary. The five-part series begins tonight on WHYY.
Media Mobilizing Projects makes the big time, for the little guy.
The Media Mobilizing Project, a Philadelphia coalition of community groups that uses the media to get their message out, helped produce a five-part documentary for The Poverty Tour: A Call to Conscience. The 11-state tour is being organized by big-time television host Tavis Smiley and the high-wattage Princeton intellectual Cornel West, and was launched to raise two prominent black voices highlighting President Obama’s failure to deal with poverty — in the black community and throughout America.
Some 46.2 million Americans live in poverty — that’s one in six of us. And the Census Bureau only counts people who make, say, $17,374 for a family of three as impoverished.
Here comes Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Philly, Occupy Everywhere — and it looks like pretty serendipitous timing to air their films.
The series begins tonight at 11:30 p.m. on WHYY, and airs again tomorrow at noon. Click to view the press release.
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PRESS RELEASE
PHILADELPHIA NONPROFIT COLLABORATES WITH TAVIS SMILEY AND CORNEL WEST TO BRING THE UNTOLD STORIES OF THE 99% TO NATIONAL TELEVISION
MMP documentary about poverty in the U.S. premieres on PBS's Tavis Smiley October 10-14
Philadelphia, October XX, 2011: "The Poverty Tour: A Call to Conscience" will premiere on PBS's Tavis Smiley this Monday, October 10 through Friday, October 14. Produced in-part by Philadelphia nonprofit Media Mobilizing Project (MMP) in collaboration with broadcaster Tavis Smiley and Princeton professor Dr. Cornel West, the five-part documentary reveals the conditions of poverty facing the majority of Americans across the country (who some have recently called "the 99%"). The series also shares the story of brave everyday people who are fighting back, organizing and empowering their communities to come up with solutions.
"I want to salute my magnificent brothers and sisters at the Media Mobilizing Project; the world can now see the humanity of poor people and the reality of poverty-ridden conditions. It was a blessing to work with them, as they use their art as a form of service that inspires me and the world to muster up the courage to fight poverty," said Dr. West.
In Philadelphia, Tavis Smiley airs on WHYY weeknights at 11:30pm and re-broadcasts at 12pm the following day. For timeslots in other locations, or to watch the show online, visit http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/about/.
MMP organizers and videographers teamed up with Smiley and West and traveled through more than a dozen states to document the stories of communities organizing against poverty. They met with warehouse workers in Chicago, Hmong farmers in Milwaukee, homeless veterans in Ohio and Washington DC, homeless families in Mississippi, communities fighting foreclosure in West Virginia, and Welfare Rights organizers in Detroit. In every state and town, they saw families struggling to survive and courageous leaders uniting people to work for solutions, and they filmed it all for the nation to see.
Of the documentary Tavis Smiley said, "None of the work that the American public will see next week would be possible without the good people at the Media Mobilizing Project. I fundamentally believe our PBS show will advance the conversation about poverty in America and hopefully lead to some serious dialogue about how we eradicate poverty in this country."”
MMP believes movements begin with the telling of untold stories. Since its inception six years ago, MMP has told the untold stories of poverty and struggle, and in doing so has united students, firefighters, nurses, people fighting to keeping their homes against foreclosures, teachers, taxi drivers, day-laborers, janitors, artists, and others to build a movement to end poverty. "It was an honor to be asked by Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornel West to participate in the Poverty Tour," said MMP's Shivaani Selvaraj. "People are mobilizing around this country - from Wisconsin to Wall Street, from California to Vermont to Pennsylvania. We know that media can break the isolation around the struggles we are facing and bring all people together so that we can be a stronger force for change. We were so glad to bring MMP's experience to this tour and join Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornel West in bringing to light the conditions and injustices our people are facing today -- and the ways we are organizing for justice."”
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