DAVENPORT, Iowa — The stories of local civil rights activists premiered on the big screen this weekend in Davenport.
Progressive Action for the Common Good hosted its first big showing of 'I Am the Future: Standing on the Shoulders of the Past' at the Putnam Museum and Science Center Sunday, Oct. 22.
The film talks about the personal experiences of Quad City residents who fought for civil rights in the early 1960s.
News 8's Jonathan Fong spoke with activists featured in the video at the red carpet showing. Henry Brockington was at the historic Washington D.C. march in 1963 where heard Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech. "It was the first time that I actually heard someone and made me think that I was really an American, rather than a Black person in America," he said.
Brockington brought his hunger for change back to the Quad Cities, helping groups like the NAACP.
"That's the only way we get rid of things like hate and racism and all those kind of things — you have to say something, you have to be active," Brockington said.
World War II veteran Gabriel Barber III hopes the film will inspire the next generation. "These movers can say here's some people that were involved with us way back, and they're still active to a certain extent, but old age slows us down," he said with some laughter.
Even Davenport's former mayor Bill Gluba had his own story to tell when he was a student at St. Ambrose. "Five of us from Davenport drove all the way to Washington D.C. — the furthest I'd ever been away from home," he said, recalling his own trip to the 1963 march. "It was an amazing day. And it was a time of hope, and optimism, and we thought as young activists, we're gonna change the world — and we did. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech was such an inspiration to our generation," Gluba said.
Activists are hoping with historic preservation like the short film, they can pass the torch to youth like 16-year-old Abdur Howard, who interviewed all of them for the video. "It's beyond meaningful. I would say it's more mandatory that this generation has a strong solid understanding of what the people before us did, and had to go through. That way we can live as comfortably as we do today," Howard.
The film was originally produced in 2022, but updated through collaboration with WQPT. The short film is available here.