Columbia faculty, alumni featured in WTTW documentary 'Mandela in Chicago'

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An upcoming documentary by Northwestern faculty member, Ava Thompson Greenwell, will air next month on WTTW.

An upcoming documentary about Nelson Mandela will feature current and former Columbia faculty as well as the college’s Chicago Anti-Apartheid Movement Collection.

Mandela in Chicago, created by Northwestern faculty member Ava Thompson Greenwell, explores a momentous moment for Chicagoans when Nelson Mandela visited Chicago in 1993.

The film will include interviews with former faculty members Prexy Nesbitt, Cheryl Johnson-Odim, Basil Clunie, and alum Mike Elliot.

The featured collection, gathered by former HHSS chair Lisa Brock, brought together Chicago-based activists who pulled materials out of their garages, basements, and closets and carried them to campus one cold and rainy March night in 2007, forming the . 

"We continue to draw upon collection materials to teach Columbia students about primary document analysis, how to read images, and how to archivally organize a collection," says Heidi Marshall, Head of College Archives & Special Collection at Columbia. "In 2018, these collections were viewed by Nelson Mandela's archivist, Verne Harris, who said they contain materials not present in any South African archival collections and was pleased we were committed to making materials available online so his country could study and learn from them."

Mandela in Chicago will air on WTTW on Sunday, Feb. 14 at 4 p.m. Watch the trailer on Vimeo .

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