Tue, Feb 15, 2022
The American Diplomat explores the lives and legacies of three African-American ambassadors, Edward R. Dudley, Terence Todman and Carl Rowan, who pushed past historical and institutional racial barriers to reach high-ranking appointments in the Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. At the height of the civil rights movement in the United States, they were asked to represent the best of American ideals abroad while facing discrimination at home. Colloquially referred to as "pale, male, and Yale," the U.S. State Department fiercely maintained and cultivated the Foreign Service's elitist character and was one of the last federal agencies to desegregate. Through rare archival footage, in-depth oral histories, and interviews with family members, colleagues and diplomats, the film paints a portrait of three men who created a lasting impact on the content and character of the Foreign Service and changed American diplomacy forever.
Tue, May 3, 2022
Flood in the Desert tells the dramatic story of the March 1928 collapse of the St. Francis Dam and its aftermath, which was the second deadliest disaster in California history. The resulting flood killed over 400 people, destroyed millions of dollars of property, and washed away the reputation of one of the most celebrated men in Southern California, William Mulholland. A self-taught engineer, Mulholland had ensured Los Angeles' remarkable growth by building a cement aqueduct that piped water from the Owens Valley across the Mojave Desert and into the arid city, 233 miles away. He had good intentions, but the bursting of his St. Francis Dam, the city's largest single reservoir, was a colossal engineering and human failure.