Last Thursday, I was afforded the opportunity to interview Funmi Ogunro, the Emmy nominated filmmaker and founder/director of Art Is Cool about her upcoming documentary on Austin’s Freedman Community history.
I love how this project allowed me to ask her about working with some of my favorite people: Rachel Winston of UT Austin’s Black Diaspora Archives (whom I have the pleasure of working with this academic year) & the Reclaimed Project’s Stephanie Lang. I love that these two women’s work is inspiring other people to hold up this history & remind people that Austin was very Black for a long time before *gesturing around wildly* all of this.
Truth be told, I haven’t watched this video all the way through since we put it online: that day, I worked remotely from my boyfriend’s house for a little & although I believed I’d timed it out to get from his place to mine with enough time to leisurely start this talk, the rainy weather mixed with a lane closure meant I really only got about 10 minutes away before I had to pull over and do this interview from my car. So, if it’s patchy, shout out to the Starbuck’s WiFi I was pirating.
There’s also a moment where I wave off camera to someone—shout out to Gabe, who’s cellphone connected to my car’s Bluetooth at a nearby stoplight & who pulled over to see why I was sitting in my car in front of Starbucks.

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