From Southampton to Northampton

Good morning,

We are finally back home after 19 days on the road, a trip that began in Southampton, VA and ended in Northampton, MA. All in all, it was a successful trip. The rule of thumb in filmmaking is that if you get 75% of the shots on your wish list, you are in good shape. We got close to 95% of we wanted.

After leaving NY, we spent 4.5 hours driving roughly 180 miles from NYC to Providence, RI, a feat that puts CA traffic to shame. :)

Our first interview in Providence was with Glenn Loury, an old friend of our family. I believe I met him for the first time when I was a sophomore at Claremont McKenna College and he was doing a talk there with my father. He gave us an insightful interview that covered everything from history (Daniel Patrick Moynihan) to the present day where he examined President Joe Biden’s character. If you haven’t been following The Glenn Show, it is worth your time.

Right after our interview with Loury, we met up with Andrew Gutmann who gave us a fiery interview. For those who don’t know, Gutmann became a national story over two years ago when he saw how his daughter’s private school, The Brearley School, was becoming an antiracist school. After listening to his daughter talk about how the school culture was changing, he wrote a letter to the school that went viral. The backlash was fierce but he stood his ground. In a surprising moment during the interview, he told my father that he read “White Guilt” months before writing his letter and that he had wanted to send along a copy of the book to every parent at the school. He now lives in Florida where he is running for Congress to continue his fight. I’m no fan of politicians but I can’t imagine a better person in office than him.

After a long day of interviews, my father stumbled upon this restaurant window. So many causes, so little time.

We finally made our way to Northampton, MA, our last stop. It’s truly a beautiful part of America and we even encountered a massive black bear at the local park.

We drove about an hour south of Northampton to Simsbury, CT, to film the tobacco fields where many southern blacks worked to earn money for college. One of them was Martin Luther King who marveled on how he faced no racial discrimination in this area. This sequence will be a small but powerful part of the film.

The next day, we had our final interview of this trip with Jodi Shaw who refused to adopt the white label at Smith College. She also refused to treat students by their race and was subsequently marginalized to the point she was forced to resign. She is now in a lawsuit against Smith College. I covered her story while working for Fox and you can read it here.

All in all, it was a great trip. Aside from filming, the best part of the trip was the sharing of meals with many of our interview subjects. Many took the time to cook for us and that was very touching — and they were GREAT cooks. :)

Now, we are onto planning our west coast trip which will probably be the last two weeks of August.

All my best,

Eli