(bright music) (exciting music) - Welcome back to a brand new season of "TvFILM."

I'm your host, Jermaine Wells, and we are hyped to be back, because we have an awesome lineup this year that you guys are gonna love.

Now, if you're new to "TvFILM," we are a showcase for Upstate New York media makers across all genres.

Our first film of the season is a documentary titled "Connie, The Powers and Possibilities of Community Engagement."

This film is centered around Buffalo activist, advocate, and leader, Constance Eve, who formed the organization, Women for Human Rights and Dignity.

Let's enjoy.

- Every year, the United Way has to pick one volunteer in the entire United States, and they designate that person as the Outstanding Volunteer of America.

They call the award they give the Alexis de Tocqueville award.

One year, they gave the award to Bob Hope.

One year, they gave it to a former president of the United States, Jimmy Carter, and in 1998, they gave the Outstanding Volunteer in America Award to our own Connie Eve.

I now give you Connie Eve.

(audience applauding and cheering) - Thank you, thank you, thank you.

We have the power to change.

Just 50 of the right, talented, committed women, we can do almost anything, almost anything.

There's tremendous power in that.

- She has touched so many lives and has made such a difference, and she hasn't stopped.

She's still working, - [Photographer] (laughs) But we gonna do it this way.

Okay, real nice, one, two, three.

(somber music) - For whatever reason, I had very good memory skills when I was little, so I skipped a lot of grades, and my sisters and brothers always told me I was talented and this and that, you know how they go on and on, (laughs) but they made me think I could do just about anything I wanted to do, and I did.

(bright music) Right there.

I'm gonna be over by, you know, where I usually sit, and I- - [Friend] Yeah.

I told Wayne he was sitting- - In particular today, and Arthur Eve, they begin another year.

Grant that they may grow in wisdom and grace, and strengthen their trust in your goodness all the days of their lives, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen.

- Amen.

- Good morning.

- Good morning.

- [Constance] (chuckles) Hi, Debbie.

(chuckles) - [Pastor] All right, all right.

- West Virginia lady.

We've sold that church and moved here, but I've been coming to St. Philip's now for 66 years, 'cause Art and I were married at St. Philip's, and I loved the smallness of it.

(somber music) - My father had a much more public role as a member of the State Assembly and as a deputy speaker of the State Assembly, and his constant, unwavering commitment for justice and economic and educational opportunity, but my mother was equally fierce, but in a different way, when it came to her work as an educator, but also her work in founding Women for Human Rights and Dignity, and in effect, raising five children, heavily on her own, for six, seven months of the year when my father was in Albany January through June, July, sometimes in August, from Sunday evening to Thursday evening.

- [Constance] See you after about 20 years!

- A pretty good couple, some called them the power couple.

My mother would get a bunch of her girls together, and organize rallies, cookouts, you know?

She would take the lead on a lot of stuff just to support my father.

My father was a State Assemblyman, which made him the highest ranking Black official, and there were no state senators, Black state senators, no Black congressmen, and so, went to the airport, rode with my father, and picked up Dr. King, then shook his hand at the airport, then we all went to Kleinhans Music Hall, where he spoke, and I knew it was a big thing then, but I didn't realize how big it was till, you know, till years later on.

- During the Attica Prison Uprising in September of '71, my father went into Attica Prison at the prisoners' request to try and alleviate the crisis, that he went into that prison knowing he might not come out alive, but he went in anyway.

I grew up in a household where service was not something you did on the side, it was the core of what you did.

- [Photographer] Mrs. Eve, you got your girls over there, look at that.

Nice, one, two, three.

Shine, look down.

- We had been introduced to a Buffalo that was very, very racist.

Quiet racism, but systemic, systemic.

60 years ago, we saw what was happening.

We needed a voice.

- I mentioned Attica, my father's run, historic run for mayor in '77.

I was 13 at the time.

On this lawn, there was a cross, a small cross that was burned, when my father ran for mayor.

I've had to pick up the phone and hear people yell.

As a child, I was exposed to a lot of things that most children or most adults probably shouldn't be.

- [Reporter] Buffalo's driving ban is back with us again today.

In effect for the second time in the city of Buffalo, the no-driving ban imposed by Mayor Makowski, as of midnight, found police making sure the restrictions are being obeyed.

- After the blizzard of '77, the stations suddenly had nothing to talk about.

And that's when the woman took the life of her three children.

- It was one of the top cases in the late '70s for both on broadcast medias and radio and television.

You know, because there were many people in Buffalo who felt she was guilty as sin, and there were other people, like Constance Eve, who realized she was mentally troubled, but, you know, she wasn't getting the kind of help she needed.

- We know that no mother takes the life of her children except to deny them going into slavery.

We've read those stories, yeah.

- Right, right, right.

- We know how the criminal justice system works.

We're not naive about it.

- Right.

- If you don't have some numbers you can dial, or can afford top-notch legal representation, you got a problem.

- Right, mm-hmm.

- And dial back 30 years, 40 years, the further back you go, you couldn't even think about representation.

You just got shot on the spot or sent to jail for the most minimal thing.

I have friends who were alive when you had to get off the street if you saw a Caucasian approaching.

You had to get off the street to let them pass.

That's how long I've lived, and so... - At the time, there was so much racial animosity in the town, that when the four children were taken to, for the day they were buried, there were whites who would drive by the African American church on the East Side of Buffalo, and just make fun of Blacks and drive away, you know?

That's how much racial animosity existed at the time.

(somber music) - So Gail Trait, for whatever reason, I found myself asking to see her, and my husband arranged it, to go to the holding pen to see her.

- Yes.

- Uh-huh, okay.

- [Constance] She just looked dehumanized.

- [Friend] Right.

(somber music) - We formed an organization called Women for Human Rights and Dignity.

We realized we had to first get so many of them out of jail, 'cause once you become a record, it's hard to undo.

And a woman, becoming a part of the criminal justice system, that's even harder.

(somber music) - She took this horrific tragedy, Gail Trait's killing of her children, and that caused her to peel back the layers of the onion of our criminal justice system, as it relates in particular to women and their families.

And what can we do to prevent things like this from happening in the first place.

- At that time, politically, there were a lot of people in the New York State Legislature who wanted to build more prisons, okay?

And then there were other people, the Arthur O. Eve side of legislature, who wanted to have fewer prisons, 'cause they knew if you build prisons, society would fill them with Black people, right?

That simple.

So they did it, I say they did it the New York way.

You do both.

When you do things the New York way, you build more prisons for the part of the legislature that wants more prisons, and you build more alternative facilities.

- I wanted to provide an alternative to incarceration as the first program, to give them an opportunity to serve their time with us while they got psychological help, help for their children, some kind of training, or begun to get their GEDs, 'cause most of them, so often, were not high school graduates.

(somber music) (somber music continues) - One of the houses became a place where Women for Human Rights and Dignity did other events and eventually had some women who had been sentenced to alternatives to incarceration to be there.

I remember being in that home too.

So I can picture three different homes that I was in on more than one occasion, doing the work, the good work of Connie Eve.

- People came, all kinds of talents and skill.

- Yes.

- Physical, mental, financial, everything, and just put their thing in to help it work.

- You're saying that people came, but- - It's that... - You have that way of pulling people.

- Well- - True.

- It's work.

- And you can motivate people, and that always, to me, was such a special gift that you had.

- [Constance] It's work, but you know what, I never thought about it, 'cause we were moving so fast, because other folks identified with what we were trying to do.

(Constance laughing) - Good, my Connie.

(Constance laughing) - So our organization grew from, first, just being organized with teams of volunteers of all kinds of professions and plain old, just people wanting to help, who were talented, whatever they did.

One crew fixed breakfast for everybody, one crew fixed dinner for when we came back from the prison.

Everybody had something to do.

So we began by just doing workshops in the prisons for women.

Every woman, some of the most talented, gifted women there, beautiful inside and out, just caught up in their time, caught up in their time, making bad choices or being sucked into bad choices.

- I didn't, I thought that I was just, this, my life is ruined, and I just, I had to accept and deal with.

Two years I was hooked on crack cocaine.

And then one day, my mother said to me, "I don't know who you are, but when you see my daughter, Cheryl, you tell her I'll be here waiting on you."

And that's when the cycle fell, and I ended up being incarcerated, and I knew that this was not mine.

I was just lost.

So that's why I applied for Mrs. E's program, so that I could have a chance to better myself and not get caught up in the vicious cycle that the criminal justice system has us in.

So I put in a letter, and they got back to me.

And instead of doing prison time, I was able to serve my time in one of her homes.

So that's how I got to meet Mrs. Eve.

We had, actually, what basically what it was, it was a structural environment, and at the same time, we were able to keep our dignity.

And that's what was good about it, because everybody doesn't need to be incarcerated.

Sometimes we just need to be guided in the right direction.

They just need a structure, loving, caring environment.

- [Interviewer] And community, yeah?

- Yeah, and community, and that's what Mrs. Eve offered.

- You know, one of my fondest memories is being in the building and sitting alongside of her, next to her, wrapping presents and talking and listening to her share her stories, while my two kids, who were still young at the time, were upstairs watching TV with other volunteers' kids, so it's like a community, like, effort.

- And so seeing Alicia, what is this, our 50 Oscar party or so?

- [Speaker] But, no, I don't know about that, but it's the best ever.

- [Speaker] I'm here with the best!

(people shouting) (people cheering) - That group of women reflects hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years of service to the most vulnerable people in our community, and we've lost some of those women.

Each Oscar party, we celebrate the person that we lost that year.

As each year passes, we become that much more appreciative of this event, of our gathering, 'cause we never know if we're all gonna be here for the next year or the next Oscar party.

- [Speaker] It's just basically a time to, people relax and watch the Oscars and eat too much and have a good time.

- [Interviewer] Mm.

What I think is part of her leadership style is that she knows how to have fun also.

- Right.

- And then kind of, you kind of wanna be around her 'cause she's still- - That's where the energy, what, she's 91, right?

- [Interviewer] Mm.

- The energy, the leadership style, and that's the way she ran campaigns.

I mean, that's how she did it.

- Now, in "Lift Every Voice and Sing," hymn number 26.

♪ And angels sing ♪ ♪ Joy to the world ♪ - Happy Holidays.

(person laughing) - [Friend] How are you?

- Look how Wayne has grown.

- I know.

- She looked like the Winter Wonderland, I love it.

- My great-grandson.

- [Friend] So nice, how you doing?

All right.

- Fine.

- How you doing?

- [Speaker] Oh my God.

- Women for Human Rights and Dignity was founded as an organization that was a powerful force, not just in Western New York, but beyond, for decades, that's being replicated now in communities across the country.

And for that leadership, that innovation, that foresight, the transformative efforts that she and her friends were leading when they formed this nonprofit, she received the Tocqueville Award from the United Way of America, which is its highest honor.

- This is Connie, just says it all to me.

When we were giving clothing, for example, to the women in prison, right?

Hats and coats and socks, whatever it was, and all cleared through the Department of Corrections, of course, that we could bring these things, she didn't want the women to have gently used anything.

She wanted the women to have new everything.

Now, to me, that says everything.

(somber music) - She didn't hold back, she didn't judge us.

We didn't feel less than, we felt equal to and better.

We may have felt better about ourselves and our well-being.

And that's where the dignity comes in.

That was the best thing she ever came up with, with Women for Human Rights and Dignity, because dignity is so important.

- Because I never, and I believe Mrs. Eve, would not want to be viewed as some savior coming in.

We're not there to save, we're there to love on and provide the support for others.

We don't, those individuals do not need saving, they need dignity, and the respect is reaching out and showing others that we are a community, more than just the words, but in the deeds.

(somber music) - You don't know, when you're young, what your parents go through to provide a good life for you.

They just did what they had to do.

My father worked in the coal mines, and my mother had given up when she married my father, who wanted lots of children, 'cause he was an only child of a mixed arrangement.

He was born from a, on a plantation, from the owner's daughter and an African American father, but my father always wanted a large family, and my mother and father decided an 11th child was in order.

(upbeat music) When my father retired as a coal miner, 'cause he was near retirement, by the time I was well into my early years of high school, he was already into retirement, and my eldest brother had provided the money to buy our home, but what was important, not the home, the land that went with it, so my father grew everything.

Talk about just one seed, Johnny Appleseed's apple trees, grape arbor, peach trees, plum trees.

He bought all the land all around, and grew and grew.

And my mother was a marvelous homemaker, you see?

And my father provided by being very resourceful.

We grown pigs and chickens.

(intriguing music) How parents then could make something out of almost nothing.

My first garment when I started school, when I started elementary school, and I will never forget it, was a navy blue cotton dress with yellow bonnets all in it.

The material was from a bag of hog feed, the sack that hog feed came in.

And my mother designed the most darling dress and garment.

She always said if she could just live to see her children grown and able to take care of themselves and with decent spiritual depth.

- [Friend] Right.

- And they carried out her wishes, and we worked together.

- So you all helped each other.

- So we didn't know we were poor, 'cause we had each other.

(gentle music) - [Pastor] Lord, we know that darkness is about being separate and being alone.

- [Speaker] Jesus.

- [Pastor] And Connie is so beautiful at helping to bring together and connect, and we pray, Lord, that you be with us today as we move forward for this Juneteenth festival and acknowledge Connie as the queen of the festival.

- [Speaker] Yes, yes.

- [Pastor] All this we pray in the name of Jesus, Amen?

- Amen.

- Amen.

- [Speaker] Amen.

- [Constance] Oh, you are on target always.

- [Speaker] So, what do you think about Connie as being the queen of the- - She's represented very well.

She's our elder.

Without her and her strong will, I wouldn't be.

I wouldn't be if it were not for her and all that she put forward for me to be here, and that's what a queen mother is.

They take the charge, they go before, they're the wiser one, they've been there, they have the wisdom, and they give it to us to understand our root.

- This is beautiful.

I can actually, when I'm sitting Saturday, the beauty of the dress.

- [Esther] Oh, you'll see it, it's just gonna, you sit like this, and it will just... - That is a gift to you, when people tell you that you've been able to help them do something with what they have.

- The work that Mrs. Eve has done should be applauded.

It should not just be the work of one person or a committed board who gets burnt out.

It should be the responsibility of everyone in the community.

- Mrs. Constance Eve, as the queen of our community, your Krobo Ashanti royal beads are priceless and represent your royalty and power.

- And so, our strategic planning tells us that the challenges we face will unfortunately continue well into the 21st century.

(somber music) (lively music) (somber music) - [Mayor Brown] The first festival after May 14th was very somber, was very reflective.

This is gonna be a more celebratory festival.

- And to tell the rest of the world that one year and a month after we made international news as being the scene of one of the most heinous acts of white supremacy in our nation's history, here we are to say we are back even stronger, more united than ever before.

(audience applauding) - Only with the power of collective action, bringing together people of like minds, like the lady told me one year, "Mrs. Eve, my background is not the same educationally, but I know how to do A, B, and C." I said, "Bring it on, 'cause I don't know how to do A, B, and C. I can do the D, E, and F if you bring on the A, B, and C." And that's what we were able to do.

- That's wonderful.

- With 50 women, oh my God.

Dorothea, I'm telling, you could change the world.

(somber music) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) (bright music) - To learn more about this season's films and filmmakers, visit wmht.org/tvfilm.

Thanks for tuning in.

I'm Jermaine Wells, I'll see you next time.

(exciting music) - [Announcer] "TvFILm" is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.