115-year-old
Gertrude Baines’ parents were
born into slavery. 106-year-old
Otis Clark, the oldest traveling evangelist, was born in the American Indian
Territory before it became the State of Oklahoma. 109-year-old Etta Mae Castain joined the fight to win equal
pay for black teachers in a 1940s landmark civil rights case. 104-year-old Eugene Florence, a Baptist
preacher who has outlived five wives, was awarded in 2004 the Masters of
Divinity degree he had earned, but was denied because of his race, 43 years earlier. 108-year-old Gladys Cowan Kennedy
organized the first debutante balls for young African American women. 102-year-old Wallace “Bucky” Williams
is the oldest surviving member of the Negro Baseball League. 110-year-old Ruby Muhammad, orphaned as
a child, became the Mother of the Nation of Islam. 112-year-old George Frances—always politically
active--fought the Jim Crow laws in the South and cast his vote for Franklin
Roosevelt in the 1930s and for Barack Obama in 2008; after Obama’s victory,
wheelchair-bound Frances said he felt like jumping up and down.
100 Years will celebrate the enduring spirits and life histories of the country’s oldest African Americans. They have lived
through momentous times: two World Wars; the sinking of the Titanic; the Great Depression; the Jazz
Age; the birth of the Civil Rights
Movement, the life and death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; the advent of
radio, television, automobiles and airplanes; man’s first walk on the moon; the
beginning of the Information Age; and the election of America’s first black
president. And they, like us, have
fallen in love, counted fingers and toes of newborn babies, grieved the loss of
beloved family and friends, been grandchildren and grandparents. The film will honor the wisdom and experience
of these remarkable individuals and the story they tell of our country’s racial
history. 100 Years will celebrate
how far we have come, while recognizing how far we have yet to go.
