Our film shows the nuances of mixed-race perspectives and identities. Our film seeks to reveal the timeless danger in ascribing racial identities to people based on perceived social, cultural and phenotypical cues. We are committed to sharing mixed-race experiences that are hardly ever on screen.

"Interiors" is inspired by two historical truths. 

 

THE STORY

Our story follows Mildred and Kathleen, sisters in a mixed-race family that has recently moved to Charleston, South Carolina under the assumption that they can successfully pass as white. On Mildred's first day of school, her classmates scrutinize her based on her slightly darker skin. Kathleen, white-passing, does not defend her sister and supports her white classmates as they bully Mildred. The Sheriff in the town gets word of this rumor from the schoolyard, and takes a visit with a photographer and armed deputy to the Pierce home to "check their race." When they arrive, Kathleen successfully hides Mildred from their eyes. After the sheriff violently inspects Kathleen he concludes the family must be white. They all understand that from here on out, Mildred must be kept a secret. Kathleen can go to school while Mildred is stuck alone at home. At the end of the short, Kathleen feels guilty about her opportunity and blames herself for Mildred's entrappment and skips school to take Mildred outside. At the end, Kathleen and Mildred are seen and we feel the danger that will persist in Mildred's life-- through how she is percieved. 

 

(My twin sister and I pictured above)

THE CONTEXT

This is a true story, inspired by the case of Allen Platt et al. v. The Board of Public Instruction of Lake County, Florida. In the fall of 1954, Allen Platt moved his family to a white town in order to make a better life for them. Rumors from school about their tan skin reached the sheriff of Lake County, who was an avowed white supremacist who decided to take armed deputies and play the Platt family a visit. Upon arriving, the sheriff had the terrified children line up to have their photographs taken. Pointing to one of the male children the sheriff said, "You know, he favors a nigger."Squinting at one of the female siblings he said, "I don't like the shape of that one's nose." On the absis of this "evidence," the sheriff concluded that the Platts were African American and advised them to stay out of school until he could investigate the matter further. They were encouraged to move out of the town. 

 

When the town got word of their story, several white lawyers volunteered to defend his case and filed a suit in circuit court asking for a declatory judgment fixing the rights of the Platt children to attend a white school. The case dragged on for several months. Witnesses were heard, depositions taken, evidence pro and con was amassed, and experts were consulted. There was plenty of "evidence" to support the Platts' claims that they were not black:

 

 

Finally, on October 8, 1955--one year after the children had been expelled from school---the court handed down its decision declaring that the Platts were legally white. Local residents nevertheless staunchly defended their belief that the Platts were African American. The night the decision was released, a white mob set their home on fire. The sheriff declared to the local Lions' Club, "In my book they're still mulattoes," and received a standing ovation. 

 

In addition to the Allen Platt story, "Interiors" is inspired by my own family legacy, centered around an unknown pocket of African-American history: Gouldtown, the “oldest Negro community in America.” Gouldtown was founded in 1670 by four interracial families, and every marriage in the town thereafter would be interracial or interfamily. For over three-hundred years, a community of light-skinned black Americans existed in New Jersey. 

 

Mildred and Kathleen, and their parents, Jeremiah and Hannah Pierce are inspired by people in my family, and members of Gouldtown. 

 

 

My genealogical research has been coupled with theory surrounding mixed-race experiences. The experience of race in America has not confronted mixed race identities in a way that allows all mixed black and white people--regardless of their phenotypical appearance---to accept the fullness of their ancestry. If race is not biological, what is our measure of racial identity? How do we define blackness? Who has the right to set those definitions? Who has the right to claim blackness in this contemporary setting?

 

Furthermore, my immediate family is mixed black-and-white. My twin sister and I have very different appearances, which has pushed me to question my own racial identity. The Allen Platt story, Gouldtown ancestors of mine, and my own experience in a similar situation as Mildred have all informed this project. 

 

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT.