REMINDER: Local Filmmaker Gary Thomsen will be the featured guest at the next Burien Film Office Happy Hour, to be held this Tuesday, Nov. 1 from 5:30-7 p.m. at the Tin Theater.
This is a FREE, open, all-ages event – come support local arts and filmmaking!
Thomsen’s documentary chronicles the extraordinary story of 28 students from Chief Sealth High School, who in 1999 began a two-year project on a largely unknown baseball phenomenon known as ‘barnstorming.’
By conducting exhaustive research into black baseball player movements in the Western United States and Canada, the students uncovered more documented information on barnstorming than in the collections of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and the National Baseball Hall of Fame – combined.
The Tin Theater is located at 923 SW 152nd Street in Olde Burien.
Here’s a trailer and more info:
While many American and Canadian sports fans are familiar with the Negro Leagues and with iconic players Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson and Buck O’Neil, few are aware of the men who traversed two countries playing the game they loved in the face of rampant prejudice and discrimination – the barnstormers. Their journeys dispelled the notion of white supremacy on the baseball field and fostered the breaking down of racial stereotypes, leading Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to say, “They laid down the first plank in the civil rights movement.” And while thousands saw these barnstormers play against local teams, their exploits and travails are largely unknown – a fact that resonated with these students, who felt it was a story worth bringing to light.
To honor those largely unsung ballplayers, and to draw attention to this forgotten piece of African American and American history, in 2000 the students produced the “Legends of the Road” barnstorming tour, incorporating high-school players from Seattle, Washington, and Victoria, B.C., to commemorate the 100th anniversary of barnstorming. Their tour was done on bicycles: 71 days, 33 games and 5,100 miles.
While not facing the same racial discrimination the black players endured, the students nonetheless faced challenges. On many days, they rode more than 100 miles to play a ballgame that night. At times, they could not find accommodations and were frequently short on cash. Like their Black barnstorming counterparts, they overcame those challenges and helped save a piece of American and Canadian history.
Now, a film documentary – Legends of The Road – offers a comprehensive, inspiring look at this uniquely important project. Featuring candid, provocative classroom footage and compelling video from the epic trip, the story is both inspiring and historically significant.
The film draws upon 30 hours of behind-the-scenes classroom footage as the students labored to research and produce the project, 55 hours of interviews with former Negro Leagues players (and players who played against them), eight hours of interviews with Buck O’Neil and Bob Kendrick (now president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum) and 11 hours of interviews with historians.
More info here: