Quiet Voices in a Noisy World: Alan Govenar on Jasper, Texas

Documentary First, Episode 267. Christian Taylor talks with Alan Govenar, director of Quiet Voices in a Noisy World: The Struggle for Change in Jasper, Texas, and founder of Documentary Arts. 60 minutes. Released December 18, 2025.

Listen: Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other apps
Watch: YouTube
Read: Full transcript

What happens when a town known for one terrible crime starts telling its own story?

That's the heart of Quiet Voices in a Noisy World: The Struggle for Change in Jasper, Texas, the documentary Alan Govenar built from about 30 years of work in Jasper. The world knows Jasper for the 1998 murder of James Byrd Jr. Alan's film follows the Black volunteers, many in their 70s and 80s, who are reclaiming their community's history with roadside markers and memorials. He gave them a kind of veto power over the title. "They are people with quiet voices who are making a huge difference in their world," he says.

In Episode 267 of Documentary First, host Christian Taylor talks with Alan, a writer, folklorist, photographer and filmmaker whose career spans 44 years. He started a novel at 18 and published it 52 years later. He made his first film with Les Blank, who shot it, lent him the money to finish it and premiered it at Film Forum in 1981. Along the way, Alan gave up all ownership of that film for 10 years. In 1985 he founded the nonprofit Documentary Arts, and in 1984, he says, there were no known Black photographers in any public collection in Texas. So he went looking for them in business directories.

That search led to Jasper. Alonzo Jordan was a photographer and barber there. After his death, a storm ripped the roof off his barbershop, and his widow gave his collection to Documentary Arts. Alan talks about a 1907 lynching postcard that a white woman found among her mother's things and handed to journalist Bob Ray Sanders, about shooting his last three features largely on an iPhone, and about the John Lomax recordings made in Jasper, which he calls a breakthrough for the film. "What makes them art for me is when you create this kind of tension between fact and feeling," he says.

In this episode, you'll learn

• Why Alan believes "experience is documentary"
• How a 50-pound Sony Portapak led to his first little video
• What Les Blank taught him about mentorship, money and audience
• Why he gave up ownership of his first film for 10 years
• How Documentary Arts was built to last as a nonprofit
• How he found Black photographers missing from Texas collections
• Why the people of Jasper had a say in the film's title
• Why the film has no narrator, and how he and his editor write it together
• How he shoots features on an iPhone
• How Library of Congress recordings shaped the film's music

Questions and answers

What is Quiet Voices in a Noisy World about?

Alan Govenar's documentary is about Black volunteers in Jasper, Texas, many in their 70s and 80s, who are reclaiming their community's history. It sets their work against Jasper's long history of racial violence, including the 1998 murder of James Byrd Jr. Alan says the film covers about 30 years of his work there and ends in hope, because of the resilience of the people who live there.

Who was Alonzo Jordan?

Alonzo Jordan was a Black photographer and barber in Jasper, Texas, and he's part of the subject of the film. Alan Govenar says Jordan was a church elder and a Prince Hall Mason who understood photography as a way to bolster self-esteem. After his death, a storm ripped the roof off his barbershop, and his widow gave the collection to Documentary Arts, which is now giving the digitized photos back to Jasper.

What is the Texas African American Photography Archive?

Alan Govenar and his wife, artist Kaleta Doolin, founded the Texas African American Photography Archive in 1995, when it became clear there wasn't an institution that could handle the endangered collections that had been given to Documentary Arts. He says the archive holds 60,000 images, and the goal is to place it in an institution that will make it accessible to the public. "This is all about visual literacy," he says.

How do you fund a documentary through a nonprofit?

Alan Govenar founded Documentary Arts in 1985 as an umbrella for his work, so he could apply for grants. By design, he says, he was never its full-time executive director. He and everyone else who works for it are contract employees, and projects ebb and flow. Films made with grants through Documentary Arts are copyrighted to the nonprofit, which he hopes can be a sustainable model.

How did Les Blank help Alan Govenar make Stoney Knows How?

Alan says that after several missteps he went looking for someone he admired, and that was Les Blank. Les shot the film, lent Alan the money to finish it, and premiered it with two of his own films at Film Forum in 1981. Alan gave up all ownership for 10 years, then paid back enough to own half. The film has now been in distribution for 40 years.

Can you shoot a documentary on an iPhone?

Alan Govenar says his last three features were shot largely on his iPhone. It works for him because it isn't intrusive and the picture quality is great, as long as you understand its limits. For Quiet Voices in a Noisy World he also had a cameraman he has worked with in France come for Juneteenth, plus a local cameraman he has worked with for many years.

Where can I watch Quiet Voices in a Noisy World?

First Run Features distributes the film. Screenings and viewing options are listed on quietvoicesinanoisyworld.org.

Chapters

Times match the YouTube video.

• 0:00 Alan Govenar on Quiet Voices
• 3:50 A Writer Becomes a Filmmaker
• 7:50 Les Blank and Stoney Knows How
• 13:02 Building Documentary Arts
• 17:30 Black Photographers in Texas
• 24:35 Volunteers Reclaiming Their History
• 28:40 Growing Up in Boston
• 35:08 Jasper After James Byrd Jr.
• 42:07 Why the Film Has No Narrator
• 45:08 Shooting Features on an iPhone
• 48:01 The John Lomax Recordings
• 57:28 DocuView Deja View Pick

Watch the film

Quiet Voices in a Noisy World is distributed by First Run Features. Screenings and viewing options are on the film's site, quietvoicesinanoisyworld.org. More of Alan's work is at Documentary Arts and in the online magazine Truth in Photography.

DocuView Deja View pick: Alan recommends Night and Fog (1956), Alain Resnais's 32-minute film about the Nazi camps, with narration written by camp survivor Jean Cayrol. Alan says it showed him the power of the interplay between words and pictures. See every guest pick on the DocuView Deja View page.

About the guest

Alan Govenar is a writer, folklorist, photographer and filmmaker, and the president of Documentary Arts, the nonprofit he founded in 1985. He is a 2010 Guggenheim Fellow, has made more than 20 documentary films and has published about 30 books, among them Stoney Knows How: Life as a Tattoo Artist, Osceola: Memories of a Sharecropper's Daughter and Stompin' at the Savoy. His film Stoney Knows How, made with Les Blank, was shown at the Museum of Modern Art. With his wife, artist Kaleta Doolin, he founded the Texas African American Photography Archive in 1995. He also writes musicals, including Texas in Paris, starring Tony Award winner Lillias White. Alan's bio

Related conversations

For more on building a film from photographs and found material, hear Archival Footage: Why Use Home Movies? with Phil Maher. And hear how music and sound bring still photographs to life in Ken Burns: Making the Past Come Alive, The American Buffalo.

About Documentary First

Documentary First is a weekly podcast about the people behind documentaries and how the work changed them. Host Christian Taylor, director of the award-winning The Girl Who Wore Freedom, talks with filmmakers, distributors, entertainment lawyers, actors and more, from Ken Burns and PBS American Masters creator Susan Lacy to first-timers, across nearly 300 conversations. Each week brings one of two formats: a long-form conversation with the people behind films for HBO, Netflix, PBS and independent film, or The Deep Dive, where Christian takes one insight from a recent conversation and follows it wherever it leads. Listen Notes ranks the show in the top 5% of all podcasts worldwide. New episodes every week.

Follow the show | Support on Patreon

This episode is sponsored by Virgil Films Entertainment. Learn more at virgilfilms.com.

Full transcript

Christian: Hi everybody, welcome to Documentary First. This is Christian Taylor. I am a documentary filmmaker and this is the podcast where we like to talk about all things documentary filmmaking. And today I'm super happy to have an incredibly talented documentary filmmaker with me today who has a long and distinguished career in this field, over 44 years actually. And his name is ⁓ Alan and he is with us all the way from where are you Alan?

Alan Govenar: currently in Texas.

Christian: Texas. He's established himself as an award-winning filmmaker and photographer known for elevating overlooked American stories through films, books and exhibitions. His upcoming slate is really exceptional and includes the world premiere of Seeing Progress, The Struggle for Change in Jasper, Texas. And that's one thing we're going to talk about today. New book releases like Maude Stevens Wagner, The Mona Lisa of American Tattoo and the major exhibition Everyday Culture. seven projects of documentary arts. Alan is also a 2010 Guggenheim Fellow with more than 20 documentary films, over 40 published works of fiction and nonfiction, and an artistic reach spanning stage works and pivotal archives of African-American photography. What makes him stand out is not just the breadth of his work, but is a dedication to capturing stories often pushed to the margins. His initiatives like the museum street culture and documentary arts continue to inspire dialogue and community engagement. He's also connected to a vibrant audience of film and photography enthusiasts, historians and art professionals, nearly 500 strong across his network. And so here, think this is a retrospective, this is a film, a retrospective week at cinema village. Is that coming up or has that already happened?

Alan Govenar: Now it's coming up November 14th to 20th and this will be the world premiere. The title of the film that you reference, Seeing Progress, the title has evolved as the concept has grown and the film is now called Quiet Voices in a Noisy World, The Struggle for Change in Jasper, Texas. And the title for this film,

Christian: Yes, so that's. Okay.

Alan Govenar: was one that was generated through my ideas and through the dialogues of the people I was documenting. And ultimately, since it was about them, I wanted them to have a kind of veto power on what the title became. And this current title has great appeal because they are people with quiet voices who are making a huge difference in their world.

Christian: Yes. All right, everybody welcome, Allen Governor. Allen, thank you so much for all the work that you have been doing. Can you talk to me a little bit about your, you know, entree into this field, to this work and how you started a little bit? Our audience really does, ⁓ is interested in how to get going in this business and how to ⁓ make a career of working in documentary films. So talk to us a little bit about how you got started.

Alan Govenar: For me, over the years, my work has grown organically. And documentary, for me, has a multifaceted meaning and meanings. So the arc of my growth begins when I was a teenager. When I was 17, I started writing poetry. When I was 18, I started my first book. At the time it was a poem, became a story, and finally it was published as a novel this last spring, 52 years later. And it's a novel called Come Round Right. And it's a novel that's based on true events. It's set in the fictional past of 1970 and the fictional present of 1971. to coming of age story.

Christian: Well, so never give up on what you've started. It's the moral there.

Alan Govenar: And so for me, experience is documentary. What we live every day is in some sense, documentary. It's filtering our experience into different media. So my first media was poetry, stories, fiction. I later started writing plays. The joy for me is in the making. And I love exploring different media, not just for the sake of the medium, but as a response to what I'm experiencing. And so the choice of medium has always been driven by the subject matter. And while I take great pleasure in inventing stories, I love hearing other people's and so much of my work, whether it be oral histories or works that I do in musical theater. films, photographs, that's what I'm trying to bring forth. So it is this view, in some sense it's like a kaleidoscope.

Christian: And so how were you able to get to a place where you could ⁓ make a living off of this, you know, passion and art that you were drawn to and called to?

Alan Govenar: Well, I did a lot of different things along the way. initially, I started writing magazine articles and newspaper articles. And as my ambitions and aspirations grew, I needed to find a way to travel. So I started writing travel articles. I also started working in radio. and doing little radio shows. And I pursued a career with the thought that I was going to become a college professor. So I had been a teacher in university and junior colleges. And I eventually was able to get a PhD in 1984. By then, my first book was published, Stony Knows How Life as a Tattoo Artist, and my first film premiered at Film Forum in New York City. It was a film that I made while I was teaching at an art college in Ohio, and I received my first NEA grant.

Christian: So how did you go from just writing into, okay, I'm just gonna make this into a film? That's not often the jump that you make, know, just from, okay, I'm gonna make a film without having the knowledge of how to do that.

Alan Govenar: Well, I went through, I will say, different film crews, because I really didn't know how to do it. When I was getting my master's degree in Austin in 1974, 75, there was a sociology professor who had one of these Sony Porta Packs. And, you know, it was portable, but it weighed about 50 pounds. It was in a huge backpack. And I had been writing about tattooing, working on this book about this hunchback dwarf tattoo artist, Stoney Sinclair. And I was in a graduate seminar and I got the, you know, talked to this professor and he let me borrow this equipment. And I took it to San Antonio. and I did my first little movie. In a way, it was like an actuality movie because I didn't move around much. It didn't have much of a tripod and was not. It was a little unwieldy. I made a little video about Honest Charlie. So it was interested in the form. And then. By the time I decided I wanted to make. a more complete film, I was teaching part-time at an art college. I was teaching humanities to art students. And the college, because of the nature of the subject matter, was skeptical about being involved. And they agreed to be the fiscal agent for my grant on the condition that they never receive a credit in the final film. So after several missteps in trying to make the movie, I decided I wanted to go the route of maybe someone who I really admire will want to get involved. And that person for me was Les Blank. And I met another filmmaker, Pacio Lane in Austin, who had worked with Les on his Chulas Fronteras movie. and Les was interested in this. Les became my mentor in filmmaking.

Christian: Yes, networking and mentoring, find whenever I ask filmmakers these questions, it often comes back to that.

Alan Govenar: And Les not only shot the film, it was edited by Paccio, but Les also lent me the money to finish it. And then he premiered it with two of his movies at Film Forum in 1981. And Vincent Camby, reviewing this whole trio of movies, gave an amazing paragraph about this film, Stony Knows How. In the following spring, it was shown as part of the new director series at MoMA. And Les continued to be an advocate for the film. And we continued to know each other for the rest of his life. And his son, Howard Blank, now distributes my short films. Les was very special. Les and I also made another short film together called Cigarette Blues. It just a six minute film that was commissioned by the Dallas Museum of Art. And so I was fortunate that I was able to meet someone, and particularly someone I totally admired. When I was in graduate school in Austin, I remembered seeing his films in unconventional places. soap Greek saloon, other places, outdoor screenings, smell around events. Les was one of a kind and he was a mentor, a colleague and a dear friend.

Christian: That is an incredible blessing. There is no question about that for sure. Now you mentioned this distributor for your short films. What is that company called? Because a lot of people ask me where they can distribute short films and I don't have a good answer for them.

Alan Govenar: Well, it's Les Blank films and it's run by Howard Blank, but I'm not sure to the extent to which he distributes other films than Les's films. you know, he distributes mine because I worked with Les. So I really don't know that much about that, but it is, it's very difficult to get your work into distribution. ⁓ And even with the making of that first film,

Christian: Okay. I see. Yeah.

Alan Govenar: I ended up giving up all ownership of that film for 10 years. 10 years later, I was able to pay back the money to get 50 % ownership in this movie. And so it was challenging. But flash forward, that film has been in distribution now for 40 years. The book that I did on Stony was just published in its 40th anniversary edition. It was worth all the effort, for sure.

Christian: Yeah, sounds like it. So, and the hopes for your works when you think about, you know, what you hope people will take away just from all of the things that you've done. You had a huge breadth of works, be it written or visual. You know, is it, is there a monetary hope for return? Is it a change in culture? What are your main goals for the works that you do?

Alan Govenar: Well, that's also evolved organically. And so I've made a living doing a number of different things. And so in part, I learned that from Les. I mean, Les, you know, had all kinds of merchandise and posters and t-shirts and mugs. you know, he understood his audience. But as he told me, probably from a financial standpoint, he did the best when he was doing personal appearances, to some extent. And I've had broadcast documentaries and in 1985, I started an organ, the nonprofit called Documentary Arts. And Documentary Arts was founded to present new perspectives on historical issues, diverse cultures, to broaden public knowledge and appreciation of the arts of different cultures and all media. So documentary arts became an umbrella for my work and I was able to apply for grants. By design, I was never a full-time executive director. of Documentary Arts, which continues today. I, like everyone else who works for Documentary Arts as a contract employee, and our projects ebb and flow. And I've done projects, multimedia projects. I did two 52-part radio series that back in the day, in 91 and 92, were on over 150 stations across the country. and was very much into community radio. So obviously that world has evolved. Now we have the podcast, which is total, which is in a sense radio, but it's more in the also I think can be less perhaps, but it's something new for me. ⁓ So it was always very balanced. I didn't want to be in conflict. you know, and I didn't want to have being conflict of interest to myself. And so films that I got grants to make through documentary arts are, you know, are copyrighted to documentary arts. I want to perpetuate this in many ways. I hope that documentary arts can be a model for sustainable model of nonprofit management.

Christian: Yeah, I was very curious about it because it was actually mentioned in the film that I watched, Quiet Voices. As I recall, there was a woman in there that talked about the photography that was not documented until documentary arts had come along and began doing that. And I didn't understand who that was. And as I then began researching you, I was trying to put two and two together and it then I wondered, were you the first person that had come through there and began documenting their history there?

Alan Govenar: Well, that movie covers 30 years of work.

Christian: I noticed that. Is that 30 years of your work?

Alan Govenar: Primarily, yes. But, you know, in the context of, you know, the intense tragedy that happened in Jasper, Texas, but the earlier history of virulent racial violence in that area juxtaposed to these people in their 70s and 80s who were volunteers trying to reclaim their own history. I went to Jasper for the first time in 1996. And backing up a bit further, when I started documentary arts in 1985, in part, I had a mission to document the work of African-American photographers in Texas. I had gotten a commission in 1984, year earlier, from the Dallas Museum of Art to do a project called Living Texas Blues. that included three short films, one of which I did with Les, Cigarette Blues, and a small book and an anthology of cassette. At the same time, there was a two-volume history of Texas photography being published. And I talked to these curators who were from major institutions in the state, and they said that they didn't have any black photographers in their books because they only had time to look through existing collections, which meant that in 1984 there were no known black photographers in an existing public collection in Texas. And so I started tracking down black photographers through business directories and it became a major project of documentary arts. And our first major touring exhibition was called the Early Years of Rhythm and Blues, the photographs of Benny Joseph. and that toured over six years to 29 different venues around the United States and was presented in Europe and France and England. And it really thrust documentary arts forward. And the collection continued to grow. In 1995, after meeting with a committee of people who on the Documentary Arts Board and other professionals, it became clear that there wasn't really an institution that could really handle and process and make accessible these collections, which were endangered, that I'd been identified and that had been gifted to the nonprofit. My wife, artist Kalida Doolin and I founded the Texas African American Photography Archive in 1995. We, over subsequent years, were one of the only independent archives in the United States to be funded by the National Archives in Washington. And so we had three and a half years funding. And the last phase of it was our archivist, John Slate, working in historically Black colleges. There was a black history professor at Wiley College, the oldest black college west of the Mississippi, whose wife was from Jasper, Texas. And she knew of a widow of the local photographer who'd been her photographer, Alonzo Jordan. And a storm, he had died in the 80s and a storm had ripped off the roof of his barber shop. was also a barber. I mean, he's part of the subject of this movie. And I met with her and she gifted the collections to documentary arts. And we have over the years, we've preserved them, but just this year, we are now giving back these digitized photographs to the community of Jasper.

Christian: And I mean, I think in the movie I heard it's like over 60,000. Is that what you said?

Alan Govenar: 60,000 images in the Texas African-American Photography Archive. And so, I mean, ultimately the goal of this collection is to place it in an institution that will make it accessible to the public. This is all about visual literacy.

Christian: I mean, ugh. And, and, dude. Yeah. And to be clear, what I learned from your film was his purpose was to capture the African-American experience, the African-American life. And at that time, particularly in that area, there were no other photographers that were capturing this African-American experience. And so it's very, very rare to have that kind of enormous collection. And he would do the basic things like school photography and basketball groups and things like that. But I also saw you put in there just so many other just regular life photographs and they were really good. He was an excellent photographer.

Alan Govenar: He was an excellent photographer. I've written extensively about the idea of community photography, not only in terms of content, but in terms of the life of the photographer and his role or her role in community. So he was an elder in the church. His wife was very active in the church. He was a Prince Hall Mason. He was a community person. And so, and he understood the importance of photography as a way of bolstering the self-esteem. Over the years, there were exhibitions that I organized of his work. In 2010, 2011, there was a major exhibition at the International Center of Photography in New York. And there was a book that was published that I did called Jasper Texas, the Community Photographs of Alonzo Jordan. That year I also received the Guggenheim Fellowship to continue my work. And so for me, I'm just so grateful to have this long-term association for me with this community. And the most recent filming that we did was Juneteenth this year.

Christian: Right, and I did wonder when you started the filming, because I mean, I noticed there were a lot of 2009, you you put in there, there was some filming from 2009, and now there was filming from 2025. So.

Alan Govenar: And there were photographs from 1996.

Christian: Yes. So when did this actually, when was the film conceived and when it must have clearly was, I think you wrapped it in like June, maybe.

Alan Govenar: Well, the film was conceived in conjunction with, there's a 40 year survey of the work of documentary arts called Everyday Culture, seven projects of documentary arts. It's the Center for Photography Woodstock that opened September 20th and runs through January 11th, 2026. and I was doing a lot of work related to Jasper. There's also a book that's being published by Aperture called Kinship and Community, selection from the Texas African American Photography Archive that will be out the end of this year and the beginning of next. So there's a lot of attention. The archive in part is the photographs from the archive are also currently in an exhibition. on black photojournalism at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. So there's a lot of interest about this. And when I first went to Jasper and I met with Mrs. Jordan, she was losing her eyesight and she had her goddaughter, Emma Adams, there. And I was glad because I was concerned about I wanted to help, but I also didn't want to intrude. didn't. And so having Emma there was great. And so most recently when we were filming at Juneteenth, Emma was there. But her, I think it might be her brother-in-law, George Adams, who's someone I've gotten to know over the last few years. And George and his group. ⁓ volunteers are totally amazing. And when I saw what they were doing, I mean, I kept telling people this is a national story. This is an amazing story of a group of people, African Americans who've come out of this very tough world and place became successful going back to the community where they all, many claim ancestry from ⁓ You know, the slaves of that period, there's a clear sense of kinship that people feel and they're doing all these different quiet things. They're putting up roadside markers. They're building memorials to the segregated school. mean, where the Juneteenth celebration was held was the site of the Beech Grove Elementary School, which was a segregated elementary school in Jasper, which Like many segregated schools were torn down by the city and the land was sold to someone who was white. Well, this one African-American who had done well came back to Jasper and he and a few people bought it back to the black community. And they feel that their quiet voices, they know they live in a complicated world and what they're doing on a local level for me. as a model for America, particularly during these difficult times.

Christian: Well, in some sense, so I am so honored in a sense and admire what you're doing. I grew up in the segregated South. I grew up in South Mississippi and I grew up when schools were segregated. I remember colored and white bathrooms. But then when I was 13, I went to a boarding school in New York where things were very integrated and I got a very different education and a view of life and was able to look back at sort of my roots and have been mourning ever since what's been happening, what happened and what was happening where I grew up. And it has been very difficult for me to figure out what can I do? And truthfully, what I see you doing is elevating, empowering, shining a light on what the community is doing on their own, which truthfully is the most powerful thing that can happen for them to take ownership of their history so that nothing can happen to it. It won't be forgotten no matter what another oppressive community does. they will have that. And that's what I was encouraged about by seeing your film was, you you have these, you know, gentlemen who went to this high school that they absolutely loved and they don't want it to be forgotten. So they built the entrance and the memorial. And, you know, it crushed me to hear that the service members that served in World War II or in Vietnam names weren't even on the other wall, you know, memorial wall. So they had to build their own wall and put the African-American names that served on that wall. mean, it's just, to me, it's just egregious. And so I love what you're doing. I do wonder how did this become a passion for you? What was it and when was it, did this begin?

Alan Govenar: Well, have always grown up in a mixed world. I grew up in the inner city of Boston. I grew up in Dorchester. living in that community, which was largely Eastern European, Ukrainian, Russian. It took me years until going to Europe to realize that I was living in a European kind of neighborhood where people spoke Yiddish on the street. And it was during the 1950s and there was lots of change happening in that era. There were lots of blacks moving up from the South. There was lots of racial tension that was brewing in this neighborhood. And during the course of my growing up, there was intense racial violence. And however, for me, I was fortunate. I was blessed to have parents who were socially progressive. And so I may have felt this undertone. of racism among some of my relatives, never with my parents. My father had aspired to be a writer and he was very active in interfaith work. He was a volunteer, a tireless volunteer, community volunteer. wanted to, he was very into helping first time kids who were criminal offenders. He was, you know, very much about that. And he loved jazz music. So the first, you know, I had a little, you know, the first portable record player we had, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Charlie Parker, those, that was the sound I grew up with. So, you know, I've written a number of books about blues and jazz over the years, but it also affected my attitude toward wanting to know the other. and how do we get to know people who are different from us and have a meaningful dialogue? Because I saw how terrible things became in the neighborhood where I grew up. It was unconscionable acts of violence on both sides, all sides. And a lot of my work has explored that. There's a musical that I wrote called Texas in Paris, which was based on a concert that I had organized in Paris, France in 1989. And it's essentially as a musical, which became an off-Broadway show that starred the Tony Award winner, Lilius White, and then we did it in Paris, is basically about two elderly people. One, an old black woman from the South who sings acapella spirituals, never been on an airplane before. And this other person who's about her age, a white cowboy who has a little ranch in West Texas. These were the real people I brought in 89, but then played by actors years later. And it's basically, wrote it after Ferguson, and it was basically about people, the racism that exists among people who live in isolation of one another. And so this, these two elderly people who are very polite to each other. Yes, Ms. Mays. Yes, Mr. John. They perform on stage together, but they can't really understand what the French people are saying even when they speak English. And so they're forced to have a dialogue and they end up talking about race, which is something they never ever thought they probably would ever talk about. And they bump heads and they realize the preconceptions that they've had of each other. And they finally, in the end, come together. But that's the messaging of much of my work. I have a new musical now called Stomping at the Savoy that's based on a children's book of mine. The other musical, Texas in Paris, The Old Black Woman, is the subject of a children's book that I did called Oceola, Memories of a Sharecropper's Daughter. Oceola was also the subject of a movie. So often people I meet appear in different forms of expression because I know them for so many years. So my current musical, which is called Stompin' the Savoy is based on another children's book of mine called Stompin' at the Savoy, the Story of Norma Miller. And it's about Norma Miller, who was one of the first generation of whitey's Lindy hoppers at the Savoy Ballroom. And the book is about this girl coming of age and the musical focuses on Norma at age 16 and three months of her life. The book for the musical has been written by me and fader Michelle Scott, the young African American playwright who really has helped bring this to a bigger presence, but it had its world premiere in April, May at Delaware theater company and we're hoping to do it in New York next year.

Christian: Wow, congratulations. That's incredible.

Alan Govenar: But once again, the story relates to aspects of history that a lot of people, perhaps for whatever reason, aren't aware of. So Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, the hallmark of the Savoy, was that it was the only dance hall in New York City and maybe the nation where blacks, whites, and anybody could dance. together on the dance floor.

Christian: I didn't know that.

Alan Govenar: And so it's an important message, but it's also the message of it's the love of the art, the love of the dance. It's the girl becoming a young woman and actualizing her dream.

Christian: Yeah. That sounds beautiful. I'd love to see that. I want to get back to the film that we're talking about and one of the things that stuck with me so prominently, know, talking about things that a lot of people do not know. One of the things that put Jasper, Texas on the map was a particularly gruesome murder of a young black man, James Byrd, is that his name? James Byrd?

Alan Govenar: James Byrd Jr. in 1998.

Christian: Right. And, ⁓ he was just randomly picked up by three white guys and, chained to the back of a truck and driven through the woods until he was decapitated and killed and left by a cemetery. Correct? Am I right? And, ⁓ and, you know, it was, it put Jasper on the map as what Jasper that's Jasper. And I think, you know, now they are Jasper's trying to demonstrate that it is more than that. but it does have a big stamp on the town. one of, one of the things that stuck with me is you have a, I'm not sure what his role is. You'll have to remind me, but he seems like, a historian or, you, you use him in that role.

Alan Govenar: Well.

Christian: He talks about a photograph that was sent to him of four young black men who were being hung. And it was the real photograph, but it was also a photograph that was put five.

Alan Govenar: It was five African-American men, African-American men in a dogwood tree. And the person, there's a poem associated with this.

Christian: And there's a poem. And I'd like to read it. It's called The Dogwood Tree. This is only the branch of a dogwood tree, an emblem of white supremacy, a lesson once taught in the pioneer school that this is a land of white man's rule. The red man once in an early day was told by the whites to mend his way. The Negro now by eternal grace must learn to stay in the Negro's place. In the sunny South, the land of the free, let the white supreme forever be. Let this a warning to all Negroes be, or they'll suffer the fate of the dogwood tree." And this was what year.

Alan Govenar: This was in 1907. And what's remarkable about this postcard coming to light, I mean, it's published in my book, Jasper, Texas, that was published in 2011 for the first time. But in the film, it sets the context of this history of virulent racial violence. And... The person who tells the story of receiving the card, Bob Ray Sanders, was a pioneering African American journalist in Dallas and Fort Worth. He was started as an NPR reporter. He had his own new show on PBS. And at that time that he received this card, he was a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. And there was an elderly white woman who called him. and said that she had found this card in her belongings, the mother's belongings. And she remembered that her mother had given it to her as a child. And she was horrified, clearly, this realization that clearly, I don't know anything about her. I don't think Bob Ray knows anything about her, but she did the responsible thing. She felt compelled to bring this to a black journalist because it needed to be made public. That is the context out of which James Byrd's lynching happens many years later. So it makes for, you know, the movie in the end is hopeful because it's about this amazing resilience. of the people who live there who are really spearheading something very important in terms of their dignity, the dignity of their community. And they really want to Jasper to a point where meaningful social change can occur. And in the movie, you see that this is happening. Given all this context, the white

Christian: Well, yeah.

Alan Govenar: You know, the County Museum in the center of Jasper now has an exhibition about the killing of James Byrd. They have a section on photographs from my book about Lonzo Jordan. They have another section on freedom colonies. So it's a step forward. And not only are they doing this related to social and historical awareness, they started a scholarship fund. They've given $200,000 or more to black kids from this area to go to college.

Christian: Yeah, that was amazing. That was amazing. I just, I agree with you. I even the mother of James Byrd who you interviewed, she's such a strong figure. You can hear.

Alan Govenar: ⁓ she's incredible in the way the family created this foundation for racial healing.

Christian: Yeah, you see her strength. mean, you she talks about how the the headstone or the grave of her son was defaced three times after his death. And ultimately they had to put a gate or a fence just around his grave. But she's not feeling sorry for herself or in, you know, just demoralized. She's strong and realizing that this cannot defeat us. We must continue to work for. reconciliation.

Alan Govenar: Exactly. And that point of view is echoed 15 years later. And the other person who recounts what happened on that night and his telling of the story is chilling. But at the same time where he ends up is that very he's his commitment to going forward. You know, these are people who have endured a lot and unconscionable trauma.

Christian: Yeah. Let me.

Alan Govenar: and they are very forward thinking.

Christian: Let me ask you a little bit about the, ⁓ just the way you made the film. So your movie, you made a conscious decision, ⁓ obviously, not to have it narrated at all. The people themselves told the story. It's just, you interviewed them and you wove it together with their interviews. There's really no talking heads. Talk to me about those decisions. and why you chose to make the film the way you did.

Alan Govenar: Well, my principal collaborator in making the movie is my editor, Jason Johnson Spinos. And Jason and I have worked on several features together. Plus, Jason's edited many of my... short films. Interesting enough, Jason was born the year I started documentary arts. But he is, we have an active and fluid dialogue. So in a sense, we're writing the film together. And I think we feel that way because it's a sequencing and Jason is immensely talented that way. And this film was has many different layers to it and to weave them together to not lose its emotive power. Because while I've made television documentaries, and maybe this gets shown on television, but I'm not sure, it's not a conventional documentary because

Christian: Yeah, no, it's not. And I was wondering what your hope was going to be for this film because I was struggling to see where this would fit in or, know, because for me, it's so focused on Jasper and the experience of Jasper. I can see it being for Jasper, you know, and, you know, in a historical society. or like a historical museum or something like that. What is your hope for? Where do you see it fitting in?

Alan Govenar: Well, for me, it comes at a very important time. And I mean, for me, the film... I'm hoping we'll have some indie theater life, which many of my movies have over the years. And so it's a movie that... is about what we're living through right now. And it takes a very proactive view on what's possible. So what I would like is to see people watch the movie and to come away feeling hope. And that's, I think, a very important message in today's world. So. As time has gone on in the making of movies and with documentary arts, I make very low budget movies, relatively speaking. mean, this a lot of this was shot with my iPhone and, you know, I did have a cameraman who I've worked with in France. came for Juneteenth. But other than that, and then there's another local cameraman that I've worked with for many years. But my last three features. have been largely shot with my iPhone. And it works well for me. And it's a way it's not too intrusive. The pictorial quality is great. It can't do smartphone cinema if done well, understands the limitations of what it is. You can only go so far with it. So I make it, you know, it's interesting. think a lot about these days about the actuality movies of Lumiere and Edison, because I, you know, I'm constantly shooting little 10, 15 second, and then sometimes, you know, if it becomes an interview or a conversation, but it becomes more conversation. So for me, at this point in my life, I love me, you know, I've made higher budget documentaries, but I love making lower budget documentaries that we'll see. I'm hoping it becomes, you know, an indie favorite. I have no idea. And I don't really think about that other than I know there are people who will enjoy watching it or want to watch it. So for me, I'm in it for the long term. It's like my first film on Stoney. It's 40. some years later, 44 years later, and it's still in distribution. People still want it. And ironically, people still want it as a DVD.

Christian: Right. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm finding my film, you know, it does appeal to older generations and they do still have DVD players. So I am selling a lot of DVDs. So yeah, huh. So my film is called The Girl Who Wore Freedom. It's the story of D-Day, but from the perspective of the French. And so it's a very different take about, you know, a D-Day and what they lived through on that day.

Alan Govenar: Hahaha\! What's your movie? What's your film? Sounds good. I've worked a lot in France. I am because I'm my next feature is about Anne Morgan, who was the youngest daughter of JP Morgan, but she's not as well known in this country, but she was the World War One era. He was a major humanitarian and I've got a book about her and I'm it's hard to make a movie about her.

Christian: Yeah, yeah, you might be really interested in this film. of it is in French. Okay. ⁓ Yes, yes, yes, I've heard of her. Yeah.

Alan Govenar: And so once you get into those realms of history, because we live in a world that doesn't pay a lot of attention to history. So how does that work? You know, for me, a breakthrough in this movie is the music. mean, when I discovered that John Lomax had done these recordings in Jasper, it just, the music is what that's

Christian: ⁓ let's talk about that. Yes. Ugh.

Alan Govenar: I mean, what we're talking about sounds like a really serious movie, but the counterpoint of this music to what you're seeing and the way we're using cataloging cards and then, I mean, the music just takes it to another realm.

Christian: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. have to say that that was my favorite part. And just to give a little bit of, you know, explanation about that, John Lomax, and you know, he was a white man. He was a white man that decided what years did he go back there? ⁓

Alan Govenar: Well, I mean, there's a long story there about John Lomax. mean, he was, he had been a banker. He loved black music because he grew up around it. And, you know, when he was a kid, but then the stock market crash came. He's a major figure. A lot to discuss about John Lomax. He was from, he was from Texas and he did these recordings. He was collecting.

Christian: Where was he born or where did he grow up? Texas, okay. He traveled around to find soul music.

Alan Govenar: And his son, Alan Lomax, is more well known than him. But in any case, John Lomax made these recordings in East Texas, which mirror the life and places that the movie's about. so it just became, that's what really, when I discovered this songbook, because a lot of my musicals and other things that I do, this is a songbook that is largely unknown.

Christian: I agree. Yeah. Yeah.

Alan Govenar: It's just such a remarkable array of music and it just, it carries you through. And so it creates what I want in these movies. What makes them art for me is when you create this kind of tension between fact and feeling, you know, that I want people to feel something. This isn't just, this is not an information movie in a conventional sense. I mean, you learn about this, but you're carried in different places because then the music runs longer so that, you know, it affects you that way.

Christian: Well, and what I loved was you were able to find descendants of the slaves that sang the music that was in the Library of Congress and the photograph of those people that sang the song. I mean, that to me just was a beautiful marriage of, I mean, just it was.

Alan Govenar: great. I'm glad you like that. For me, that's what really makes it into.

Christian: Yeah, I mean. Yeah, that was genius. That and the fact that John Lomax, I mean, I just couldn't believe that he, how amazing it was that he would go around and record those lost songs that no one would ever know existed. Just what brilliance to do that. And, you know, I loved that you exposed those. I would have never known they existed. I want to know more. I want to hear more. I think my question about that, you know, I went back in one of my films, I, there's a French woman who made a relationship with a GI who sang a song, Oh, Mexico Way from 1939, which I thought was nothing. And, you know, ended up having to pay money to have this song in my film. Did you have to pay anything for these or was it all fair use because it was in the Library of Congress?

Alan Govenar: Well, these are the Library of Congress. I mean, they're available. They were intended to be such. I mean, I'm very interested in obscure song books. My musical, Stomp of the Savoy, has some musical surprises in it. My movie, Down in Dallas Town, about the 60th anniversary of the assassination of JFK is full of music and a lot of it. And my musical Texas in Paris that I've been talking about is not a single song in that show that was composed or published later than 1905. So I like going into sheet music and I like finding recordings like this because they are so emotive. So I'm really, I'm so delighted we're talking about that because I feel like it's

Christian: Wow. Wow. Yeah, it was.

Alan Govenar: It's all been very serious. And this is something about this music that's playful. And that's what creates that emotional energy.

Christian: I know. I just, it's amazing to me. It had to be that they needed that kind of lift in their life to.

Alan Govenar: Well, never, the people who recorded knew nothing about recording. Maybe they'd heard the radio, you know, those recordings where people just.

Christian: But you know. But they had the songs prior. These were songs you knew they were art.

Alan Govenar: right. They were heir to these musical traditions. Yes.

Christian: Right, they had been singing them in the fields when they were working. They had made up these songs, I'm sure of it. And they, I think it was to keep them going, you know, or to entertain themselves and their families in the evening. And you can hear that this is, you know, and music to the black community is life. It brings them life. I mean, I've worshiped in their churches and I...

Alan Govenar: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, truly.

Christian: I've become so close to that community and I've seen how important music is to them. Right now I'm in Chicago, but I spend so much time in South Mississippi. That's where all my family is. ⁓ And so I just, I could just hear the joy in their voices as they sang those songs. I'm sure they were delighted to be recorded.

Alan Govenar: Where are you based? For this group... They were, there is that joy, you know, and it, drives home further. This whole message of what these people are doing in today's world. It's like they're doing it because they believe in it. And that's, you know.

Christian: Yeah. Yeah. And these people were happy to show you everything that they did, know, every building, every museum, every, you know, they were all wearing their t-shirts.

Alan Govenar: Well, an ongoing relationship. I there's still, you know, when I was making the movie, were times it was some of this group and I would joke with them, I'm 73, but George is 86. And it was the oldest film crew that I'd ever had. These wonderful people. And we have, you know, it's an ongoing dialogue. So this has really been. Terrific. I've really enjoyed talking with you. I think we could talk for hours. But please let me know when you're going to edit this in some shape or form.

Christian: Yeah. Yes. Good. ⁓ not really. We put it all out there just like it is. So the last question I have for you before I let you go is I always ask my filmmakers, is there anything that I haven't asked you or that people haven't asked you that you really would love to share?

Alan Govenar: Okay, all right. ⁓ I'm sure there are other things, but I've enjoyed sharing what I have today. And let's make the best of the moment. Let's hope for a better world.

Christian: Yeah, well, is there any way, I mean, have been such a prolific artist and you have so much out there. If people are interested in finding any of the things that you've talked about, how can they find more of your work?

Alan Govenar: Well, the best place to go is documentaryarts.org. There's also an online magazine that we do called truth in photography.org. And then the film, Quiet Voices in a Noisy World has a website that is quietvoicesinnoisyworld.org. And the film is going to premiere at Cinema Village in New York City. November 14th, alongside a retrospective of 12 of my other movies, between the 14th and the 20th. But there'll be several screenings of Quiet Voices. So I'm hoping your listenership will want to come see the movie. And if not, I'm sure it will be available online at some point in the future.

Christian: Wow. Well, I will say we have listeners in New York, absolutely. And I will tell you, my favorite distributor of all listens to this podcast. He's actually a sponsor of this podcast. It's Virgil Films. They distribute my film, The Girl Who Wore Freedom, and ⁓ they are a phenomenal distributor. And I recommend you reaching out to them for sure and giving them a shot and making sure that you talk with them. I recommend everyone does.

Alan Govenar: That's great.

Christian: So yeah, it's been a delight talking with you.

Alan Govenar: Well, that's great. I have a wonderful distributor too, for my features, first run features in New York. And so that's great. And I really appreciate being on your show today.

Christian: Yeah, thank you. Last thing, we have this segment called DocuVu Deja Vu. And we always ask people, do you have a documentary film that you would like to recommend our viewers watch?

Alan Govenar: Well, for me, it's not a new film, but I think a must see is Night and Fog, Alan Renee, Alan Renee.

Christian: That's fine. Doesn't have to be. Night and fog, who is that by? And how did we find it?

Alan Govenar: let me check and tell you, I'll just look real quickly. It's on, I think it's on Amazon Prime, but it's on a lot of different streaming channels.

Christian: Okay. Well, you guys can look on just, yeah, you can look on Just Watch. Just Watch is an app that I have. Yeah.

Alan Govenar: There we go, you know more than I do. But it's a 1956 film. It was controversial when it's made. I think if you watch that movie, which is basically a Holocaust survivor taking you through a death camp without the vestiges, the remains of a death camp. But the monologue.

Christian: Ooh, okay.

Alan Govenar: that he delivers is so powerful. And in some sense, it's had a great impact on me as a filmmaker because it showed the power of the interplay between words and pictures. And it's a very important movie, particularly as we're living in a time where we must fight the politics of erasure.

Christian: Well, thank you. appreciate that recommendation tremendously. I appreciate your time. I appreciate your breadth of your career and sharing that with us. And we'd to have you breath.

Alan Govenar: Well, thanks a lot. Really appreciate you.

Christian: Take care that. We're gonna stop recording, but please do not close your computer. So we don't wanna lose what's happening now. Okay. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to documentary first where we believe everybody has a story to tell and you can be the one to tell it. Bye everybody.