Film Screening: RFK in the Land of Apartheid, with Larry Shore
Thursday Oct. 29 | 7:00
Russell Hall 306 (3rd floor of the library at Teachers College)
The Gottesman Libraries at Teachers College | 525 W. 120th St. | New York, NY 10027
The Film: Using never before seen archival footage, and interviews in South Africa and the United States, filmmakers Larry Shore and Tami Gold tell the unknown story of Robert Kennedy's 1966 visit to South Africa during the worst years of Apartheid. The film evokes the connections between the American Civil Rights Movement and the Anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa. The filmmakers find witness to this special moment in time through the sights and sounds of present day South Africa. A high point of the film is Kennedy's meeting with one of the unknown giants of African history - the banned President of the African National Congress, and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Chief Albert Lutuli - under house arrest in a remote rural area. We witness Kennedy publicly challenging the dominant Cold War ideology that anti-Communism, espoused by repressive regimes like that in South Africa, should be the only factor determining American foreign policy.
About Larry Shore: Dr. Larry Shore was a high school student in Johannesburg during Robert Kennedy's visit. He graduated from the University of Witwatersrand with a B.A. degree in 1971, majoring in Political Science. While at WITS he was active in NUSAS (the National Union of South African Students) and the Wilgerspruit Fellowship Center. He left South Africa in 1973 and lived in Philadelphia where he completed a Masters Degree at the University of Pennsylvania in Political Science and International Relations. From 1975 to 1979 he attended Stanford University where he received his Ph.D. degree in Communications, specializing in International Communications. Since 1980 he has been a faculty member in the Department of Film and Media Studies at Hunter College (CUNY) where he teaches a variety of media related courses and a course on South Africa and Southern Africa in the Hunter College Honors Program. In the 1980s, he was active in a number of New York based anti-apartheid organizations. He has consulted on a number of South African related films and television programs and has been interviewed about developments in South Africa on a number of TV and radio shows. With the transition underway in South Africa in 1990, he co-founded SAAO, the South African-American Organization, and served as its president for five years.
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