NOTE FROM CHINA | Love Cemetery Doc

Dear Friends and Supporters of the Resurrecting Love Project,

Some of you know about our efforts down through the years to bring attention to the struggle for a Black descendent community in East Texas to regain access to their ancestral burial ground named Love Cemetery. Our documentary film grew out of the Love Cemetery book I wrote about this small community. Our film shows the hidden heartbreak that lies under the larger effort going on countrywide today in 2022 to address racism, reconciliation, and the possibilities of reparations.

We started shooting Resurrecting Love in 2003 after meeting two powerful African American women elders in East Texas, Doris Vittatoe, the President of the Love Cemetery Burial Association, and Nuthel Britton (d.), the Keeper of Love, who always kept the deed to Love Cemetery in her purse.

I was in Texas visiting family in Marshall, 30 miles from the Louisiana border when I met them in a church basement gathering. They asked me to join their fight to honor the Ancestors they were suddenly cut off from in the backlash to the 1960’s Civil Rights movement that continues to this day.

Black cemeteries have been cut up, paved over, used for cattle grazing, turned into playgrounds and parking lots, and drowned in man-made reservoirs. As one Black preacher put it, “How can you draw strength from your roots when you don’t know who your people are or where you came from?” A Black midwife in Marshall told me that she was one of the few people who knew who was Black and who was “white” in the community.

We are ready to finish our film that was provoked by this story: we intend to complete a rough cut to screen to audiences around the country for fundraising purposes, to re-view the 170 hours of footage and make further selections, to shoot new interviews, to add a narration (hopefully voiced by someone like Viola Davis), to clear the rights for the archive footage and music, to professionally mix the sound and color correct the picture. And to do the outreach necessary to provide audiences when we finally reach film festivals, theaters, television screens and classrooms.

To do this we need $110, 000. We are seeking foundation help, but we also need to show strong community support. Please listen to the newest addition to our producing team.

Aldo is presently a Professor of Theater Arts at Santa Clara University.

Or, if you'd like to know more before you contribute, please read on.

Here's an excerpt from the film that discusses the importance of the teaching of true history:

And here's another excerpt: the community itself sharing the concept of history there at Love Cemetery.

Thank you for helping us stand against racism and for truth and reconciliation. As our country struggles with racial injustice, and states like Texas are imposing limits on how race, slavery and history can be taught, we are working hard to complete the feature length documentary Resurrecting Love.

How You Can Help:

Donate: Please give as generously as you can.

Or, if you prefer not to contribute via credit card, you can donate by check made payable to our fiscal agent: "Fractured Atlas" mailed to me China Galland, 907 Sir Francis Drake Blvd, Kentfield, CA 94904, and be sure to note "for Resurrecting Love" in the memo area.
All contributions are tax-deductible.

And in addition you can:

Make Connections: Please help link us to other donors, sponsors and investors. You may know of a private foundation or other programs that could help fund the documentary.
Get the Word Out: Share this website with others, let people know you think we are worthy. Like us on social media.

Thank you in advance for your help and support,

China Galland

writer, producer, activist

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