A  timely and necessary film - exploration of the civil rights leader, black radical and Pan-Africanist on the drama of his life and the world in which he lived, the film will take us on a visually stimulating and dramatic journey. The film will be provocative, exciting and, most of all, enlightening – appealing both to the generation of Stokely and his children but also to a younger generation who are not familiar with Stokely’s extraordinary story and the wider questions his life serves to tell and provoke.

 

Why Have the BBC Decided To Commission This Film Now? Note from BBC Arena and Arts Commissioner, Mark Bell

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“I am interested in the notion of diaspora and man’s migration through history looking for the right ideology. Stokely encapsulates this. It’s a film about belonging to tribes, places and continents. It is vital to make this film now because the people from that time are still alive, but only just - some are pushing 90. It’s important to have a record of this time at the time people
are considering where they come from and where they should reside. This is the time to tell that story through first person narrative.
 

I am also interested in seeing where Stokely sits in the world of Trump, Brexit, Europe. I also
want to explore the failure of the pan African ideal. There is also a fascinating cultural story here: the 60s and 70s were an era where radical politics combined with a new focus on writing, fashion, art, expression. There is a story of radical black American identity beyond the American border to be unpicked.”