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Playwright and actor Anna Deavere Smith is looking back at her provocative theater work in Black and Jewish America: An Interwoven History. The ongoing four-part docuseries spotlights the complex history and relationship between Black Americans and Jewish Americans.
In an exclusive clip from the series’ finale, host Henry Louis Gates, Jr. interviews the artist about Fires in the Mirrors, her theatrical illumination of the Crown Heights conflict. For the piece, she spoke to more than 100 people from across the device and performed their words verbatim.
“I wasn’t trying to bring the community together. I was trying to give the community an opportunity to talk about why they weren’t together,” says Smith in the clip, noting that she was interested in exploring the specificity of their differences. She appears in the interview alongside Tony Award-winning playwright Tony Kushner.
The clip is taken from Episode 4, which examines the shifting Black and Jewish relationship from the 1970s onward, exploring political gains, global tensions, rising hate, and the enduring lessons of coalition building and solidarity. Tune in to PBS at 10:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday, February 17 to watch the finale, following the airing of Episode 3 at 9:00.
In Black and Jewish America, Gates, the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University and director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, speaks with dozens of scholars, activists, religious leaders, and writers about the kinship between the two groups, defined by powerful moments of solidarity and painful episodes of division. Other notable participants include actor Billy Crystal, Al Sharpton, David Remnick, the children of noted civil rights figures Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Rabbi Abraham Joshua, Rabbi Israel Dresner, and more.
Photo Credit: PBS
