Urban Thought Collective

Tavis Smiley’s first film premiere’s on TV One.
Presented by Electronic Urban Report.

What do you stand for?

That’s what author/activist/broadcaster Tavis Smiley is asking via his first film, “Stand,” which premieres on TV One this Sunday.

The documentary follows Smiley and ten of his friends – scholars, students, musicians, actors, comedians, and social critics – on their six-day Tennessee road trip. The film presents unscripted dialog and debate “about race relations, politics and the legacy of the civil rights movement,” according to the film’s website.

“This is my first film,” Smiley told reporters and bloggers at a screening last week. “I do radio and TV every day, but I’m always looking for opportunities and looking for platforms to continue to tell stories that are powerful; to tell stories that are empowering; stories that are inspiring; stories that are informing.”

According to Smiley, the TV One network has been asking the celebrated author and TV personality to do a project like this for quite some time. He explained that he hadn’t really had the time to dedicate to a film, but was motivated by the moment of the Summer of 2008 to put the project together.

“I think we will always remember where we were in the Summer of 2008 because it was such a historic summer,” Smiley said. “On the one hand you had then Senator Barack Obama making his run for the primary nomination of the Democratic Party. Obama was set to make history against the backdrop of the 40th anniversary of assassination of the person who I regard as the greatest American we ever produced – that’s my own assessment – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”

Smiley took his project to the place of King’s 1964 assassination, Memphis, TN, where he invited some well-known friends to join him.

“I have a bunch of friends I spend time with that I’ve been threatening for years to basically have a camera crew follow us around.”

That crew was made up of scholar/author Cornel West, activist Dick Gregory, and academic/author Michael Eric Dyson, and singer Bebe Winans, among others.

“I thought it made sense for my Soul Patrol…

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