Carlos Javier Ortiz is a director, cinematographer and documentary photographer who focuses on urban life, gun violence, racism, poverty and marginalized communities. In 2016, Ortiz received a Guggenheim Fellowship for film/video. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. FILM: A Thousand Midnights The film marks the centennial of the beginning of the Great Migration in which six million African Americans relocated from the rural South to the cities of the North, Midwest and West from 1915 to 1970. Black migrants believed that the purported racial openness of the North would translate into more economic opportunity; however, as is the case with much of the American story, this dream remains out of reach for many.
The Economic Hardship Reporting Project presents a discussion with four of our video grantees about the process of making visual works that address important American aftermath issues, including: the Great Migration of African Americans from the South to the North; urban neglect; and the cultural conflict over abortion sparked by Roe v. Wade.
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