"The Invisible Soldiers: Unheard Voices," a 2000 documentary film about the service of African-American soldiers in World War II, will be screened for the public for free tonight, 7:00 pm, at Springfield College‘s Appleton Auditorium in the Fuller Arts Center. The film was named best documentary by the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. From one description of the film:
This powerful, award winning documentary looks at World War II through the eyes of people whose service to America has often been overlooked in the mainstream depictions of the war. The focus is on the more than one million African-American service men and women who gave their loyalty, blood, and lives to protect a country that denied them the very freedoms for which they were fighting. Their previously unheard voices are raised in interviews that speak candidly of their accomplishments under conditions of racism. Among the veterans who tell their stories in the program are unsung D-Day hero Waverly Woodson, who pulled drowning soldiers from the bloody waters; Edward Brooke, the first black U.S. senator in the 20th century and a veteran of a key Italian campaign; and Senator Daniel Inouye, who owes his life to African-American soldiers.
The filmmaker, William Smith, is Emerson College‘s first executive director of the Center for Diversity in the Communication Industries. He will be on hand for discussion and the presentation of a making-of documentary, "Remembering the Pupil of the Eye."
Smith served as a medic in Vietnam—for which he was awarded two Bronze Stars and the Combat Medic Badge—and has a doctorate in education from UMass. In 2000 he played a major role in the historic joint Congressional resolution establishing a National Day of Honor to recognize the service of African-American and other minority soldiers in World War II.
