EASTER UPDATE: We have raised enough funds for a new bed and to fix Ann Atwater's car. We can now help her raise extra funds for her physical therapy treatment.
I met the great civil rights icon Ann Atwater last year while filming the Durham Civil Rights History Mural documentary. Ann was prominently featured on the mural alongside her old friend C.P. Ellis and I just had to meet her in person.
Ann's story, best told in the book and play BEST OF ENEMIES, is a story of justice and redemption; a story of the end of the Old South and the birth of a New South; a story that defies the imagination and forces your to be moved in the direction of justice. How a radical African American activist joined hands with a KKK member to help desegregate the Durham public school system is probably one of the greatest stories I have ever known. It's a story that still resonates today.
As I began to visit Ann on Sundays at home, or at the hospital, we quickly became friends. And friends must help each other out. Ann Atwater is in a precarious situation and she needs your help. Bed ridden for the last year she is struggling to heal and dreams of being able to get out again into the community and share her love and wisdom with a new generation of activists.
In order to heal she needs a brand new hospital bed. It needs to be wide enough for her to be able to turn and slide out of it without having to use a machine. She needs a new bed so she can stop having sores in her back. She needs a new bed so she can sleep soundly at night.
Ann Atwater needs a new bed because we need her to come back and finish the last chapter of her life the same way she fought and struggled her whole life: standing on her feet, among her people. We need to raise $3,000 in two weeks. We will raise $3,000 in two weeks! Ann Atwater has been giving and giving her whole life. It's time we give back. I will be posting videos and photos and all sorts of updates for the next two weeks. And EVERYBODY who donates will receive a personal phone call from Ann Atwater herself!
