DVD only
90 minutes, 2000 Director: Tod S. Lending An online FACILITATOR GUIDE is available for this title.
ABOUT THE FILM
CRITICAL COMMENT
"Legacy is a powerful documentary that captures the effects of living in high-risk social environments. It also reveals, perhaps as well as any other film or written document, the incredible struggles of an inner-city ghetto family to achieve success against overwhelming odds."
William Julius Wilson, Harvard University
"Legacy is a marvelous piece of work. It captures the dynamics of human resilience with rare beauty and honesty. It generates insight and compassion in anyone ready to see it with open heart and mind. Legacy provides a rare window into the complex psychological, social and spiritual trauma that comes with violent death, and demonstrates the healing possibilities of love."
2000 Academy Award Nominee, Best Documentary Feature
2001 National Emmy Nominee for Best Documentary
The politically charged term "welfare family" takes on a human face in Legacy, a remarkable new documentary on the struggle of three generations of African American women to free themselves from welfare and poverty. In the tradition of Hoop Dreams, Legacy offers an intimate, unflinching but ultimately inspirational portrait of an inner-city family passing through dramatic changes over a five-year period. This longitudinal study makes visible the vital inter-connections between such hot button issues as urban violence, racism, substance abuse, unemployment, female-headed families, childcare, low self-esteem and public housing.
Legacy is, in a sense, the story of a charismatic character we never meet, Terrell Collins, a 14-year-old boy living in Chicago's Henry Horner Homes, one of America's most notorious public housing projects. Despite the fact that his mother was a crack addict working the streets since she was 12, Terrell became an honor student with a scholarship to a private high school. On the day filming was to begin on a documentary about "ghetto success stories," a classmate fatally shot Terrell and the documentary was inevitably transformed into Terrell's legacy, the inspiring story of the unexpected aftermath of his tragic death.
The families surprising transitions are chronicled through the eyes of Nickcole, Terrell's cousin, who eventually becomes the first family member to graduate from high school and go on to college. Alaissa, Nickcole's mother, after losing job after job, finally finds and keeps secure and gratifying employment. Wanda, Alaissa's sister and Terrell's mother, breaks free of the seemingly hopeless addiction that ran her life for two decades. And Dorothy, the family matriarch, finally achieves her dream of home ownership. The extraordinary rapport developed between these women and filmmaker Tod Lending allows us to discover the key to their success story: the integration of social, psychological and even spiritual healing, school and community support structures, and the involvement of all family members in the process.
Legacy offers a rare primary source for students of Sociology, Social Work, Social Problems, Social Psychology, Women's Studies, Urban Studies and African American Studies and an invaluable training tool for Family Services, Counseling, Drug Treatment and Clinical Psychology programs.
