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Tulsa race riot miniseries gets local perspective - Tulsa World: Scenelatest
Tulsa race riot miniseries gets local perspective
Producers Hannah McLouglin (left), Kristin Palombo, Nancy Miller, Dayna North and Valerie Woods attend a public forum to solicit stories related to the 1921 Tulsa race riot for an OWN Network miniseries. MICHAEL WYKE/Tulsa World
Writer and producer Nancy Miller grew up just down the turnpike.
She lived in Oklahoma City and visited Tulsa many, many times. But she never heard anything about the Tulsa race riot of 1921.
“I stumbled upon it about 10 years ago when I was watching TV and saw a documentary on HBO,” Miller said in a recent phone interview. “I sat there with my jaw on the floor because I grew up in Oklahoma City and never saw this in any history books — grade school, high school or college — and it’s an unbelievable story that needs to be told.”
Miller and her research team of Valerie Woods, Dayna North and Kristin Palombo were in Tulsa last week for a public forum and meetings with community leaders to prepare for development of a TV project about the riot for Oprah Winfrey’s OWN Network.
It will be a miniseries, not a documentary, Miller said.
“It will be fiction based in fact,” she explained. “We are using the real events that happened as part of our spine but fictionalizing the character that Octavia Spencer is playing because we don’t want to just tell one person’s story because of all we heard. We want a collection of voices and Mattie is going to be that voice of those people — her and her family. This is being told from a black point of view.”
The miniseries will center on the fictional character Mattie Clay (played by Oscar winner Spencer), a journalist from Tulsa who moved to Chicago with the hope of getting off the society pages and away from racism. Mattie’s journey eventually brings her back home to Tulsa where she must face the demons of her past and decide where her future lies, according to press information.
She and her team came to Tulsa to hear the family stories, read the writings and learn from Tulsans’ history about those infamous 14 hours in which dozens were killed, hundreds injured and thousands left homeless after a gunshot fired at the Tulsa Country Courthouse sparked one of the worst race riots in history.
Miller said she knew it would be an “intense, emotional, probably life-altering trip.”
In the late ’90s, she and her team visited Birmingham, Alabama, site of the racially motivated 1963 church bombing that killed four young black girls, injured at least 14 others and sparked riots and a national outcry. They were developing the TV series “Any Day Now” about the friendship between a white girl and a black girl who became close friends in the ’60s, lost that friendship and then renewed it 30 years later.
“It was a similar thing when we all went to Birmingham,” said Miller, who also co-executive produced the TV series “Saving Grace,” “The Closer,” “CSI: Miami” and “Profiler.” “We went to the Civil Rights Museum, talked to the community and met with the families of the little girls that died in the 16th Street bombing. Val and Dayna were with me on that trip 16 years ago so I have experienced something similar in terms of people saying ‘We’ve got a story to tell and we are damn ready to tell it and it’s about time.’ So, in Tulsa, I was sort of expecting that.
“I was anxious and I wanted to hear — I wanted to listen to what people had to say. I wanted this to be about listening. … We heard amazing stories. I don’t know how many times we looked at each other and said ‘that’s a theme, that’s a theme.’ It was wonderful and exhausting and intense and emotional and all that.”
They were also hearing conflicting reports, which makes developing the project tougher, she said. But she knew the project wouldn’t be easy because of the subject matter and strong emotions attached to it.
“I feel an immense responsibility after the three days we spent in Tulsa and the people we spoke to and the hearts that were opened to us. We all came back very much aware of the weight this carries and the pain and the heartache and the shame.
“I love my home state. I love Tulsa. When I first started working on this, it was hard and I was going, ‘I don’t know if I want to do this, expose this,’ and then I finally just submitted to the truth and that’s what I’m doing, I prayed about it a lot. I feel like the way this is all lining up God has his hand on this and I’m going to depend on him to help us all through this.”
Miller said it will probably take about three months to write and outline, get the first notes on it, go to first draft, then more notes and then get before getting a green light on production. After that, it depends on the availability of the star’s schedule. The plan is to, hopefully, get the film on the air sometime next year.
Something else she and her team took home to California was the way they were treated in Tulsa.
“We felt very warmly welcomed and we received that from everyone.
“And that’s Oklahoma, so that doesn’t surprise me. That’s who we are and everyone who comes to Oklahoma says that.”
Tulsa race riot miniseries gets local perspective
Producers Hannah McLouglin (left), Kristin Palombo, Nancy Miller, Dayna North and Valerie Woods attend a public forum to solicit stories related to the 1921 Tulsa race riot for an OWN Network miniseries. MICHAEL WYKE/Tulsa World
Writer and producer Nancy Miller grew up just down the turnpike.
She lived in Oklahoma City and visited Tulsa many, many times. But she never heard anything about the Tulsa race riot of 1921.
“I stumbled upon it about 10 years ago when I was watching TV and saw a documentary on HBO,” Miller said in a recent phone interview. “I sat there with my jaw on the floor because I grew up in Oklahoma City and never saw this in any history books — grade school, high school or college — and it’s an unbelievable story that needs to be told.”
Miller and her research team of Valerie Woods, Dayna North and Kristin Palombo were in Tulsa last week for a public forum and meetings with community leaders to prepare for development of a TV project about the riot for Oprah Winfrey’s OWN Network.
It will be a miniseries, not a documentary, Miller said.
“It will be fiction based in fact,” she explained. “We are using the real events that happened as part of our spine but fictionalizing the character that Octavia Spencer is playing because we don’t want to just tell one person’s story because of all we heard. We want a collection of voices and Mattie is going to be that voice of those people — her and her family. This is being told from a black point of view.”
The miniseries will center on the fictional character Mattie Clay (played by Oscar winner Spencer), a journalist from Tulsa who moved to Chicago with the hope of getting off the society pages and away from racism. Mattie’s journey eventually brings her back home to Tulsa where she must face the demons of her past and decide where her future lies, according to press information.
She and her team came to Tulsa to hear the family stories, read the writings and learn from Tulsans’ history about those infamous 14 hours in which dozens were killed, hundreds injured and thousands left homeless after a gunshot fired at the Tulsa Country Courthouse sparked one of the worst race riots in history.
Miller said she knew it would be an “intense, emotional, probably life-altering trip.”
In the late ’90s, she and her team visited Birmingham, Alabama, site of the racially motivated 1963 church bombing that killed four young black girls, injured at least 14 others and sparked riots and a national outcry. They were developing the TV series “Any Day Now” about the friendship between a white girl and a black girl who became close friends in the ’60s, lost that friendship and then renewed it 30 years later.
“It was a similar thing when we all went to Birmingham,” said Miller, who also co-executive produced the TV series “Saving Grace,” “The Closer,” “CSI: Miami” and “Profiler.” “We went to the Civil Rights Museum, talked to the community and met with the families of the little girls that died in the 16th Street bombing. Val and Dayna were with me on that trip 16 years ago so I have experienced something similar in terms of people saying ‘We’ve got a story to tell and we are damn ready to tell it and it’s about time.’ So, in Tulsa, I was sort of expecting that.
“I was anxious and I wanted to hear — I wanted to listen to what people had to say. I wanted this to be about listening. … We heard amazing stories. I don’t know how many times we looked at each other and said ‘that’s a theme, that’s a theme.’ It was wonderful and exhausting and intense and emotional and all that.”
They were also hearing conflicting reports, which makes developing the project tougher, she said. But she knew the project wouldn’t be easy because of the subject matter and strong emotions attached to it.
“I feel an immense responsibility after the three days we spent in Tulsa and the people we spoke to and the hearts that were opened to us. We all came back very much aware of the weight this carries and the pain and the heartache and the shame.
“I love my home state. I love Tulsa. When I first started working on this, it was hard and I was going, ‘I don’t know if I want to do this, expose this,’ and then I finally just submitted to the truth and that’s what I’m doing, I prayed about it a lot. I feel like the way this is all lining up God has his hand on this and I’m going to depend on him to help us all through this.”
Miller said it will probably take about three months to write and outline, get the first notes on it, go to first draft, then more notes and then get before getting a green light on production. After that, it depends on the availability of the star’s schedule. The plan is to, hopefully, get the film on the air sometime next year.
Something else she and her team took home to California was the way they were treated in Tulsa.
“We felt very warmly welcomed and we received that from everyone.
“And that’s Oklahoma, so that doesn’t surprise me. That’s who we are and everyone who comes to Oklahoma says that.”