Film explores life of Emory author and scholar Pellom McDaniels
It’s hard to fit Pellom McDaniels III into a 13-minute film.
Scholar. Author. Motivator. Former NFL player for the Kansas City Chiefs and the Atlanta Falcons.
Colleague and friend Nsenga Burton once interviewed him for her podcast, “The Burton Wiretap.”
In the documentary, she is heard describing McDaniels as “so dope” that he was going to do his own introduction.
“You could do a feature-length film on Pellom,” said Nick Twemlow, who produced the documentary. “Pellom had a gift. He had this contagious intellect that made you think about what he was talking about. His passion was so real.”
McDaniels, a professor of African American studies and the curator of African American Collections at Emory University’s Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library, died last year at 52.
Emory University Libraries is partnering with the BronzeLens Film Festival to host a virtual screening and discussion of the documentary, “Flash Here and There Like Falling Stars: The Life and Work of Dr. Pellom McDaniels III,” at 3 p.m. Sunday for Black History Month.
The event is free with registration via eventbrite.com.
The documentary took several months to complete, said Twemlow, the Poetry and Digital Humanities librarian at the Rose Library, who began working with McDaniels about six months before his death.
At some point, McDaniels mentioned football “and it all clicked for me,” Twemlow said, laughing. “I grew up watching the Chiefs. I went to my first game at 7.”
After McDaniels’ death, Twemlow and others at Emory started talking about ways to honor him, particularly in a medium that the historian embraced — film.
Working with a team that included Adam Forrester and Steve Bransford, both of whom have backgrounds in film, Twemlow pored through hours of archival material and film footage.
McDaniels thrived on learning, motivating and teaching others, particularly about African American history and culture.
A member of the Baha’i faith, McDaniels embraced a broad view of the world, his wife, Navvab McDaniels, said in a previous interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
He wrote several books, including “The Prince of Jockeys: The Life of Isaac Burns Murphy,” who was the first jockey to win the Kentucky Derby three times.
Scheduled speakers for the “Athlete. Scholar. Activist: Chapters in the Life of Dr. Pellom McDaniels III” event include:
- Nsenga Burton (moderator), co-director of the Film and Media Management concentration at Emory University; author; multimedia journalist; filmmaker; producer.
- Valerie Boyd, award-winning author; Charlayne Hunter-Gault Distinguished Writer in Residence and an associate professor of journalism at the University of Georgia.
- Leatrice Ellzy, executive director of Hammonds House Museum in Atlanta; has worked at Georgia Public Broadcasting, the Woodruff Arts Center and the National Black Arts Festival.
- Fahamu Pecou, interdisciplinary artist; fall 2020 Emory Arts and Social Justice Fellow; scholar who worked with McDaniels when Pecou was a student in Emory’s doctoral program.
- Joe Posnanski, senior writer at The Athletic; author and two-time Emmy winner as part of NBC’s digital Olympics coverage.
EVENT PREVIEW
Virtual screening of “Flash Here and There Like Falling Stars: The Life and Work of Dr. Pellom McDaniels III”
3 p.m. Sunday. Free. Register at eventbrite.com.
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