PBS documentary ‘The Harvest’ to screen in Jackson at The Ned Theater

PBS Documentary The Harvest to Screen in Jackson at The Ned Theater 

Jackson, TN — Community members are invited to attend a special screening of the PBS  American Experience documentary The Harvest on Saturday, November 1, from 10:00  a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at The Ned, 314 E Main St, Jackson, TN 38301. 

This powerful film, directed by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Douglas A. Blackmon,  explores how school integration transformed his hometown of Leland, Mississippi.  Beginning in 1969, when federal courts ordered Mississippi schools to fully desegregate,  Blackmon and his classmates became part of the first generation of black and white  children in Leland to attend all twelve grades together. The documentary tells the  extraordinary story of how that first class became possible, then traces the lives of  Blackmon and his classmates, teachers, and parents from the first day through high school  graduation in 1982. 

Set against the backdrop of sweeping social and demographic change, The Harvest is both  a riveting portrait of how those children’s lives were transformed and how the town — and  America — were changed. But as the film follows the lives of those children into the  present, it is also a portrait of what our society has lost in its failure to finish the work begun  a generation ago. Watch the official trailer: PBS Trailer 

This screening of The Harvest is supported by Georgia Humanities with funding from the  Wilbur and Hilda Glenn Family Foundation, in collaboration with Humanities Tennessee and the Weakley County Reconciliation Project, the Jackson Equity Project, and the  Lynching Sites Project of Memphis, with the United Way of West TN serving as the local  fiscal agent. Following the film, a panel of residents will share their experiences of school  integration here in West Tennessee.  

Event Details 

• What: Screening of The Harvest (PBS American Experience) 
• When: Saturday, November 1, 2025 | 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
• Where: The Ned, 314 E Main St, Jackson, TN 38301 
• Cost: Free and open to the public (Register Here) 

About the Filmmaker
Douglas A. Blackmon is a Pulitzer-Prize-winning author, journalist, and filmmaker. His first  book, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil  War to World War II, won a Pulitzer Prize in 2009 for its searing revelation of a largely  forgotten system that continued to hold African-Americans in forced labor after the Civil  War and persisted deep into the 20th century. He was also co-executive producer of the  acclaimed documentary film based on Slavery by Another Name, which premiered at the  Sundance Film Festival in 2012, attracted more than five million viewers in its first  broadcasts on PBS, and continues to be regularly rebroadcast on public television across  the U.S. 

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