Tenants of Lenapehocking in the Age of Magnets
Tenants of Lenapehocking in the Age of Magnets is a collection of stories about the inhabitants of a land, specifically the Black community of North Philadelphia in the 20th century, an epicenter of African American social, cultural and political life both locally and nationally. The place of the documentary is a portion of the original homeland of the Lenape between the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers and the stories told cover an age of industry shaped by developing electromagnetic technology.
Featured oral history narrators include Chief Robert Redhawk Ruth, Dr. Rae Alexander-Minter, Rev. Joseph Williams, Cecily Moore Banks, Elaine Brown, David Litofsky, Dr. John Churchville, Rev. Frank Tyson, Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Karen Warrington. Their life stories are animated by photos from the archive of photographer John W. Mosely.
Screenings
Virtual
Directors Spotlight
Louis Massiah
Filmmaker/ Director, Scribe Video Center
Louis is a documentary filmmaker and founder of the Scribe Video Center in Philadelphia, a media arts center that provides production workshops to community groups and emerging media makers. As an educator and institution builder, Massiah has developed production methodologies that assist first-time makers author their own stories, including the Precious Places Community History project, a collection of 150 collaborative documentaries; Muslim Voices of Philadelphia; The Great Migration: A City Transformed and currently The Tenants of Lenapehocking in the Age of Magnets, an oral history project. Massiah’s documentaries include The Bombing of Osage Avenue, W.E.B. Du Bois – A Biography in Four Voices, Cecil B. Moore, two films for the Eyes on the Prize II series, A is for Anarchist, B is for Brown and TCB – the Toni Cade Bambara School of Organizing. A MacArthur Foundation “genius award” fellow, he is currently an A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University.
- Year
- 2026
- Runtime
- 58 minutes
- Country
- United States
- Language
- English
- Director
- Louis Massiah
- Producer
- Louis Massiah
- Cast
- Chief Bob Redhawk Ruth, Dr. Rae Alexander-Minter, Rev. Joseph Williams, Cecily Moore Banks, Elaine Brown, David Litofsky, Dr. John Churchville, Rev. Frank Tyson, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Karen Warrington
- Cinematographer
- Henry Adebonojo
- Editor
- Valerie Keller
- Composers
- Dwight Andrews, Jamaaladeen Tacuma
- Premiere
- World