On Friday, February 3 we’re producing an interactive screening of the documentary Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock from Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas. Moderated by PBS NewsHour’s Hari Sreenivasan and featuring filmmaker Sharon La Cruise, the event will take place here Friday at 11:30 AM PT / 1:30 PM CT / 2:30 PM ET. Premiering on Independent Lens this Thursday, the film examines the life Daisy Bates — a complex, unconventional, and largely forgotten heroine of the civil rights movement who led the charge to desegregate the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957.
The screening will take place exclusively online; you can join for free by signing in with Facebook (or directly on the site) and interact with other viewers, Central High students, La Cruise, and Sreenivasan in real-time, while you watch the film. Viewers can comment, ask questions, take polls, and even express their feelings about what they’re watching through a variety of tools on the site.
This is an entirely new way we’re offering some of our documentary films, and all of us are looking forward to an open, freewheeling conversation on Daisy Bates!