The Westport Library partners with TEAMWestport to present a screening of the documentary Let the People Decide by director/producer Gavin Guerra. The screening is followed by a panel discussion with Guerra, Dave Dennis, a Freedom Rider and co-organizer of the Freedom Summer of 1964, and Bob Zellner, the first white employee of SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee).
Westport News article on 2/1/2019 on Gavin Guerra.
The struggle over voting rights is headline news. This fight goes back generations as strategies to suppress the vote have evolved over the decades. Are race and politics inseparable?
Since the founding of this country, who gets to vote has been a contested issue. Let the People Decide will connect the dots across generations to illustrate how events from over 50 years ago are still reverberating in today’s heated political climate.
The narrative follows a "Then and Now" timeline that shares first person accounts from participants in the Civil Rights Movement as well as meeting present day activists that are fighting to preserve the gains of the past and forge a new path forward. The film will also explore the political fallout following the Voting Rights Act, and how the states came to realign politically, and race continued to be a common theme in manipulating and exploiting the motivations of politicians as well as those of the electorate.
