January 22nd, the day after the Martin Luther King Day holiday, Ava DuVernay’s company ARRAY Alliance will host a National Day Of Racial Healing event designed to examine the efforts to end discrimination and injustice.
ARRAY Alliance is a grassroots distribution, arts and advocacy collective focused on films by people of color and women, which was founded by DuVernay in 2010.
The event will be held at the Filipinotown campus and will feature Hollywood players like Judd Apatow and Eva Longoria. Livestream coverage will start at 1 PM PT, with panel discussions, performances, and appearances by Emmy Winner Laverne Cox, Melissa Etheridge, and ex-Georgia House Minority Leader Stacy Abrams.
“The responsibility of fighting inequality and injustice is all of ours. But it’s particularly important that those of us with certain visibility influence use our platforms to urge bold conversations. We can never give up on pushing this nation to live up to its promise,“ the Oscar-nominated director told Deadline.
ARRAY has partnered with the W. K. Kellogg Foundation for this event. Founded in 1930, by the cereal mogul William Keith Kellogg, the foundation focuses on providing the tools children all across the nation need to grow and learn. With events all over the country next week, the Kellogg Foundation started its Truth, Racial Healing and Transformative initiative and the National Dat Of Racial Healing is one of the featured components.
DuVernay told Deadline, “There’s a lot of talking and tweeting these days, A lot of pontification about where we are as a country and how we arrived here. When Kellogg approached ARRAY about working together on furthering and deepening those conversations, I was all in.”
The “Selma” Director will curate conversations and performances to build awareness and inspire more of the dialogue necessary around racial equality justice and healing.
