HOPE Fair Housing Center to host 'The Color Tax' film screening for Black History Month
HOPE Fair Housing Center recently announced a special online preview screening of the documentary film "The Color Tax: The Origins of The Modern-Day Racial Wealth Gap," prior to its television premiere, which is scheduled for 2022.
"The Color Tax" is the third episode of a five-part series that tells the story of how Chicago and its suburbs constructed the nation's most destructive system of racially separated communities, shaping the lives of generations past, and what it means for us today.
Directly following the viewing, the HOPE Fair Housing Center will host a discussion panel featuring the documentary's filmmaker, Bruce Orenstein.
Orenstein is the founder of the Chicago Video Project and known for his 2002 Emmy-award winning documentary "No Place to Live," as well as his work as an organizer in Chicago around race and housing-related issues.
This event will be held virtually on Tuesday, Feb. 16, from 2:30 to 4 p.m. CST.
Attendees must register beforehand. Visit hopefair.org for more details.
Orenstein is currently Artist in Residence in the Arts of the Moving Image Program at Duke University and group leader on residential segregation at the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity. Uniquely positioned to produce a documentary series about residential segregation in Chicago, Orenstein is a native Chicagoan and former community organizer who worked in Seattle and Chicago around race and housing-related issues throughout the 1970s and '80s. He became a filmmaker in 1991 when he founded the Chicago Video Project, a nonprofit organization known for its award-winning short and long-form documentaries produced for social change organizations addressing issues of economic and racial inequality.
HOPE Fair Housing Center, started in 1968, works to create greater housing opportunities for all. They want to ensure everyone has the chance to live in the community/home/apartment of their choice free from discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability, familial status, or any other characteristics protected under state or local laws. HOPE, which serves north and north central Illinois, accomplishes this through education, outreach, enforcement, training, and advocacy.