"Was Here / Now Gone is an experimental film by AAPI performance collective IS/LAND. With some members of IS/LAND having grown up in Ann Arbor during the 1980s, there is a keen sense of how much the city has transformed over the last forty years. With many storefronts and institutions that were cultural anchors (Borders, Schoolkids Records, Stucchi’s, etc.) from the city now gone, Was Here / Now Gone is both an elegy for a time now past but also an exploration of how memory itself can both secure and tether us to the past. 

Monochromatic images from the past twist in our memory and collide with kaleidoscopic footage composed of multiple hours of vibrant imagery documenting while walking through the city—these multilayers of imagery merge into kinetic landscapes of the past's echoes, colliding and merging with the present day.

The idea of what was used to be there and what’s there now, and how we can see it as an appreciation of it being part of our lives, is at the same time a reality of change and how culture changes. Our hope is that this film encourages our audience to live grounded in gratitude for what came before while also embracing the potential of this city’s future." - Filmmakers Chien-An Yuan, Kyunghee Kim, S Jean Lee

Visuals + Sound: Chien-An Yuan
Voice + Poem: Kyunghee Kim
Producer: S Jean Lee
Photos from the AADL's Ann Arbor Historical Signs Collection

Filmmaker Frederic M. Culpepper tells the story of Ann Arbor's legendary drill team, The French Dukes.

Right to Read: The Ann Arbor King Case is a short documentary about the 1977 lawsuit that became known as the “Ann Arbor Black English Case” or “The King Case". Brought on behalf of 11 Black students at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in Ann Arbor, MI, childhood literacy, Black language, and cultural competency emerged as central themes of this case. The story resonated around the country for many reasons and prompted mixed media coverage, motivated academic study, and inspired public discussion.

"Language is to identity as oxygen is to life and the benefit of its mindful development in the formative years of children has long been documented. Like many, until I gained a deeper knowledge of this 1977 case (Martin Luther King Jr Elementary School Children v The Michigan Board of Education and Michigan Superintendent of Public Instruction), I thought it was solely about the treatment of Black English in a particular Ann Arbor, Michigan school and the implications for the school’s Black English-speaking students. While that is worthy of discussion and legal consideration, diving in revealed it to be a multidimensional story, starting with the fact that the case was not originally about language.

As a language enthusiast and also a Black English speaker, my initial interest in the case was primarily sociolinguistic. I was inspired to create this documentary, in part, because of the chance to explore how the US legal system recognizes and protects minority languages and dialects. Interestingly, until the mid-1960s, language was not considered a federally protected class in the US. One of my central guiding questions was “How did the kids’ use of Black English and teachers’ perception of it affect student development?” and “How does a perceived educational inequity translate to a debate of the legal protections a language deserves?” The “realness” or legitimacy of Black English was not automatically accepted (certainly not to the level that it is today), and I became fascinated with both the social discourse this prompted as well as the challenge it posed to the King Case students’ many expert witnesses, like sociolinguists Dr. Geneva Smitherman and Dr. William Labov, and education writer Dr. Daniel Fader, who in a court of law aimed to prove the existence of Black English as a language and educate the judge on its interconnection with identity and early childhood literacy.

The King Case students all lived in the Green Road housing projects, located in a middle-class neighborhood on Green Road on North Campus. It surprised me to learn that there is a documented history that living in a low-income housing community can lead to poorer academic outcomes and a diminished sense of belonging as was the situation with the King Case students.

It’s been nearly 50 years since the lawsuit was originally filed and there’s much to reflect on. I have been extremely lucky to sit in conversation with the chief expert witness for the King Case students, the trailblazing Dr. Geneva Smitherman; two of the students Kihilee and Dwayne Brenen, whose mother Janice bravely ignited the case; Ruth Zweifler, a fierce and longtime student advocate and founder of the Student Advocacy Center, now retired; Gabe Hillel Kaimowitz, the lead attorney for the students, now retired; Lamont Walton, a participating attorney for the students; Dr. Rossi Ray-Taylor, a former superintendent for Ann Arbor Public Schools; and Dr. Jessi Grieser, a sociolinguist at the University of Michigan. While there were many records and articles that were available to support the research process, one of the biggest challenges involved with making this film was, simply, time. The case’s original media evidence (trial audio recordings and photos) have been lost to the record. Some who were originally closely associated with the case are no longer alive and some others' memories of the case have since faded or they were too young to retain certain details. In addition to sit-down interviews, I leveraged archival material like case transcripts, newspaper articles, historical footage and photos to tell this story.

I had the opportunity to visit present-day King Elementary and witnessed how it has changed in many ways, which was incredibly inspiring. The King Case makes us examine the teaching of language and literacy and how early childhood learning experiences are carried with us across time. After watching this film, I hope viewers introspect on how they were socialized to think about language as a child and then consider what perceptions about language they carry with them today. For those with school age children in their lives, I hope they take a moment to have a conversation about the importance of literacy and commit to walking with them as they grow as learners.

I’m developing an expanded version of this documentary which features more interviews and more reflections from current participants, where the culture and climate of Ann Arbor is more deeply explored, where we can better understand how language arts curriculum was built in the US and how its construction contributed to a scenario where the King Case could happen." - Filmmaker Aliyah Mitchell

In 2022, the staff of the AADL Archives discovered and had digitized a collection of interviews that had gone into the making of the library's I Remember When series of television programs for Ann Arbor's sesquicentennial in 1974*.  We all knew what the folks in 1974 had made from these interviews, but we thought it might be interesting to see what someone from 2024 would do with the same set of footage.

This once-lost episode of I Remember When includes interviews with former Ann Arbor school teachers Lela Duff and Linda Eberbach, former Ann Arbor High School students David Inglis and Bill Bishop (at their 50th reunion), and long-time school board member Ashley Clague.

Produced and directed by Chris LaBeau
Exec producer: Catherine Andersen
Graphic Artist: Eric Anderson

Special thanks to Mr. Bill Bishop, Mr. Ashley Clague, Miss Lela Duff, Miss Linda Eberbach, Mr. David Inglis, and Stone School Nursery School
Sponsored by the Ann Arbor Public Library, with help from the Ann Arbor Sesquicentennial Commission and the University of Michigan Speech Department.

This recording was conducted in 1974 as part of the I Remember When television series produced by the Ann Arbor Public Library.

This interview was conducted in 1974 as part of the I Remember When television series produced by the Ann Arbor Public Library.

This recording was conducted in 1974 as part of the I Remember When television series produced by the Ann Arbor Public Library.

This recording was conducted on June 15, 1974, at Weber's Restaurant, as part of the I Remember When television series produced by the Ann Arbor Public Library.

This interview was conducted in 1974 as part of the I Remember When television series produced by the Ann Arbor Public Library.