#eula peazant

[vivian-bell]

Our past owns us.  We wear our scars like armor for protection.  Thick, hard, ugly scars that no one can pass through to ever hurt us again.  Let’s live our lives without living in the fold of old wounds.

Alva Rogers as Eula Peazant in Daughters of the Dust (1991)

[vendriin]

Daughters of the Dust (1991)

[brooklynmuseum]

Filmmaker Julie Dash is renowned for breaking boundaries of race and gender in Hollywood. Her first feature film Daughters of the Dust (1991) is a landmark in American cinema, as it was the first feature film directed by an African American woman to be distributed theatrically in the United States. Set in 1902, the film explores the black Gullah communities of the South Carolina Sea Islands. Alva Rogers—a member of the Rodeo Caldonia performance collective—starred as Eula Peazant, one of the leading roles. Dash is a part of the L.A. Rebellion, a group of black filmmakers who attended UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television starting in the late 1960s. 

Her first three films Four Women (1975), The Diary of an African Nun (1977), and Illusions (1983) are on view in We Wanted a Revolution and Daughters of the Dust was screened this past April as part of our opening weekend celebrations.

Still from Daughters of the Dust (1991). Photo courtesy of Julie Dash.

[emdroid]

Let’s live our lives without living in the folds of old wounds.

Eula Peazant, Daughters of the Dust

[vendriin]

Daughters of the Dust (1991)