Jacqueline Stewart facts for kids

Jacqueline Najuma Stewart is an American expert on movies and a TV host for Turner Classic Movies. She is a professor at the University of Chicago. From 2021 to 2024, she was the first artistic director and then president of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

Stewart is a member of important groups like the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Film Preservation Board. She also received a special award called a MacArthur Fellow. She was born in Chicago and studied at Stanford University and the University of Chicago. In 2005, she wrote her first book, Migrating to the Movies. This book looked at how classic Hollywood movies related to the experiences of African Americans during the Great Migration.

Stewart also led a group called Black Cinema House. She started the South Side Home Movie Project. She worked with her husband, Jake Austen, on a TV show called Chic-a-Go-Go. In 2015, she helped create a DVD set called Pioneers of African-American Cinema. This led to her appearing on Turner Classic Movies. In 2019, she became the host of the Silent Sunday Nights show on TCM.

Growing Up and Education

Jacqueline Stewart was born and grew up in Hyde Park, a neighborhood in South Side, Chicago. As a child, her aunt Constance introduced her to classic movies. Stewart remembers staying up late with her aunt. They would watch old black and white films together. Her aunt would talk about the movie stars and old theaters. Stewart was fascinated by the different world she saw on screen.

She went to Kenwood Academy High School. After that, she went to Stanford University. She planned to become a journalist. At Stanford, she watched Spike Lee's movie She's Gotta Have It (1986). She was very impressed by it. She then studied Spike Lee's work and feminist film theory. Her college thesis was based on these topics. In 1991, she earned her degree in English.

After Stanford, Stewart went to the University of Chicago (UC) for graduate school. She said that film studies was just starting to become a formal subject there. She met a scholar named Miriam Hansen, who became her mentor. Hansen was an expert in silent movies. In 1993, Stewart earned her master's degree. In 1998, she received her PhD, both in English from the University of Chicago.

Her Work and Achievements

University Professor

Stewart taught at the University of Chicago from 1999 to 2006. She worked in the English Department and on the Committee on Cinema & Media Studies. In 2006, she moved to Northwestern University. There, she became a professor in the Department of Radio/Television/Film and African American Studies.

She returned to the University of Chicago in 2013. She became a professor in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies. In the fall of 2020, she took a break from the university. This was because she was chosen to be the first artistic director for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. She came back to the university in 2024 after also being the museum's president.

In 2018, she was chosen to be a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2021, she received a MacArthur Fellowship. This is a special award given to talented people. In 2024, she received the Distinguished Career Achievement Award. This award came from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies.

Author and Researcher

In 2005, Stewart published her first book. It was called Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity. The Chicago Tribune reported that she spent ten years researching this topic. The book looked at how Hollywood movies showed and influenced the lives of Black Americans. This was especially true during the Great Migration. During this time, many Black Americans moved from the South to the Northeast.

Ten years later, in 2015, she helped write another book. It was called L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema. This book told the story of the film movement. In 2021, she published her third book. It was a biography of the documentary filmmaker William Greaves. For several years, Stewart has been working on a biography about the actor and director Spencer Williams.

Museum Work

In 2005, Stewart started the South Side Home Movie Project. This project collects and saves old home movies. These movies were made by people living in South Side, Chicago. The project also collects stories from the people who made the films. The films are on different types of old movie reels.

By 2020, she had been appointed three times to the National Film Preservation Board (NFPB). This board gives advice to the Librarian of Congress about film preservation. She also led the NFPB Diversity Task Force. This group makes sure that the films chosen for the National Film Registry are diverse.

In 2021, Stewart took a break from the University of Chicago. She was chosen as the first artistic director at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. On July 6, 2022, the Academy Museum announced that Stewart would also be its director and president. At the museum, she helped open many exhibits. She also led the creation of the museum's first plan for the future. She left the museum in 2024 to go back to the University of Chicago.

Television Career

Jacqueline Stewart met Jake Austen in high school. He later became her husband. In the 1990s, Jake Austen was researching an old children's dance show. He became interested in dance television. So, he and Stewart decided to create a new children's show. It would be a tribute to the old shows.

They worked with Kelly Kuvo, a musician from Chicago. With Kuvo's help, CAN-TV offered Austen a time slot for his show. Chic-a-Go-Go first aired in May 1996. It has been on TV ever since.

In 2015, Stewart worked with Charles Musser on a DVD set. It was called Pioneers of African-American Cinema. In the summer of 2017, Stewart was invited to Turner Classic Movies. She presented some films from the set with Ben Mankiewicz. After that, she was invited to the 2018 TCM Classic Film Festival. She talked about the history of Black images in film. In 2019, she was a guest speaker at a movie screening. She also talked about the movie Gone with the Wind.

In September 2019, Stewart became the first African-American host for Turner Classic Movies. She hosted the Silent Sunday Nights show. In 2020, she said she first saw silent films at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. She watched them with her friends on weekends.

In June 2020, after the death of George Floyd, writer–director John Ridley wrote an article. He asked for the 1939 film Gone with the Wind to be removed from HBO Max. The film was temporarily taken down. It was put back on the service later that month. It now included a new introduction from Stewart. In an article for CNN, Stewart wrote that some people thought taking the film down was wrong. Others felt that seeing Gone with the Wind so clearly shown on HBO Max was painful. She explained that because of ongoing racial injustice, Gone with the Wind should stay available. This allows for viewing, analysis, and discussion.

In 2021, TCM started a new series called Reframed Classics. This series re-examined 18 films with old-fashioned ideas about race and gender. Stewart was one of the hosts. Charles Tabesh, a senior vice president at TCM, said that older viewers had mixed feelings about the series. However, Stewart said that members of the Academy, especially people of color, liked it. She said they appreciated how the channel was looking at issues like blackface in classic films. They also liked how it discussed white actors playing non-white characters.

Family Life

Jacqueline Stewart is married to Jake Austen. He is a music artist and editor of a music magazine called Roctober. They met each other when they were in high school. Stewart has one daughter named Maiya. In 1996, Austen and Stewart created the children's dance TV show Chic-a-Go-Go together.

Books

• Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity (2005)
• L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema (co-authored, 2015)
• William Greaves: Filmmaking as Mission (co-authored, 2021)