Jacqueline Stewart facts for kids

Jacqueline Najuma Stewart is an American expert on movies and a TV host for Turner Classic Movies (TCM). She teaches 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 also a member of important groups like the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Film Preservation Board. She even received a special award called a MacArthur Fellowship.

Jacqueline Stewart was born in Chicago. She studied at Stanford University and the University of Chicago, earning advanced degrees in English. In 2005, she wrote her first book, Migrating to the Movies. This book looked at how old Hollywood movies connected with the experiences of African Americans during the Great Migration. Stewart also helped start the Black Cinema House and the South Side Home Movie Project. She even worked with her husband, Jake Austen, on a fun TV show called Chic-a-Go-Go.

In 2015, Stewart helped create a DVD set called Pioneers of African-American Cinema. This led to her appearing on Turner Classic Movies (TCM) with Ben Mankiewicz. She later joined the TCM Classic Film Festival. In 2019, she became the host of TCM's Silent Sunday Nights, which shows old silent films.

Growing Up in Chicago

Jacqueline Stewart was born and grew up in Hyde Park, a neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. She remembers her aunt Constance introducing her to classic movies on TV. Stewart said, "I always stayed up really late with her watching black and white films. She would talk to me during the commercial breaks about all the stars and the theaters that she used to go to." This made her fascinated by the world of old movies.

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

After Stanford, Stewart became a graduate student at the University of Chicago (UC). She said, "Film studies was just being formalized there and they hired a scholar named Miriam Hansen who wound up being my dissertation advisor and my mentor. And she specialized in silent cinema." In 1993, she earned her master's degree. In 1998, she received her PhD, both in English from the University of Chicago.

Her Amazing Career

Teaching About Movies

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 as a professor. She returned to the University of Chicago in 2013.

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

Writing Books About Film

In 2005, Stewart published her first book, Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity. 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, when many moved from the South to the Northeast.

Ten years later, in 2015, she helped write another book called L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema. This book was about the film movement, a group of Black filmmakers who made independent movies. In 2021, she published her third book, William Greaves: Filmmaking as Mission. This book is a biography of the documentary filmmaker William Greaves. Stewart is also researching a biography about the actor and director Spencer Williams Jr..

Working with Museums

In 2005, Stewart started the South Side Home Movie Project. This project collects and saves old home movies made by people on the South Side of Chicago. It includes films from the 16 mm, 8 mm, and Super 8 formats. The project also collects oral histories from the people who made these films. This helps preserve cultural and historical memories.

By 2020, she was a three-time member of the National Film Preservation Board (NFPB). This group advises the Librarian of Congress on film preservation. She also led the NFPB Diversity Task Force. This group works to make sure that the films chosen for the National Film Registry are diverse and include many different voices.

In 2021, Stewart took a break from the University of Chicago. She became the first artistic director at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. In 2022, she was also named the director and president of the museum. She helped open many exhibits there, including the museum's first permanent exhibit. She also led the creation of the museum's first plan for the future. She left the museum in 2024 to return to the University of Chicago.

Her Television Work

During high school, Stewart met Jake Austen, who later became her husband. In the 1990s, Austen became interested in children's dance TV shows. He and Stewart decided to create their own show as a tribute. They worked with Kelly Kuvo, and a local TV channel, CAN-TV, offered them a time slot. Their show, Chic-a-Go-Go, started in May 1996 and is still on the air today!

In 2015, Stewart worked with Charles Musser to create the DVD set Pioneers of African-American Cinema. In 2017, she was invited to Turner Classic Movies to talk about films from this set with Ben Mankiewicz. She later appeared at the TCM Classic Film Festival. In 2019, she became the first African-American host for Turner Classic Movies, hosting Silent Sunday Nights. She shared that she first saw silent films at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

In June 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, the film Gone with the Wind was temporarily removed from HBO Max. It was later put back with a new introduction by Stewart. She wrote that the film should stay available for people to watch and discuss. She believed it was important to understand its history and how it relates to ongoing issues of racial injustice.

In 2021, TCM started a new series called Reframed Classics. This series looked at 18 classic films that had old-fashioned or problematic ideas about race and gender. Stewart was one of the hosts. She noted that many Academy members, especially people of color, liked how the channel was addressing issues like blackface or white actors playing non-white characters in old films.

Her Family Life

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

Books by Jacqueline Stewart

• 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)