Madeline Anderson facts for kids

Madeline Anderson (born around 1923) is an American filmmaker, television producer, documentary producer, film director, editor, and screenwriter. She is famous for her films Integration Report One (1960) and I Am Somebody (1970). I Am Somebody received praise from all over the world. In 2015, the National Museum of African American History and Culture officially recognized Integration Report One as the first documentary film directed by an African-American woman.

Anderson also became the first African-American woman to be an executive producer for a national television series. This was a PBS educational show called Infinity Factory in 1975. She was honored in the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1993.

Early Life and Education

Madeline Whedbee, later known as Madeline Anderson, grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She loved films and teaching from a young age. She had four brothers and sisters. In the 1930s, Madeline lived in old, small houses called the Barney Google Row homes. She remembered these homes as "the worst housing in Lancaster." They were later torn down in the 1950s.

Every Saturday, Madeline went to the movies with her family and friends. She felt that the movies she saw did not show real African Americans. She wanted to see stories she could connect with. This made her want to make educational documentary films. This path also allowed her to combine her love for teaching with filmmaking.

Her family and friends were surprised when she said she wanted to be a filmmaker. They thought filmmaking only happened in Hollywood, and it was rare for a Black woman to work there. They encouraged her to become a teacher instead.

Madeline graduated from J. P. McCaskey High School in 1945. She then went to Millersville State Teacher's College to become a teacher. She was only the second Black student ever admitted to Millersville and the only Black student there at the time. At college, she faced racism and bullying. Her father even had to go to school with her once to protect her. Madeline left college after her first year because of the harassment. She promised her parents she would go back to school, but not to Millersville.

For the next two years, Anderson worked in a factory. She saved enough money to move to New York City. She later received a scholarship to New York University (NYU) and earned her bachelor's degree in psychology. Still passionate about movies, she decided to pursue a career in film.

Career in Film and Television

While studying at NYU, Madeline Anderson tried to make connections in the film industry. She answered an ad to be a babysitter for Richard Leacock, a famous British documentary filmmaker. She got the job, and while living with his family, she shared her dream of becoming a filmmaker. They supported her, and she became friends with Leacock's colleagues. She learned a lot about producing and directing films by working with him.

Madeline Anderson's film career officially began in 1958. Richard Leacock offered her a job as a production manager at his company, Andover Productions. As a production manager, she oversaw everything from making the film to editing it. Anderson worked on two film series there. One was about science for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The other was a documentary series for NBC called Bernstein in Europe, about conductor Leonard Bernstein's travels.

After making her first film, Integration Report One, she felt she needed to learn more about independent filmmaking. She took courses at the Museum of Modern Art to learn all parts of filmmaking. She studied editing, lighting, sound recording, and camerawork. Anderson's film Integration Report One was produced by Andover Productions in 1959. She felt that editing gave her a way to express her voice.

Film Projects

In 1959, she left Andover Productions to work on her own projects. In 1962, she worked as a script clerk and assistant editor on Shirley Clarke’s The Cool World. They had met while working at Andover Productions. The Cool World was a film about the tough reality of gang life in Harlem. Anderson later said the film was "honest" and showed the truth about young people at that time.

After this, Anderson worked as a freelance editor. It was hard to get into the film industry because she needed to be part of a union, but to join a union, she needed a job. Most unions were also mainly made up of white men. Anderson decided to work without being in a union while trying to join one. This was difficult because she faced unfair treatment and racism. She eventually joined New York’s editors union, Local 771, after threatening to sue them.

With union membership, she got a job as an editor at WNET, a PBS station. There, she worked as a staff editor for Black Journal and produced and directed "A Tribute to Malcolm X." She left WNET to produce, direct, and edit I Am Somebody in 1970. In 1975, she started her own company, Onyx Productions. There, she made films for the New Jersey Board of Higher Education and for the Ford Foundation. One film was called The Walls Came Tumbling Down, about a public housing project in St. Louis, Missouri. Having her own company gave her more freedom and control over her films.

Integration Report One

Integration Report One is a film that shows the civil rights struggles of the late 1950s. The film featured many people who became important in the Civil Rights Movement, like Martin Luther King Jr., Bayard Rustin, and Andrew Young. Anderson felt she had to make the film to document these events and encourage others to act. She shared her idea with Leacock, who encouraged her.

Finding money for the film was hard because many executives did not think the topic was interesting. Luckily, she used some of her salary from Andover Productions and asked others for donations. Some people helped for free, like D. A. Pennebaker, who built equipment for her, and Maya Angelou, who sang "We Shall Overcome" for the film.

Anderson began filming in 1959 under the supervision of Andover Productions. She first filmed a protest about school education in Brooklyn, New York. Then she traveled further south. After finishing the film in 1960, Anderson had trouble finding a company to distribute it. So, she started showing it at churches and colleges. Soon, Columbia University’s distribution center picked up the film.

The film was originally meant to be the first of three parts about the Civil Rights Movement. The other two parts, Integration Report Two and Integration Report Three, would have continued to document the movement. However, they were never made because she could not find anyone interested in funding them.

In 2015, the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. recognized Integration Report One as the first documentary film directed by an African-American woman.

I Am Somebody

I Am Somebody tells the story of 400 Black women workers at the Medical College Hospital of the University of South Carolina. They went on strike in Charleston to fight for equal pay, fairness, and respect. The film uses old film clips from libraries, news footage, and new footage shot by Anderson and her team during the strike. This was helpful because by the time she got funding, most of the strike had already happened.

Anderson really wanted to make the film when she first heard about the strike. However, when she first asked television networks for money, they said no. They did not think the event was important or interesting. Moe Foner, who led the union involved in the strike, learned about Anderson’s desire to make the film. He wanted the events recorded, so he asked her to make it for the union. Anderson finally got funding when she asked the networks a second time, because by then, the strike had become a big international event.

Anderson felt a strong duty to show her subjects fairly and truthfully in the film. She explained how she made a film that did just that:

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Television Work

From 1963 to 1968, Anderson worked for NET (National Education Television) in New York as an associate producer, writer, and editor. This station later became WNET. In 1965, she became a film editor, writer, and producer-director for the Black Journal series. This show discussed racial issues and debates happening in America. For the first year of the series, Anderson was the only Black woman on staff. As the team became more diverse, there was a growing need for a Black executive producer. In 1969, William Greaves took over this role, and within a year, the show won an Emmy Award.

After finishing I Am Somebody, she returned to television, working for the Children's Television Workshop (CTW). At CTW, she was a producer and director for Sesame Street and The Electric Company. Anderson said some of the films she made for CTW were controversial. She remembered one time she made a film to teach the word “me.” She decided to follow a child from the Chinese community to show what “me” meant. However, some people disagreed, thinking children would not relate to the child because of her background.

Anderson worked at CTW from 1970 to 1975 before starting Onyx Productions. Even with her own company, she still worked with CTW when they needed her. During this time, she also helped start WHMM-TV (now WHUT-TV) at Howard University, where she taught and lectured.

In 1975, Anderson became the executive producer for The Infinity Factory on PBS. This show was mainly for children aged eight to twelve, focusing on inner-city youth. It aimed to teach them math and problem-solving skills. With this show, Anderson became the first African-American female producer to have a nationally broadcast series. In 1987, she worked as a senior producer on an Arabic reading series called Al Manahil. This series was produced by CTW International and filmed in Amman, Jordan.

Views on Filmmaking

Documentary Purpose

Anderson believes that filmmakers should connect with their subjects to show their struggles fairly and morally. Michael T. Martin points out three key ideas in Anderson’s documentary work:

• Films should have a social purpose. They should be easy to understand and aim to bring about social change.
• Films should give a voice to those who are often ignored or silenced.
• Films should challenge the idea that African Americans cannot solve their own problems.

These ideas are similar to those of the Third Cinema movement, which questioned the moral duties of popular and art films.

When making a film, Anderson is not focused on fame or money. Instead, she wants to create something useful. She said, "I think that media has to be useful. I was criticized a lot for that view, and I accept the criticism. I was not interested in making entertainment. I wanted my films to be used to improve our people. Many people called my films 'message films'." For her, a documentary tells the truth by showing real events as they happen. This means that re-enactments are not true documentaries because the footage is not real, even if it is based on true events. She also did not see much value in adding entertaining footage if it did not serve her purpose.

Art and History

Anderson believes that history helps artists grow. She explains that artists can be part of current history as it happens and learn from it at the same time. History and art work together to teach the artist. Through this process, art can be useful. By documenting and learning from history, her art and her skills as an artist develop.

This view likely came from the fact that she did not have complete creative freedom as an artist. Most of her films were made for and funded by organizations. For example, I Am Somebody was meant to be a tool for the union to organize. She had to be very specific about the strike's purpose, the people involved, and how it was resolved. There was one time when her view as a filmmaker clashed with her view as an educator. She explained that two people were leading the strike, one from the college hospital and one from the county hospital. From a filmmaker’s point of view, she did not want to include the county hospital part because it was confusing. However, because of her duty to the union, she had to include it.

Thoughts on Hollywood

Anderson is critical of Hollywood films because, for a long time, films about the African-American experience were not made by African Americans. Because of this, films often showed their experiences using myths and stereotypes. This took away their ability to express their own stories. However, this changed during the blaxploitation era in the 1970s. While Anderson criticized the exploitative content, she still saw it as a chance for Black filmmakers to establish themselves in Hollywood. She also believed that this period was a necessary step toward a more inclusive industry. Now, African-American filmmakers can express themselves honestly without relying on exploitative content. To do so now, Anderson believes, would be a step backward.

As a filmmaker, Madeline Anderson was never very interested in a career in Hollywood. It did not fit with her goals of helping people. For her, Hollywood is where people go to make money and become famous. She even turned down a film from Universal Pictures because she was not interested in either.

When asked if independent film production and distribution outside Hollywood was a good artistic and business idea, she replied:

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Personal Life

Anderson lives in Brooklyn, New York City.

Filmography

• Integration Report One (1960): Producer/Director/Editor
• The Cool World (1964): Assistant Director/Assistant Editor
• Malcolm X: Nationalist or Humanist? (1967): Producer/Director
• I Am Somebody (1970): Producer/Director/Editor/Writer
• An Even Chance (1971): Producer/Director
• Being Me (1975): Director
• The Walls Came Tumbling Down (1975): Producer/Director/Editor
• The Infinity Factory (series, 1975): Executive Producer
• Al Manahil (series, 1987): Senior Producer/Writer

Awards and Honors

• In 1976, Madeline Anderson received the Woman of the Year award at the Sojourner Truth Festival of the Arts.
• In 1985, she was honored for her Life-Long Achievement and Contributions to Film and Television by the Association of Independent Film and Video Makers.
• In 1991, she was inducted into the Gallery of Great Black Filmmakers by the Miller Brewing Company.
• In 1993, she was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame.
• In 2000, she received an award for Pioneering Women in Film, for her outstanding work in film and television.
• In 2015, Integration Report One was accepted into the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. She is recognized as the first African-American woman born in the United States to direct a 16 mm documentary film.
• In 2019, I Am Somebody was chosen by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry. It was recognized for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."