Documentarian Stanley E. Nelson Jr. shared his motivations for becoming a filmmaker and discussed themes recurring throughout his movies in a conversation with University President Drew G. Faust on Monday at the 2015 Noble Lecture held at Memorial Church.

With Pusey Minister in Memorial Church Jonathan L. Walton moderating, Faust focused on Nelson’s documentaries that had been screened in the months leading up to his visit as a part of the Noble Lecture Film Series: Freedom Summer, Freedom Riders, and Wounded Knee: We Shall Remain. The event also consisted of a question-and-answer session with the audience and the screening of short segments of his films.  

Faust asked Nelson about his rationale for using the testimony of 12-year-old Janie Miller, who provided water for the civil rights activists on the bus that was set on fire during the Freedom Riders’ journey.

Nelson acknowledged his good fortune in interviewing Miller, who complicated the traditional view of the Deep South during the civil rights era, he said.

“She was the last person we interviewed and that was divine intervention,” Nelson said. “Even in the midst of all this craziness in Alabama, there is goodness.”  

Nelson noted the critical role young people played in enacting political change during the civil rights movement, reiterating the influence of college students in particular to initiate change in society.

“Young people made these movements work,” Nelson said. “They made change. Young people can still do that.”

The event attracted a wide array of students, regular church members, alumni, and Dean of Freshmen Thomas A. Dingman ’67.

“I’m struck by how our students know so little about this very recent chapter in history,” Dingman said of the civil rights movement Nelson features in his documentaries.  

Janet M. Kinasewich ’74, a member of Memorial Church, attended the event because of her preacher’s past involvement in the civil rights movement in Selma.

“He [Rev. Clark Olsen] went to Selma with two other Unitarian ministers…to be a part of the march and some men came up behind them and beat them,” Kinasewich said. “One of the three was beaten so badly that he died a couple days later.”

The annual Noble Lecture Series was established in 1898 by Nannie Yulee Noble in memory of her husband.