WHRO TV15 is excited to premiere The Talk: Race in America on February 20 at 9 p.m. The two-hour PBS documentary examines interactions between minorities and police and discusses “the talk,” a conversation between black or Latino parents and their children about how to behave if stopped by the police. The next day, WHRO invites community members to a town hall to discuss topics covered in the program.
Fostering dialogue and understanding around race relations has been a priority at WHRO for the last several years. One staff member who has passionately led these efforts is Barbara Hamm Lee, executive producer and host of Another View. When she began her television career in 1978, Lee quickly realized that decisions about news coverage were made at the management level — a place that featured little diversity at the time. She set out to change that, and soon became a news director. “It became very important to me to be able to help shape a newscast that was inclusive of the community that we served,” Lee explained.
Later, while serving at WHRO, she was excited to find that the station’s CEO shared her vision. Realizing the station didn’t have any programs that addressed the African American community, he asked her to create a show, and Another View was born in 2009. After two years as a television program, it transitioned to a weekly radio show but kept its mission of exploring issues from an African American perspective.
After several years of fostering conversations with radio listeners, Lee and the show’s producer, Lisa Godley, decided the community needed something more. It was 2014, and the number of African Americans involved in lethal confrontations with police was rising. “We felt from our travels in the community that people needed to talk,” Lee explained, “so we developed Race: Let’s Talk About It.” In partnership with Fort Monroe Authority and Virginia Wesleyan College, WHRO has held five town halls on race-related topics, with the sixth scheduled for February 21. Read details and register.
When other public media stations began requesting assistance to conduct their own town halls, Lee and Godley developed an online tool kit featuring resources to help others facilitate these types of conversations. “It’s not just black/white,” Lee said. “It depends on where you live. It could be Hispanic, it could be Muslim — whatever population that is a minority population.” Lee hopes churches and civic groups, as well as individuals, will use the resources to hold similar conversations.
She also has a passion to see WHRO continue to be a leader in the area of race relations. “We want to continue to be a gathering place for thoughtful people who want to come together and really make a difference,” she said.