COMING SOON ON
ABOUT THE DOCUMENTARY
From Academy-Award Nominee Raoul Peck, Silver Dollar Road follows the story of the Reels family as told by the matriarch Mamie Reels Ellison and her niece Kim Renee Duhon, two fierce women defending their rights and fighting to protect their ancestor's land and their brothers and uncles Melvin and Licurtis, who were wrongfully imprisoned for eight years - the longest sentence for civil contempt in North Carolina history.
This documentary, based on the 2019 ProPublica article, highlights the ways the legal system is exploited to limit land ownership in the Black community and further contributes to the racial wealth gap.
message from the family
"Silver Dollar Road" is a story that reveals our decades-long battle to save our family's land. We are excited to share our story with you with the hopes that it will showcase the importance of family and encourage you to use your collective power to stand up for what you believe is right. Please watch, learn and decide how you'd like to use your voice to make a difference.
- Reels Family
The Reels Family
Silver Dollar Road
Gertrude in her living room overlooking the shoreline.
Gertrude's yard, near the trailers of relatives.
Melvin Davis
Melvin’s club, Fantasy Island, still stands on the 13-acre plot that the Reels lost.
Licurtis, on his mother’s porch, with his former house behind him.
Debris on the beach.
Licurtis Reels, left, and Melvin Davis.
On the land
messages from the TEAM
The vulnerabilities inherent to heirs property are a driving factor of wealth inequality in this country.
If we’re serious about addressing wealth and equality in this country, one place that we must be looking is land and land ownership and making sure that those titles are clear and that families have access to their land and access to the resources in their land.
RAOUL PECK |
director
LIZZIE PRESSER |
executive producer
Land is everything: it not only sustains generations but family land – sometimes with trees, sometimes with a river running through it, inhabited by memories, childhood, and adult memories – is what this country was founded on. Any attack on this ancestral property becomes an attack on your own identity. And as Melvin likes to say, “this won’t fly”. And whoever has a bit of dignity, will righteously fight against all odds to preserve this identity.
