Joy Keys chats with Filmmaker Byron Hurt

Byron Hurt is the New York-based producer of the award-winning documentary and underground classic I Am A Man: Black Masculinity in America and Moving Memories: The Black Senior Video Yearbook. Hurt is a former Northeastern University football star and long-time gender violence prevention educator. For more than five years, he was the associate director and founding member of the Mentors in Violence Prevention program, the leading college-based rape and domestic violence prevention initiative for professional athletics. He is also the former associate director of the first gender violence prevention program in the United States Marine Corps.
Byron has lectured at more than 100 college campuses and trained thousands of young men and women on issues related to gender, race, sex, violence, music, and visual media. http://www.bhurt.com
Byron Hurt’s recent film, Soul Food Junkies explores the history and social significance of soul food to black cultural identity and its effect on African American health, good and bad. Soul Food Junkies premiered on the Independent Lens in January 2013. http://www.itvs.org/video/soul-food-junkies-trailer

Byron is currently working on Hazing: How Badly Do You Want In? documentary film. Hazing is the practice of rituals and other activities involving harassment, abuse or humiliation used as a way of initiating a person into a group.