Hi everyone, my name is Ira McKinley. I am a filmmaker and activist who makes films about social justice. I have two films already made called The Throwaways about police brutality and mass incarceration, and a film on PBS Independent Lens called Outta the Muck about the Storm of 1928 that killed 4,000 African Americans in South Florida during Jim Crow.

I am now working on my 3rd film about the migration of African Americans from the South to Central and Western NY in two different centuries (Slavery and Jim Crow periods). We are telling the story of people leaving the South to seek better opportunities in NY. We are connected to Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and St. James AME Zion Church in Ithaca, NY.

I need help in telling this story with your help by raising funds to kickstart this project. I have a 60-minute assembly of film edited, but this is just the first step because in these times we are seeing our civil liberties being taken away daily, and this film project will delve into why people ran away from oppression to seek a better future for themselves and family members.