Free Public Preview and Discussion
Monday, September 19 at 7:00 p.m.
Illinois State University/Stevenson 101
Hosted by the ISU Communications Department

In 2008, a series of attacks against Latino residents in Patchogue, NY, ended with the killing of Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadoran immigrant who had lived in the village for 13 years. Seven local high school students arrested for the crime admitted they were “looking for a Mexican” to beat up.

Not In Our Town: Light in the Darkness, airing Wednesday, September 21 at 9:00 p.m. on WTVP 47.1, documents the heartfelt and inspirational response of the Patchogue community in the years following the hate crime as they took action to repair a culture that has been torn apart by bigotry and fear. The third installment of the Not In Our Town series, the program encores Sunday, September 25 at 3:00 p.m. Academy Award®-Nominee Alfre Woodard narrates.

The Bloomington/Normal community—an active part of the Not In Our Town mission since the first film aired in 1995—will use this new film to initiate dialogue and to focus on issues of intolerance in their own towns through preview screenings, social media channels and community conversations.

About the Film:

Filmed over a two-year period, the documentary follows Mayor Paul Pontieri, the victim’s brother Joselo Lucero, diverse community leaders, residents and students as they openly address the underlying causes of the violence, work to heal divisions and initiate ongoing action to ensure everyone in their village will be safe and respected.

“As the country becomes increasingly divided about immigration, we hope this film sparks constructive discussions that separate policy differences from human issues and community safety, so that what happened in Patchogue will never happen again,” said Patrice O’Neill, Executive Producer and Director, Light in the Darkness and Founder of The Working Group.

Light in the Darkness is the third PBS special from Not In Our Town, a project from The Working Group, whose mission is to highlight stories of communities taking positive action to fight intolerance. Not In Our Town was launched in 1995 with the national PBS special Not In Our Town, which followed the citizens of Billings, Montana as they joined forces to resist bigotry in their town. Not In Our Town II, a follow-up broadcast, aired in 1996 and showed how communities adapted the experience from Billings to counteract local hate violence. Over the past 15 years, Not In Our Town has grown from a PBS documentary into a national effort to connect people working together to take action against hate and create safe, inclusive communities.

Not In Our Town: Light in the Darkness was directed by Patrice O’Neill and produced by The Working Group. Adrienne Calo and Charene Zalis serve as producers, with consulting producer Ray Telles. The film was edited by Linda Peckham, Andrew Gersh and Jill Strong, with principal photography by Brian Dentz.

Major support for this program is provided by PBS, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Einhorn Family Charitable Trust. Additional support has been provided by the Reva and David Logan Foundation and Public Welfare Foundation.

For additional information, please visit: http://www.niot.org/LightInTheDarkness.

For more about Bloomington/Normal Project History see NOT IN OUR TOWN – MCLEAN COUNTY.

For classroom resources see LOCAL CLASSROOM RESOURCES.

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