Filmmaker and Public Humanities graduate student Sylvia Ryerson brought a full house to the New Haven Free Public Library’s downtown Community Program Room for a screening of her documentary short, Calls from Home. The film follows a longstanding radio program that sends familial messages of love to people incarcerated in Central Appalachia. Directed by Ryerson, a former DJ for the show, the film follows the weekly broadcast through prison walls, portraying the many forms of distance that rural prison building creates—and the ceaseless work to end the racist system of mass incarceration and family separation. Professor Elizabeth Hinton (Class of 1954 Professor of History and Black Studies and Professor of Law) joined Ryerson and Professor Matthew Jacobson (Sterling Professor and Director of Public Humanities) for a panel conversation about incarceration, parole reform, and the importance of maintaining relationships across the walls.
