CHARLOTTESVILLE (WINA) – Local activist Tanesha Hudson is working with the UVa Center for Politics, the Martinsville 7 Initiative, and Legacy Productions on a documentary about the Martinsville 7. These are 7 black men convicted and executed in 1949 for a rape in Martinsville they did not commit… and pardoned last year by then-Governor Northam.
Hudson says while this was 1949, and the level of hate is not what it was then… the injustices against African-Americans persist. She says the level of hate crimes in Virginia are often “overshadowed by white excellence… and I say that is we live in a state where so many Presidents were birthed”. She says the “white excellence” told of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and Woodrow Wilson “often overshadow the real message of white supremacy”.
Hudson said she initially became interested in this project when former Vice Mayor Wes Bellamy introduced her in Danville during the 2018 pilgrimage following the “summer of hate” to Martinsville City Councilor Chad Martin. He had heard she was working on a documentary about Charlottesville’s African American success stories called “A Legacy Unbroken” and told her she should “do a story on the Martinsville 7”.
Hudson said she spent most of her time during the rest of the pilgrimage learning what she could of the Martinsville 7, then did more research upon returning home. She then approached Center for Politics documentary maker Glenn Crossman about making a Martinsville 7 documentary, but he was in the middle of making another documentary then and Hudson was finishing up Legacy. Time then passed, then the pandemic hit, and they never were able to get the effort going.
Hudson says she’s “a firm believer in things happening when God plans for them to happen, and God’s plan is always the right plan and God’s timing is always the right timing.”
“So it was the right timing last year to pick up this project back up and start up with it again.”
The timing? Just before then-Governor Ralph Northam last year announced he was going to pardon the Martinsville 7. First, Hudson and Crossman, without knowing what was going to happen, decided to commence the documentary. Then, Governor Northam issued the pardons.
Hudson says the pardons are wonderful, and now it’s time to pursue exonerations of the 7. One of the questions she’ll ask in the documentary is how to get the 7 men exonerated.
Documentaries take money to make, and anyone who wants to know more and contribute to this project can do so by clicking here. Hudson wants to let contributors on the website know the proper “designation” you’ll be asked for is indeed the default “Center for Politics Documentaries Fund”.
