Spit on the Broom
Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich
The film explores the history of the United Order of Tents, a clandestine organization of black women in the 1840s, during the height of the Underground Railroad (a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the US during the early to mid-1800s, and used by African-American slaves to escape into free states and Canada). Out of respect for the group’s continued secrecy the film is structured around excerpts from the public record, newspaper articles related to the Tents from over the course of 100 years, and a visual tapestry of fable and myth as a way to introduce a history that remains secret.