It's the Brian Laird Show on WNYC.

Good morning again, everyone.

Now we're going to do an oral history call in to help director Sam Pollard with the documentary

he's making about the New York City

blackout of 1977. It was July 13th, a very hot day, kind of like today. The high was in the

90s. I'll tell my own blackout story as part of this, and we'll invite yours, for those of you

who were alive yet, experienced it, and remember something meaningful about it.

But let's bring Sam right on to explain the project and why he wants your stories.

Sam Pollard, as many of you know, is a historian and filmmaker, collaborator with Spike Lee on

films such as When the Levees Broke about Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and four little

girls about the 1963

Birmingham church bombing. He's an Emmy winner, a Peabody winner, an Oscar nominee, and so much more.

He was last on this show around Juneteenth last year for his documentary about the jazz drummer,

Max Roach. Sam, always an honor to have you on. Welcome back to WNYC.

My pleasure, Brian. Good talking to you. So set this up for us. Why are you making a film now

about the Blackout of 1977? So these two filmmakers from Ingoin reached out to me a few months back

and they were interested in doing a documentary that looked at the blackout in 1977 and I got very

enthusiastic because I was I was around and I was in that blackout when it happened in 77.

So it really piqued my interest and we started doing some research and we're looking to find

people who can tell us their stories through audio or photos or even the footage about their

experiences that night.

I mean, I remember I was over on 949 Street and Broadway.

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