What up, what up, what up? Hello everybody. Welcome to the Michael Steele podcast. I'm Michael Steele. Yeah, I'm still a Republican. I know some people have been asking and yeah, the brother's trying to find a job. So, you know, help a Republican brother out. Now I'm just kidding.

It's great to have you guys here in the house today. Really excited about the conversation. We're going to engage in as I mentioned to our guests. I was really happily shocked that she said yes to do this.

We know her from her work. Incredible, incredible efforts out there to sort of have conversations that a lot of folks don't like to have sometimes. Shaila Harris, award winning director producer based in New York.

She is the co director of the Black Church, a two part series hosted by Henry Lewis Gates. We all know and love Henry that aired on PBS this past February.

She was also a producer on the Emmy nominated series who killed Malcolm X for fusion and Netflix. Previously, she was a senior producer for digital video at Frontline PBS.

She has won an Emmy for life interrupted, which was a documentary series based about it on a young woman with cancer that she shot edited and produced.

That's saying a lot for assisted to do in this business. She also earned a National Magazine Award, a George Foster P body and overseas press club award and several Emmy nominations for her work.

She's currently co directing a four hour documentary on segregation and life behind the color line that is funded by WTA and PBS.

And I think that airs sometime soon, right? Yeah, in 2022 next year.

And 2022. So, Shaila, welcome to the house.

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to talk to you.

Oh, my gosh. This is so cool because I love the intersection of real life with art and entertainment and politics.

And you in the work that you have done has stepped on all of those toes deliberately so.

So, to help people kind of get into the groove of what you do, give us a little bit of your walk to the black church and who killed Malcolm X and the upcoming project.

What is it that's animating and motivating your social, political, and artistic conscious right now?

That's a great question and I appreciate you giving me this face to talk a little bit about this.

So, for me as a filmmaker, the thing I love about the work that I do is that it allows me to be both a teacher and a learner.

I have always been a curious person. I've always been like an honor roll a student.

And so, any answer you were that kid in the.

I was that wrong. And the first one up.

So, any opportunity to learn about something that I thought I knew or didn't know anything about to me is the best thing and then to be able to share what I learned with other people is sort of the best thing about being a journalist and about a documentary filmmaker.

And so, for projects like who killed Malcolm X, you know, like everyone I thought I knew that story.

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