Panhandle PBS wins Emmy for 'Living While Black' series

Amarillo College's Panhandle PBS recently won a Regional Emmy award at The Lone Star Emmy Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for its series “Living While Black.”

“It's rewarding, obviously, but for me, my hope is that the award draws more attention to these stories, and it made me that much more grateful to the people that shared their stories, and stood in their truth,” said Hilary Hulsey, director of “Living While Black”.

Panhandle PBS, a service of the college, originally aired the six-episode series in March.

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“Our mission here at Panhandle PBS is to educate, enlighten, and entertain," said Karen Welch, producer of “Living While Black. "It's really important for us to begin to discuss race more frankly, more open, and to come at it with some understanding, and I believe that’s what the series did. We use some experts to give a vocabulary to the micro aggressions."

“Living While Black” was created and influenced after the 2020 race-related protests following the death of George Floyd.

Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was killed in Minneapolis in May 2020. Derek Chauvin, a white police officer with the Minneapolis Police Department, was captured on video kneeling on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down. Chauvin was later tried and convicted in connection to Floyd's death.

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The award-winning documentary is a series of interviews with Black and biracial Amarillo residents about their experiences in the city as well as systemic racism, segregation, desegregation and the renaming of local schools, movements for change, missing Black history, and how to move from protest to progress.

“There were commonalities that came up with many of them," Welch said. "We had many of them say that their parents had always said that they would start behind people of other races, so they didn’t just have to be good, they had to be better just to come up even with whoever it was that they were working with."

“The elevator stories were common of people clutching purses, or things like that as they got on elevators; or switching sides of the street when they saw a Black person …," Welch added. "When you hear those things from neighbors and people in the community that you know, then you begin to understand what's going on.”

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Panhandle PBS was announced as the winner of the award during The Lone Star Emmy Chapter's virtual ceremony held Nov. 20.

Director Hulsey, and producers Welch, Nolyn Hill and Brian Frank, won the Regional Emmy award in the category of Best Documentary for the series.

“I think that, locally, we tend to think that these things don't happen and the importance of hearing your neighbors and your friends talk about microaggressions, or blatant acts of racism that have happened to them elsewhere — but also in the Texas Panhandle — really brings the story home and brings awareness,” Hulsey said.

“It's probably not something that they're going to bring up in conversation, but I think that people should lean into that discomfort, and those uncomfortable conversations so that they can get to know their friends and neighbors on a human level,” she added.

Full episodes and individual segments can be viewed at panhandlePBS.org, as well as on the station’s YouTube channel. A marathon of the series is scheduled to be aired on Dec. 12 from 1:30-4:30 p.m. on Panhandle PBS.

This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Panhandle PBS wins Emmy for 'Living While Black' documentary series