Lester Hankerson

The half-hour documentary color film Right Now! traces the efforts of the lesser-known civil rights activist Lester Hankerson to register voters in Savannah, Georgia. Robert Newman made the film for the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries in cooperation with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Southern Regional Council Voter Education Project, and the Committee for Racial Justice Now. In a letter of August 14, 1964, in the records of the SCLC, Newman discusses an agreement with Brandon Films to achieve national distribution (microfilm reel 1, series 1, sub-series 1, box 138:8, frame 0703), but a widespread search in 2005 suggested that surviving copies of the film are rare. One such copy appears in OCLCs WorldCat as being 29 minutes in duration, but Rabin's copy, transferred to digital form, played slightly shorter, at 27:38, with an abrupt beginning; possibly the opening minute of the reel is lost.

Film

Lester Hankerson