Reclassified is a historical short film inspired by a true story from the life of my father.
During World War II, my father served in the United States Army Air Forces as a Negro serviceman. He was also very light-skinned. He was light enough that his White commanding officer believed he saw an opportunity to give my father a different kind of life. He wanted to change his race on paper. The officer believed he was helping him. With a change to his military records, my father could leave the service classified as White and cross the color line when he returned home. In the officer's mind, it was an opportunity to escapthe restrictions and dangers that came with being a Black man in America at that time. But what looks like an opportunity to one person can look very different to the person who has to live with the choice.
Reclassified puts us in the room as two men wrestle with that decision. Commander Whitman believes he is opening a door. Lee Walters, the serviceman inspired by my father, has to decide what walking through that door might give him, and what it might require him to leave behind. The film explores race, identity, power, autonomy and the complicated question at the center of my father's story:
What happens when someone else has the power to decide who you can become?
FROM A FAMILY STORY TO THE SCREEN
I grew up knowing this story. I still have documents my father saved from his military service. I have a self-portrait he drew while he was in the Army Air Forces. For me, those things are reminders that before Reclassified was a play or a screenplay, it was someone's life. It was my father's life.
I first turned the story into a stage play. Now I'm adapting it for film. The heart of the film remains an intimate conversation between Whitman and Walters, but film gives me the opportunity to take the audience beyond that room and into what each man imagines.
The world of 1945 will appear muted and sepia-toned, like an old photograph. But when we enter the possibilities these men are imagining—the futures they see, the lives that might exist beyond this conversation—those images will appear in full color.
I want you to decide what you would do if the choice were yours.
PURCHASE MERCHANDISE AND HELP US BRING RECLASSIFIED TO THE SCREEN
We're currently raising funds to produce Reclassified as an independent short film.
Production funding will help us pay the artists and crew who make the film possible and cover the real costs of bringing a period story to the screen—from locations, costumes and props to equipment, production, editing, sound and post-production.
There are several ways to be part of getting this story made, including purchasing official Reclassified merchandise.
Black servicemen didn't simply participate in Black history.
They participated in American history.
That's the idea behind our first Reclassified merchandise: BLACK VETERANS ARE AMERICAN HISTORY T-shirts and hoodies.
The merchandise helps support the production of Reclassified, but the message is bigger than this film. It's about recognizing generations of Black men and women whose military service is inseparable from the American story.
Wear the message. Support the film. Help us tell the story.