In Honor of Cornelius Taylor, Abdul Wright and so many more Southern Homeless Ancestors… Homeless artists create a movie about homelessness and bring it to the South

18 hours ago

4 min read

Press Contacts: Tiny Gray-Garcia (510) 435-7500

Adrian Diamond, Green Diamond Projects (661) 210-5764

Sabrina (704) 804-0908

Unhoused, formerly Houseless disabled youth, families, and elders from California have created a movie about their lives and their ancestors lost to the ongoing violence of homelessness, evictions, gentrification, poLice terror, and sweeps across the US. The Southern UnTour honors houseless ancestors from Atlanta, North & South Carolnia and beyond.

Movie Trailer HERE

Crushing Wheelchairs Movie Southern UnTour Screenings Dates and Locations: From October 19-22 you can catch “Crushing Wheelchairs” in Atlanta GA, Columbia SC, Charlotte NC, and Durham NC!

Monday Oct. 19: Morehouse College

Shirley A. Massey Conference Center

5pm @morehousecollege

830 Westview Dr SW Atlanta, GA 30314

Tuesday Oct. 20: Babylon Kino

6:30pm @babylonkino

631 Harden Street, Suite I, Columbia, SC 29205

Wednesday Oct. 21: VisArt Video Theatre

6:30pm @visartvideo

3104 Eastway Dr, Charlotte, NC 28205

Thursday Oct. 22: The People’s Solidarity Hub

6pm @peoplessolidarityhub

1809 Chapel Hill Rd, Durham, NC 27707

From Cornelius Taylor killed by a bulldozer in a sweeo in Atlanta to Abdul Wright who died on the streets of Charlotte, NC and so many more unknown houseless residents who die every year across the US, Houseless and formerly houseless cultural workers from Oakland, Ca, who call themselves “povertyskolaz” bring the ground-breaking movie they have created about their lives and their communities lives in poverty to four cities in the South beginning with MoreHouse College in Atlanta.

Image of Cornelius Taylor - killed by a bulldozer in a sweep in Atlanta

The powerful new movie depicts Six houseless residents of San Francisco, LA and Oakland live outside in tents, cardboard boxes & RVs, surviving together in community, interdependently, until each city deploys a giant machine and multiple poLice and state agencies that crush all of their belongings, tents, walkers, wheelchairs and more. The exciting new movie Crushing Wheelchairs, which incorporates magical realism, poetry, and myth in the stories of each of the characters, culminates in violent tragedy and hope rooted in decolonial self-determination. The production includes a cast of only houseless or formerly houseless and disabled actors who have been participants in a series of theatre and writing workshops led by formerly houseless screenwriter, povertyskola and poet Tiny (Lisa) Gray-Garcia aka @povertyskola. The film was produced in partnership with LA-based filmmaker, Adrian Diamond (Green Diamond Projects).

"I had everything taken from me, things I will never be able to replace no matter how many hoops I went through—I could never get them back from CalTrans,” said Brokin Cloud. Houseless in Oakland for over fifteen years, Brokin Cloud is one of the over twenty co-creators, actors, and writers who have been meeting in a workshop led by the playwright, poet, actor and visionary PovertySkola also known as Tiny Gray-Garcia, who herself was a houseless child with her disabled mother for the majority of her childhood, and then again as a single mother with her son due to the violent gentrification of the Bay Area throughout the last decade.

"I created this movie based on my life as a child and young adult who barely survived poverty and homelessness, criminalization , sweeps and incarceration. I created this movie based on my mama's life and the lives of countless fellow houseless youth, mamas, and elders who have barely survived and often died from the position of being without shelter in a system that values "private property" over people. Values the hoarding and acquiring of stolen resources and indigenous land over the safety of children and families and elders and disabled people, and actually views us as trash when we are outside—to be swept—or put to death," said writer and co-director tiny Gray-Garcia, formerly homeless, incarcerated, single mother, poet,co-founder with her mama Dee of POOR magazine, visionary of Homefulness and co-author of many publications including Criminal of Poverty - Growing Up Homeless in America and more.

"This movie honors and pays tribute, prayer, and art to the stories and spirits of Cornelius Taylor, Abdul Wright, Steven Taylor, Tyrell Wilson, Luis Demetrio Góngora Pat, Luis Temaj, Laure McElroy, Anjileen “Green Eyes” Swan, Desiree Quintero, and Shannon Marie Bigley, and so many more all who passed from the violence of sweeps, poLice terror, and hate of us poor people,” said Tiny. “This movie honors our lives as well—currently in struggle homeless poverty skolaz, in cities like ours where, in San Francisco we are being swept in the rain, or hosed down by individuals like art gallery owner Collier Gwin, or Oakland like the Wood Street Commons residents who were violently evicted from their longtime neighborhood in West Oakland in the middle of torrential rains.”

Each screening of the movie includes Indigenous and all nations prayer for ancestors of homelessness, poLice terror and sweeps. As well, in all of the cities we are visiting, also besieged by violent sweeps, we are honored to be co-sponsored and in collaboration with Morehouse Sociology Department, Morehouse College and houseless sweeps and displacement survivors, mutual aid workers and advocates like the Community Land & Power , The Peoples Table, Food Not Bombs Charlotte, Durham Beyond Policing, Durham Community Fridges, Really, Really Free Market CLT and Reproductive Rights Coalition to name a few of the orgs signed into to support this powerful Untour, In addition to local organizers and houseless povertyskolaz, we will be featuring a discussion with sweeps and eviction survivors from POOR Magazine and their solution called Homefulness-a homeless peoples solution to homelessness that currently houses 24 houseless youth, adults and elders in rent-free forever housing and that survived the violent sweeps of their entire community and now work as advocates.