Opening Premiere on Tuesday, June 4, 2019, at Old Dominion University Theatre was a full house.
The historical epidemic of tuberculosis at Seaview Hospital in Staten Island, New York has been hidden in the trenches of the forgotten city, but not any longer. Producer, Denetra Hampton, released a premiere screening of THE BLACK ANGELS: A NURSE'S STORY this past Tuesday, at Old Dominion University Theatre, and the people came out in droves.
The mini-documentary grapples with not only the tuberculosis epidemic in the 1940's at Seaview Hospital, the largest sanitorium in the country, but the racial inequities of that time. As nurses called THE BLACK ANGELS stepped in to care for patients when white nurses refused, they became heroes as their care was a key contribution in helping curtail the deaths of many, prior to the cure founded by Dr. Edward Robitzek, in 1951.
Denetra's script is equisite, as it centers on the life of Black Angel Marjorie Reed, born in Norfolk, Va. Marjorie, 92 years old, appears in the mini-documentary giving a detailed account of her working years at Seaview. Some of the most intimate scenes are the candid conversations between Denetra and Marjorie.
Not short of nursing science and medicine, Denetra also narrates a spectacular curriculum on the history of tuberculosis and the biggest influence of the disease, poverty.
The Black Angels: A Nurse's Story Mini-Documentary will be going on tour in September of this year. If your university, school or museum would like to have a screening, please contact Producer, Denetra Hampton.