'A time for burning' to be shown in Lincoln, Omaha

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By JoANNE YOUNG / Lincoln Journal Star

For director Bill Jersey, it’s both a wonderful and terrible thing that his 1965 documentary, “A Time for Burning,” has new life.

New screenings of his film, featuring a young Ernie Chambers and the pastor and members of an Omaha Lutheran church, in Lincoln, Omaha and New York City, will bring a new audience.

Directors like to feel their films  have “legs,” he said.

View Slideshow

Ernie Chambers (left) being interviewed in his Omaha barbershop by Rev. William Youngdahl, the pastor of Augustana Lutheran Church, Omaha, in 1966. Child is not identified. (Courtesy photo)

“But I feel sad that it’s much more relevant today than I wish it were,” he said.

The documentary is drawing new attention because the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is screening the Academy Award nominated film in midtown Manhattan on Monday. It’s part of the academy’s Monday Night with Oscar series.

The documentary, called the most honest, accurate and effective expose of the civil rights impasse ever filmed, is being reintroduced in a historic election year, the academy said.

The black and white, cinéma vérité tells the 1965 story of William Youngdahl, Omaha’s Augustana Lutheran Church pastor, who tried to inspire his congregation to confront racism. 

As Youngdahl pursued his idea to have members from his white church meet with members from  black churches in each other's homes, he ran into a  brutally honest young barber, Ernie Chambers. So, too, did one of the church leaders,  Ray Christensen, who was forced to confront his own passive prejudice.

Jersey set out, he said, to not just make a film about a church but about fundamental notions that are constant in time: it’s difficult to bring about change when behaviors are so entrenched.

The ideas are relevant to sexism, racism, homophobia, he said. It’s the idea of turning a stranger into an enemy, looking at other people according to what makes them different.

The film shows not only the conflict between black and white,  but the internal conflicts within each race.

Jersey, 81, is still making films.

“I’ll die, as they say, with my boots on,” he said.

He will appear at the Friday and Saturday showings in Lincoln and Omaha to discuss the documentary after the screenings.

Reach JoAnne Young at 473-7228 or jyoung@journalstar.com.