A conversation that changed a movement.
Description
In 1958 Martin Luther King Jr. was stabbed in the chest by a deranged woman at a Harlem book signing. His recovery and three-hour conversation with the Black mystic Howard Thurman changed the course of Civil Rights history. This radio drama and companion AR Experience explore this conversation and the decades of revolution, community building, and lived experiences that preceded it.
“Day of Days” is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and produced in partnership with Brandeis University. A press kit is available at the bottom of this page and listening instructions are below. Enjoy!
Produced in partnership with Brandeis University and The Truth Podcast.
Want to Learn more about the project?
“Day of Days" includes a range of educational and public-facing activities that you can bring to your campus, cultural organization or festival. This includes a listening room, live performances, lectures, and an immersive media installation for festivals.
Drop us an email and check out the brochure linked below. We'd love to hear more about how this project might be presented in your community.
The AR Experience
The Podcast
Listen Now
Background
Immersive Civil Rights Storytelling
This project explores what we’re calling a “spatialized podcast.” The story of King and Thurman is set in a Harlem hospital room, but their conversation ranges from India to the segregated Deep South, from experimental churches in San Francisco to the pews of a university chapel. The podcast recreates these scenes in studio and makes listeners feel like they are being transported to these various settings. In addition, the project uses photogrammetry to recreate models of key spaces featured in the podcast and offer them up in the companion “Prequel” app. Above you will find links to the app and a portal to this spatialized prequel .
Technology
The techniques being used to create the Prequel AR App include photogrammetry (to capture the spaces in three dimensions,) spatial audio (recorded in three dimensions,) and Unity-based augmented reality. All of the historic buildings and sites featured in the App were captured in the actual sites where the events occurred and the structures remained. The Harlem Hospital building was torn down, but using photos and land surveys from the time period we were able to recreate it for the companion piece. This act of preservation allowed us to generate a more compelling set for the AR experience and literally take audiences inside the room where much of the podcast is set. Check out the app store links above to download this free immersive experience.
3-D/Photogrammetry
Impact
Prototype launched on WBUR Boston garnering critical acclaim and thousands of downloads.
Winner of a $300,000 NEH Digital Projects for the Public Production Grant.
Embedded into Brandeis’ MakerLab and trained several cohorts of student researchers on applied Humanities and interactive journalism.
Photo Gallery
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Here King sits with staff from the bookstore where he was stabbed in Harlem
The stabbing was committed with a letter opener that still protrudes from his chest.
PHOTO CREDIT: GETTY
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![Headline: King Stabbed]()
Martin Luther King Stabbed
Headline from the stabbing in October, 1958. Note the letter opener is still lodged in King’s chest. Courtesy New York Public Library Archives.
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![Howard Thurman]()
Howard Thurman Teaching at Boston University circa 1958
Image courtesy of the Howard Thurman Archives, Boston University.
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The Day King was released from the Harlem Hospital. He stands with his wife Coretta
The conversation with Thurman impacted King’s approach to the Civil Rights Movement from the moment he left the hospital.
PHOTO CREDIT: GETTY
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![MLK Leaving Harlem Hospital]()
MLK Leaving Harlem Hospital, 1958
Here you see King fully recovered leaving Harlem Hospital with his wife Coretta Scott King.
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![Placing Harlem Hospital in Context]()
Harlem Hospital Model for AR App
We used streetview to help put Harlem Hospital in context for the augmented reality mobile app.
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Entrance to the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground on Boston University’s Campus
Much of his work and provocations still linger and are honored on BU’s campus.
PHOTO CREDIT: WALKING CINEMA
Awards
Digital Project for the Public
Prototyping Grant
Digital Project for the Public
Production Grant
Press & Articles
NEH awards $300,000 to Professor Wendy Cadge’s Boston Hidden Sacred Spaces project
As our movement has been restricted over the past year due to the pandemic, there has been a rising interest in immersive storytelling: audio, zoom performances, and augmented reality…
At The Hebrew SeniorLife Synagogue, The Sacred Is Found In Song
Before the pandemic shuttered many houses of worship, WBUR, in partnership with Brandeis University and Walking Cinema, embarked on a project to explore non-traditional religious spaces throughout Greater Boston…
For Nearly 140 Years, A Seaside Mission Has Offered Ship Workers Small Comforts And Spiritual Support
WBUR’s companion piece to Walking Cinema’s audio and photogrammetry experience of the Seafarers Mission…
Travelers Find Refuge In Our Lady Of The Airways, The Nation's Oldest Airport Chapel
WBUR’s companion piece to Walking Cinema’s audio and photogrammetry experience of the Seafarers Mission…
Production Team
Michael Epstein, Principal Investigator, Writer (App) and Executive Producer
Michael is a journalist, media scholar, and founder of Walking Cinema. He wrote, directed, and co-produced the app.
Darren Canady, Writer
Darren is a playwright and professor of dramatic writing at Kansas University. He wrote the script for the podcast “Day of Days.”
Jonathan Mitchell, Director, Sound Designer, Composer
Jonathan Mitchel is a Peabody Award Winning writer, director, and producer of audio fiction and documentary. He created "The Truth" podcast.
Billy Eugene Jones, Actor
Billy is an Obie Award winning actor. He is a graduate of Yale School of Drama and has starred in many Broadway productions including "Our Town".
Jordan Mahome, Actor
Jordan Mahome is an educator and actor. He has appeared in "The Gilded Age," "Ray Donovan," "Power:Book 2," and The Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Amanda Brown, PhD.Dramaturg
Amanda is an author, educator, and historian. Her monograph book, "The Fellowship Church" was published by Oxford University Press.
Zhaoyan “Yuki” Li, Graphic Designer
Yuki is a graphic designer based out of Las Vegas who made a lot of the stuff you see in Day of Days – including this webpage!
Rory Mitchell, Story and Technical Consultant
Rory is a director and founder of MERCANTILE, a spatial production company based in LA.
Maxim Antinori, Platform Developer
Max is a web and mobile app developer specializing in interactive educational media. He programmed the AR app.
Andrew Callaway, Producer
Andrew wore many hats on "Day of Days," from casting director to managing photogrammetricians around the world, animating and music composition for the app.
Ian Roy, Director of Photogrammetry
Ian is the founder and director of Brandeis’ MakerLab. He helped develop the 3D visuals for the prototype app and managed the student researchers.
Anthony Marquette, Developer
Anthony and his team and Pixels and Polygons produced the photogrammetry for the prototype.
Alexa Burke, Audio Producer
Alexa was the audio producer for the prototype. She was an assistant producer at Walking Cinema for two years and now produces true crime podcasts.
Elissa Mardiney, Producer
Elissa was an audio producer for Walking Cinema. She researched, project-managed, and produced the prototype story.
Ryan Madeiros, UX and Graphic Designer
Ryan is a professor of Graphic Design at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. In this project he helped with the user experience and graphic design of the mobile app.
Walter Wuthmann, Reporter
Walter is a reporter for WBUR and produced the radio pieces for the prototype of the project.
Sasha Mandel, Soundtrack, Audio Editing
Sasha is a sound designer with a passion for interactivity and deep listening. He mixed the audio for prototype immersive experience.
Credits
STARRING:
Billy Eugene Jones
Jordan Mahome
Anya Pearson
Hiran Abeysekera
Anthony Aroya
Anthony Franqui
Phyllis Johnson4
Chris Kipiniak
Hemant Kiri
Abraham Michael Magnus
Sharina Martin
Chris McKinney
Kaili Y Turner
Amy Warren
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY:
Michael Epstein
PODCAST WRITTEN BY:
Darren Canady
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER:
Will Rogers
DEVELOPER:
Maxim Antinori
GRAPHIC DESIGNER:
Zhaoyan “Yuki” Li
PRODUCER:
Andrew Callaway
3D ARTIST:
Egor Kalmykov
STORY & TECHNICAL CONSULTANT:
Rory Mitchell
PHOTOGRAMMETRISTS:
Azad Balabanian
Isel Bernal
Munib Rauf
Jeremiah Stager
ANIMATORS:
Maxim Antinori
Andrew Callaway
Ghassan Ghanem
Egor Kalmykov
Abideen Yinusa
SCRIPT CONSULTANT:
Anthony Del Col
DRAMATURG:
Amanda Brown, Ph.D.
HISTORICAL ADVISORS:
Walter Earl Fluker, Ph.D.
Luther E. Smith, Jr., Ph.D.
VOICEOVER DIRECTOR:
Jonathan Mitchell
AUDIO ENGINEERS & SOUND DESIGNERS:
Jonathan Mitchell
Andrew Callaway
Collin Dwarzski
MUSIC:
Andrew Callaway
Arvid Svenungsson
Charles Maynes
DAJANA
Griffin Jennings
John Abbot
Jonathan Mitchell
Palace on Wheels
SPECIAL THANKS:
Qasim Abdul-Tawwab
Wanda Anderson
Alexa Burke
Wendy Cadge
Darren Canady
Peter Fitzgerald
Ryan Madeiros
Jordan Mahome
Sasha Mandel
Elissa Mardiney
Anthony Marquette
Ian Roy
Tara White
University of Alabama
Brandeis University
Marc Ruppel
The Dexter Parsonage Museum