In 2002, while teaching writing in the public school system in Jacksonville, Florida to at-risk high school students, King became intrigued with the little-known St. Augustine Civil Rights Movement. Aware that many Movement veterans, both black and white, were aging, he began securing on-camera interviews with those on both sides of the desegregation issue.
Two years later, he produced Slave Market Diary, which screened at the 40th Anniversary of St. Augustine Civil Rights campaign in St. Augustine. However, less-than-happy with the results, King returned to the project, and 13 years later, produced Passage at St. Augustine: The 1964 Black Lives Matter Movement That Transformed America, which won The Henry Hampton Award of Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking at the 2015 Roxbury International Film Festival.
King is the father of two adult sons, and resides in Roxbury, Massachusetts, home to AugustineMonica Films, producer of Passage at St. Augustine: The 1964 Black Lives Matter Movement That Transformed America.
Filmmaker Clennon L. King speaks at a June 2004 St. Augustine, Florida screening of Slave Market Diary, the precursor to his award-winning film_, Passage at St. Augustine. ©Justin Yurkanin/Florida Times-Union_
Passage at St. Augustine, c/o AugustineMonica Films, P.O. Box 2000321, Boston, MA 02120 US +1.207.450.3585
Filmmaker Clennon L. King ©Natalie McCray Krauz
St. Augustine Foot Soldiers Monument, by Brian R. Owens
Documentary filmmaker Clennon L. King is a former Emmy®-nominated TV news journalist, who spent more than a decade reporting in the Sunbelt before entering documentary filmmaking.
King hails from a prominent civil rights family in Albany, Georgia, where his father, the late Attorney C.B. King, represented scores of civil rights demonstrators, including Dr. King (no relation), during the 1961-’62 Albany Movement.
His formal training includes attending The Putney School in Vermont, earning an English degree at Tulane in New Orleans, studying law at University College, University of London in England and, later, film at NYU’s Graduate School of Film and Television.
In his early professional career, King served as a special assistant to Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, and later, government-access TV station manager and film bureau chief under Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson.
King then segued into journalism in earnest. His career spans more than two decades during which he reported for NBC News.com, The Boston Globe, Florida Trend, and the Florida-Times Union. He was also an on-air TV reporter for network affiliates in Dallas (KXAS), Atlanta (WSB), Miami (WSVN), Jacksonville (WTLV/WJXX, Mobile (WALA) and Boston (WGBH).
His awards include an Emmy® nomination from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences' Suncoast Chapter, a national Edward R. Murrow and a National Association of Black Journalists' news award. King's reporting on race has also been recognized by Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Copyright Passage at St. Augustine - featuring the award-winning Civil Rights Documentary & Discussion facilitated by Filmmaker Clennon L. King, All rights reserved.
