FFPP Mentor Bridgett M. Davis has a lot to celebrate! Her memoir, The World According to Fannie Davis: My Mother’s Life in the Detroit Numbers will not only be the first year text for Fall 2020, but it will be adapted for a feature film — to be released by Searchlight Pictures, the Disney-owned arthouse studio, and produced by Brad Pitt’s production company, Plan B Entertainment. For details, see The Hollywood Reporter. For more details, see Detroit Metro Times.
Congratulations, Bridgett! We can’t wait to celebrate with you in person!
“This memoir about my family is, I believe, a timely illustration of the racial discrimination that has continued to impact African- American lives for hundreds of years,” said Prof. Davis. “Playing the numbers constituted an informal, underground economy in the Black community that helped my family and many, many others realize a middle-class life,” explained Prof. Davis. “Millions of African-Americans migrated from the racist south, like my family from Tennessee, to create what they called “a way out of no way”. However, when they arrived in urban cities, they were confronted with an equally virulent Northern racism, which restricted their access to good jobs, or even steady employment.”
Prof. Davis will be writing the feature film script with an assist from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage. The author of novels as well as this memoir said she’s excited to convert her story to film because it will “reach a wide audience, illuminating the ingenuity of black folks like my mother, who always believed she too was entitled to the American Dream.”
