“At the Pan-African Connection” Premieres in Dallas on May 17

When I moved to Dallas fourteen years ago, the first place I searched for was a Black bookstore. Along with the Black church and the Black school building, the Black bookstore is one of the most important community institutions. I grew up visiting and supporting Chicago’s first Black woman-owned bookstore, Afrocentric Bookstore (owned by Noname’s mom Desiree Sanders), Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu’s AFRICAN AMERICAN IMAGES bookstore, and Haki R. Madhubuti’s Third World Press, the largest independent black-owned press in the country.

In Dallas, I just missed Black Images Book Bazaar, the brainchild of Emma Rogers which closed in 2007. However, I found a Black literary home in Pan-African Connection, then located across the road from Fair Park near South Dallas. 

Like many Black bookstores, The Pan-African Connection Bookstore, Art Gallery and Resource Center is so much more than a place where books are sold. With a focus on Pan-African Bookstore at the center of the story, “At the Pan-African Connection,” the debut documentary from Dallas native and filmmaker Anthony Asota, also highlights the state of Black America’s socioeconomic progress and the filmmaker’s journey from Freedman Town’s Roseland Townhomes (known as the North Dallas projects) to around the world and back. Roseland Homes was Dallas’ first public housing designed for Black people and the first public housing built for Black people west of the Mississippi when the 611-unit development was constructed in 1942.

Starring Asota, Pan-African Connection’s founder, the late Bandele Tyehimba, Pan-African Connection’s CEO and co-founder Akwete Tyehimba, and featuring cameos from musician, educator, and community fixture Baba Leo Hassan, the filmmaker’s friends and yours truly, the film is like experiencing multiple films wrapped in one.

At the Pan-African Connection premieres on Saturday, May 17, 2025 at the Angelika Film Center & Café in Dallas. Doors will open at 5 p.m., with the screening scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Tickets are priced at $10 and are available for reservation through this Eventbrite link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/at-the-pan-african-connection-film-premiere-tickets-1312201212149

I sat down with the “At the Pan-African Connection” filmmaker Anthony Asota two weeks ago and interviewed him about his life and the film. I met Asota in 2021 while I was Executive Director of Dallas Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT), and through Dallas TRHT’s Community Innovation Lab, he was awarded $10,000 in funding and support to work on this film. Below is a transcription of the first part of our interview.

Listen to the full interview:

Jerry Hawkins: So, tell me about your film name versus your government (given name). I thought that was interesting when i saw it.

Anthony Asota: Whew. I guess I’ll give you the real…Especially since i’ve been learning more about history. I always knew that I wanted to give…my future kids…like a different last name. Like start my own lineage or at least like something that they know where they can trace back to. So, ASOTA is an acronym for A Servant Of The Arts, so it’s my way of serving the source through the artistic form. That’s how I want…I’m choosing to add value to my ethnic group and to, hopefully, life, you know and hopefully people overall…Okay, when I decided, Okay, imma make this film?  When I decided that, I became a servant of whatever that idea needed in order to become a real thing. Right? So I feel like I’m a servant of these ideas that are bestowed upon me and I gotta ‘real life’ them. If I decide I’m taking it on, I’m going to do whatever the idea needs. And so that’s how the thought about “Man, I feel like a servant of these things that happens.” In an artistic way, oh, I’m a servant of the arts. And that’s kind of how it came about. So, Anthony Asota kinda had a little ring to it!

Hawkins: One of the parts of the film that really hit me was when I saw a picture of you, and you talking about where you were from. We never talked about where you were from in Dallas… 

Asota: Yeah (laughing).

Hawkins: We talked about you growing up in Dallas, a little bit, but when it hit me that you were actually from Roseland…which is part of the original Freedman’s Town…

Asota: Freedman’s Town… (in unison)

Hawkins: …It really hit me. So can you talk a little bit about that, brother, cause’ that’s a big part of the story you left out, man? Because Black people have systemically been gentrified out of that area…that was a powerful part of the movie.

Asota: What’s funny…it took a lot out of me not to put more of that in it ‘cause…I didn’t want to make this too much about me— 

Hawkins: (interjects) —I thought that was powerful, brother. I was like, Oh sh*t. That hit me, you know?

Asota: (laughing) What’s funny is…I only know that because of you. 

Our first interview we had, you said it, like, in an interview, ‘cause I go back and I watch and I take notes on our interview. But I had never told you that. But like I…I like…like…teared up that day. I was like, Wow! Like, where I was born is like where Freedman’s Town was! I was just thinking about how the name of something…how you name something can change the, like, outcome of somebody’s whole path. I’m like, what if we all knew that was Freedman’s Town? Then, we would go about life differently than like, oh, we just from the projects. You know what I mean? 

Yeah, that was for my interview in 2021, man, where you opened my eyes to that.  And I didn’t want to put it in there just because I feel like I would be making it too much about me and I didn’t want to take away from the story and whatnot. 

Hawkins: I thought that was real powerful, man, because what you then talked about was this kind of awakening. You know what I mean? Like learning about these different things in your city, you know, and especially learning about Pan-African. Can you talk about how you grew up in the city and didn’t really know about Pan-African or some of these other things? (and laughing while raising voice) AND SAY A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOU BEING BORN IN THE ROSELAND PROJECTS! MAN, THAT’S POWERFUL! Man, that’s a really important part of the story. 

Asota: (laughing) I wish! I wish!

Hawkins: Say that. That’s the first place you lived?

Asota: Yeah, yeah. So I was born and raised in what we call ‘North Dallas projects,’ the Roseland Townhomes, Hall Street and Munger, and that’s…yeah that’s where I feel like I cut my teeth on life?

Hawkins: Were your parents…your mom and dad…family from that area, too?

Asota: Yeah, my momma…she grew up there, as well. So, all my cousins – my dad’s side? They’re from Lancaster. But my mom, grandma – all of them grew up – same apartments.

Hawkins: So, you are…generations?

Asota: Yeah.

Hawkins: In Freedman’s Town?

Asota: (laughing) Yeah!

Hawkins: Have you tried to trace your family, a lil bit, and see if they from…

Asota: I would like to! I would like to.

Hawkins: Is the furthest you know…is your grandmother lived there?

Asota: And I think my grandma’s mom. We called her ‘Mother.’ Yeah, that’s as far back in history that I know. So, my mom, my granny and then Mother, great-grandma. But, yeah, from what I know, yeah, it was all there.

Hawkins: What do you want people to get from it?

Asota: I think I just want people to walk away better understanding what we’ve been through and if you are the person that wants to, I guess like, help things…if they want to try to shape a way forward in any way, in their own lane, you know, just an understanding of what we’ve been through and what’s still around. 

Like, you know, I didn’t learn the narrative change part until coming…to the (Dallas TRHT) cohort and coming to you. That’s a BIG THING right there. How we look at it and talk about it and shape it for everybody else, you know? I don’t want to give it away but it’s just a whole bunch of…this ain’t like this no more and this ain’t doing this. And like, I get it! I get it. I really get what you mean when you say that. But…there’s you. There is Jerry. There is Imani (Imani Daniel, former Director of Culture & Operations at Dallas TRHT). There are people who do this, for real, like, and all they need is us to bring our our passions, our skills, you know what I’m saying? So, that’s what I want people to walk away with, I guess.