About the Team
Troy Jones
co-producer
Troy's visionary leadership and commitment to excellence position him as an industry luminary, continually pushing boundaries and empowering teams to thrive in the ever-evolving landscape of media advertising technology.
Trudy Hutcherson
co-producer / DP
Trudy's news and documentary work as a visual storyteller has taken her all over the world.
She is currently shooting and producing media for the Smithsonian African American Museum in Washington, DC.
Dave Lent
co-producer
Dave’s career as a Dave brings fifty years of experience as a video producer, director, cameraman, writer, and editor. His work has focused on the dimly lit corners of human nature and society, including Life Without, Hotel Macedonia, and Amazing Place.
Susan Burgess-Lent
executive producer
Susan is a veteran international aid worker, author, public speaker, and EMMY award-winning documentary editor. She is Founder of Women’s Center’s International, a non-profit that creates resource centers for women affected by conflict and poverty. The author of three books, numerous short stories, and 145 essays for her blog, she lives in Oakland, California.
Erin Lee
editor
As a shooter, editor, sound designer, and writer, Erin has produced and edited videos for travel shows, commercial spots, non-profits, tech startups, and is an award winning editor for both short and feature narrative independent films. Erin is originally from Miami, with roots in the Bay Area, Canada and the Caribbean.
John Dresslar
legal consultant
Will Parrinello
consulting producer
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Docs in Progress
fiscal sponsor
Our Company
The name of our partnership blends the letters from each of our first names, Trudy, Troy, and Dave
Trudy's Why
Tulsa, OK holds a special place in my heart, interwoven into the fabric of my childhood memories. It's where I cherished Christmases with Granny and Pops and spent hot summers at the pool with my cousins.
My mother and her eight siblings grew up in the northern part of the city, in a humble two-bedroom house. Even in my youth, I recognized this neighborhood as predominantly Black and underserved—a stark reality that persists today.
Now, I understand Tulsa as a city still bearing visible scars from the repeated economic oppression of African Americans. This oppression has manifested violently, from slavery to the devastating 1921 Race Massacre, where white rioters destroyed the thriving Black community of Greenwood. It has also been systematic, evident in practices like redlining, urban renewal, predatory financial schemes, and racial disparities within the justice system. Each of these injustices has weighed heavily on the African American community in Tulsa, and despite the passage of time, neither my family nor the community as a whole has been made whole.
This is the history of my family and the context from which my advocacy for reparations emerges. Can you guess which adorable youngster is me?
Dave's Why
For the last 75 years, I and many white people of my generation have been chained to a history we don't understand. Growing up in the segregated south, the estranged relationship between us and black people was our “(Black) Elephant in the Room.”
When confronted during my early years in any number of ways by the legacy of slavery, I lacked the words to describe it, the courage to face it, and the imagination to do something about it.
As an adult, I was lucky to get the occasional insight from black friends, colleagues, or advisors. Some planted seeds, others gave me a nudge or a kick, each helped me grasp one or more of the ugly, dimly-lit truths about our society.
When Covid pushed the pause button on everything and everybody, it allowed me to catch up on some reading that set me up for a breakthrough.
An Atlantic article ‘A Case for Reparations’ by Ta-Nehisi Coates led me to the book ‘From Here to Equality’ by Sandy Darity and Kirsten Mullen. FHTE filled many of the gaps in my so-called formal education, provided an inventory of the systemic extraction of black assets, opportunities, and dignity, and laid out a comprehensive plan for national reparations.
At this stage of my life (I’m 81) I pick my battles carefully. I've decided to go all-in for the reparations movement. My intention is to help move the topic of reparations from the fringes of America's attention to center stage - where it belongs. And I want to amplify two ideas: 1. Settling the debt to Black America will not only make this country fair (for the first time), it will open doors for all of us where there weren't doors before. And 2. Closing the wealth gap will go a long way toward repairing America's broken heart.
Troy's Why
When I reflect on my story, it often reminds me of the great Stevie Wonder song “I Wish”, starting with “Looking back on when I was a little nappy-headed boy” (and not just because of the hair) …because times were often rough, but we made the most of it, and I wouldn’t trade those experiences for anything… You see I am from Columbus, Ohio, born at a time, 1965, when the civil rights movement was in full effect. My parents married at a young age and had me and my little brother before they were barely in their 20s. They were also civil rights activists who participated in the movement, organizing marches, strikes, boycotts, etc. And they taught us to be proud of who we were and where we came from.
But my family life soon would become even more impacted by America’s unfair treatment of Black and poor people when my father was drafted to fight in the Vietnam War, even though he was married and had 2 small children to care for, 3-year-old me and my infant brother. He refused the draft because he believed it was unfair to fight a war for a country where he was denied the same fundamental rights and equal opportunities as white Americans. He was sentenced to 3 years in federal prison, by a white judge who routinely gave white conscientious objectors a sentence of community service.
Throughout my childhood, we often lived with extended family members to survive, and when I turned 12, we moved from Columbus, Ohio to go live with my aunt in San Rafael, California, which is a small town in Marin County, a short car ride across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco.
Talk about culture shock, Marin County is one of the most affluent and homogenized white places to live in the entire country. So not only did I leave everything and almost everyone I’d ever known, but I also went from living in mostly Black, inner-city, lower-income neighborhoods, (my elementary school was 98% Black) to a suburban, affluent, and predominately white community (my new school was probably 90% white, with only a handful of other Black students).
But this move opened my mind and taught me how to get along with everyone and forced me to find common ground to work with people from all walks of life. It also enlightened me to understanding generational wealth and how it’s maintained, seeing how people with financial security and living in safe environments allow children to grow up believing in their ability to accomplish anything they set their minds on. Moreover, I've seen how this comfort level and privilege will enable folks to thrive in this country and continue to provide and maintain wealth for future generations.
In closing, I believe this economic safety net (generational wealth) that African Americans have been systematically excluded from attaining throughout this country's history is what reparations can help bring to many African Americans who are struggling and unable to create the same opportunities for their families.
Susan's Why
I grew up in a white suburb of Detroit. Motown provided the sound tracks of my high school years.
I did not know any black people until I moved to California in the mid-70s to work in television. It was hard to find a black face in a sea of white ones until the 90’s. I left the business just as news anchors and crews of different colors were arriving. The move ushered in the peak period of my working life.
After the initial thrill of entering the humanitarian aid and development business, l saw pretty much every one of my sacred cows slaughtered.
It was more satisfying to be an outlier working with small organizations based in Africa. I was the color of the minority colonizer but intent on disrupting the classist, male-dominated, ‘Global North’ approaches. I learned humility and an appreciation of the absurd from my African colleagues and friends.
Over time I understood something of the pain, horror, and grief that threads through the lives of black human beings. An apology hardly covers the enormity of insults endured Living While Black. But I’m not looking to shoulder shame and guilt. I’m seeking the way to connect as human beings. We’re sure to be better that way.
I want to see policies and actions that bring justice, a fair shot for everyone at the promise that could be American prosperity. Reparations are a way to achieve this.
The very old financial debt to descendants of slaves is the responsibility of the United States government. Our purported representatives have been there every generation, never pressed to change policies though times of slavery, Jim Crow, Massacres, and Redlining. Now in the time of mass Incarceration and systemic ‘normalized’ discrimination, we have a duty to turn the tide. I want to help that process.
The Invoice is how I contribute. How about you?
