A Unifying Experience

Din Botsford Blankenship '03 is a kind of explorer: She left her Southern roots to study at Brooks; she traveled and worked abroad; she shifted her career path to match her interests. An architect by training, she's now hard at work producing a documentary film about an Atlanta suburb that hosts the most diverse square mile in America.

Din Botsford Blankenship '03 is up for adventure. She grew up in Birmingham, Ala., before leaving for Brooks, and she remembers the culture shock that her move from the Deep South to New England brought. She played on the girls 2nd ice hockey team, for example: "I'm from Alabama," she laughs, "so that was entertaining." Blankenship also sang for the Brooks gospel choir, played for the girls 1st lacrosse team, served as a dorm prefect and even found time to travel abroad to South Africa through the school's Exchange Program.

Blankenship's drive to take on new experiences continued after she matriculated at the University of Virginia (UVA), where she studied architecture, and at the University of Michigan, where she received her master's degree in architecture. "I loved the academic side of architecture," she says. "I loved studying architecture. In school, I was able to access a creative part of my brain that, in practice, is much more technical. After having worked in firms for a number of years, I was really hoping to engage more with people on a day-to-day basis and also use the creative part of my brain a little more regularly."

Blankenship's Exchange trip to South Africa loomed large in her mind. She also thought about work she had done in Uganda while studying architecture at UVA, during which she lived and worked in camps for internally displaced people while helping design transitional shelters for residents. Both these experiences, she says, opened her eyes to people who lived differently from her, and also made her less fearful of entering unfamiliar situations. The world, she says, felt a little more familiar.

So, when Blankenship was approached by Erin Bernhardt, an old college friend, she jumped. Berndhardt was producing the documentary "Clarkston: Mother of Exiles," and Blankenship eagerly signed on to a producer role as Bernhardt's partner. The documentary, which also boasts fellow UVA graduate and renowned journalist Katie Couric as executive producer, explores the town of Clarkston, Ga., an Atlanta suburb that is recognized as the most diverse square mile in America. Clarkston, Blankenship says, attracts more than 1,500 refugees a year; people who hail from a massive breadth of ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds live within its confines. The film follows four subjects, including a Kurdish refugee who is now a doctor, an elderly Somalian who has built a new life , and a high school valedictorian who was forced to leave her country of birth when she was 16. Blankenship says that her role as producer allows her to use her natural skill at managing logistics — planning shoots, preparing the team and ensuring that permissions to film are in place — while also using her creative talents to help edit hundreds of hours of film to create a story arc.

"Clarkston is special," Blankenship says. "You hear a lot about its diversity, but it isn't only a community of people who are different from one another. It's a place where people from opposing sides of a conflict have both resettled. It's a place where people who may have been enemies in their home countries are now living peacefully alongside one another."

"At the global level, we're experiencing a larger number of displaced people in the world than ever before," she continues. "As a developed nation, I think we have an obligation to figure out what our role is in their displacement and how we can help provide them with a new home. By showing this film, we're hoping that stereotypes people have, and even the fears people might have, might be eased when you get to know these individuals. As one of the subjects of the film says, it's hard to hate somebody that you know."

This theme follows the fourth subject of the film: Chris, a former white supremacist working to fight the hate-filled ideology he once endorsed. "Introducing Chris allowed us to start asking a bigger question: Where do I belong in America in 2019?" Blankenship says. "Even Chris, a white Christian male, questioned whether he belongs, and I think that feeling of not belonging anywhere is what led him to a really dark place. I think the film is able to speak to that a little bit, and be a space that is unifying, a space around which we can talk about some hard questions and ultimately feel unified."

As part of the film's reach, Blankenship also works on the project's impact and education campaign, which equips viewers with resources and support that can help them continue the film's work. Blankenship is also proud of the film's efforts to include members of the Clarkston community in the film's production. The film's production team worked with the workforce development program in the county in which Clarkston is located to set up a training pro- gram. The program allows young people from Clarkston to work in paid internships as production assistants on the shoots. Blankenship reports that a number of these program participants have gone on to find work in Atlanta's booming film industry.

The film also hosted another Brooksian: Clara Brown '14, who interned on the project and learned after arriving on site that Blankenship also attended Brooks ("We're both Gardner girls," Blankenship enthuses).

The film is scheduled to be released in spring 2020, and Blankenship welcomes any Brooksians who wish to learn more about the film and how they can support it to contact her directly at dinblankenship@gmail.com.

"This has been a really welcoming and wonderful transition, because I feel like I'm doing what I'm good at on a more regular basis, which is obviously fulfilling," she says. "The content of this film is some- thing I've cared about for a really long time. It's exciting to be able to share stories with people in a way that is accessible. It's been a really exciting, really fun journey."