The Panther

Issue date: 11/9/05 Section: Arts and Entertainment

Lights, camera, action. Tameka Robinson is a result of how PV produces productive people.

The "small town girl with big time dreams," alumna Tameka "Hollywood" Robinson has crept back on her old stomping grounds at PVAMU to conduct the world premiere of her first film, On The Inside Looking Out, which will be shown Thursday, Nov. 10, at 6 p.m., in the New Science building, room A101.

Robinson graduated from Jasper High School in Jasper, Texas in 1995. Upon graduation, Texas Southern University was where she attended to major in radio and TV.

In the spring of 1996 Robinson was invited to take part in "Springfest" activities with friends she had at PV. She attributes the beginnings of her filmmaking career to that experience: "When I stepped on the campus at PV everyone was friendly and welcoming. I knew that day that I was going to transfer from TSU to PV." Being from Jasper, PV made Robinson feel as if she were at home, and in the fall of 1996 she was enrolled as a radio/ TV major with a minor in history.

During Robinson's undergraduate studies at PV she thought it was important to get involved with as many organizations as she could, therefore she joined The Panther as a writer and PALS. In 1998 Robinson also became a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., and gives "20 Questions" credit for the line name her organization gave her: "I drove a blue Mustang and was known for driving fast. 20 Questions said, 'Who's the AKA who thinks she is speed-racer?' and ever since then that's what everyone called me."

Being a member of the AKA sorority, Robinson saw the need to put in place her own position within the organization as a video engineer. Her role consisted of filming the organization's activities and community service projects to show at various functions. These short films gave Robinson the motivation to become a filmmaker and also laid the foundation for the project that was about to change her life forever.

In the summer of 1998, Robinson was informed of a racially motivated murder that took place in her town: "I blew off what people were telling me about what was going on in Jasper until I looked at the news and saw a lady who lived down the street from me, and James Byrd Jr., the last person I saw before I came to summer school."

Robinson explains that Byrd was known as the man who walked the streets and never really spoke to anyone; he kept to himself. Byrd's face was usually covered by his large brimmed hat, and was known around town as "Toe" because his toe had been cut off in an accident. As he walked down the eastern end of the town from a party on June, 7, 1998, he accepted a ride with three white men (chron.com). CNN.com reports that instead of taking Byrd home they took him to a wooded area, beat him, sprayed his face with black paint, chained him to the tail end of a pickup truck, and dragged him to his death on a road east of Jasper.

Continued...

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