Pam Oliver lends “voice” to documentary about Georgia’s Black athletes’ during segregation
DEKALB COUNTY, GEORGIA – Pam Oliver, the nation’s highest-profile African American female sports broadcaster, is the voice actor of a historic documentary about Black athletes, coaches and sports auxiliary members who competed during the Jim Crow segregated years in Georgia. The documentary, As If We Were Ghosts, airs June 13th and Juneteenth 2022, on Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB), the third-largest PBS station in the U.S.
Veteran FOX Sports Analyst Oliver provides narration and select reenactments for the film, As If We Were Ghosts. The epic documentary is produced by Georgia-based Ours Studios LLC, which commissioned renowned independent filmmaker, Monty Ross, to become the senior producer. Airing on all GPB stations in Georgia, the documentary will reach approximately 3.4 million households.
“They didn’t do anything wrong. Yet, they were ignored and invisible by society’s accepted standards. Yet, they accomplished their strongest, swiftest, and highest athletic goals,” said the award-winning sports journalist.
Oliver, a two-time Hall of Fame inductee of Florida A&M University’s track division, added, “I am honored to be a part of telling their stories at a time when all of us welcomes inspiration from these amazing overcomers in Georgia history.”
Also, a Georgia resident, Oliver joins Ross, who is the Filmmaker-in-Residence of Ours Studios. As alumni of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) – Oliver, Florida A&M University, and Ross, Clark Atlanta University – they know-well the stories of racial barriers that hinder success. “We appreciate Ms. Oliver’s involvement in this documentary. She is a bonus. Pam brings additional credibility to the hidden stories about the men and women. Monty and Pam allow the focus to be on the unknown champions while highlighting the better-known athletes hailing from Georgia,” said Ron Bivins, CEO of Ours Studios.
A graduate of Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Bivins is the co-executive producer with Ross of As If We Were Ghosts. Bivins, a “ghost” football quarterback of Americus, GA’s former A.S.
Staley High School, today is a prosperous businessman who owns the rights to the documentary.
Those unknown athletes who Bivins referred to, include 91-year-old Charles Freeman whose Eatonton, GA Colored School basketball team won the state’s title in the 1949-50 season, NBA Basketball Hall of Famer Walt Frazier, and 1968 Olympians Wyomia Tyus and Edith McGuire. All set the pace for hundreds of professional Georgia athletes to follow their feats.
Ours Studios is a Black-owned and financed company that produces film and documentaries. as well as offers a wide range of production services and spaces. In addition, its state-of-the-art studios rentals are designed to make audio, video and livestreams for podcasts and vlogs and has two converted warehouses dedicated for film, video, and photography productions. The studio’s first documentary is As If We Were Ghosts, about how the athletic and musical accomplishments of students in Black high schools in Georgia were ignored and erased from history. Four more productions of this theme are set to be produced. The show will air on all Georgia Public Broadcasting stations in June, including on June 19th for the celebration of Juneteenth.
Ours Studios CEO is business tycoon Ron Bivins and its COO is Dr. Ann Wead Kimbrough, a former reporter with the Atlanta Journal Constitution and the Atlanta Business Chronicle as well as a college dean and professor. Monty Ross, who co-founded 40 Acres and a Mule with Spike Lee and co-produced many of their most successful movies, is a current Filmmaker-in-Residence at the studios helping develop future stars in the film industry.