We talked with the director of "Color Me Dark," Helaine Head. She had such a great experience with her first Dear America episode, "Picture of Freedom," that she came back to work with us again...bringing one of the actresses with her! When casting began for "Color Me Dark," Helaine saw an opportunity she didn't want to miss. For the role of Nellie Lee Love, Makyla Smith was being considered. Helaine had worked with Makyla's mother, Alison Sealy-Smith on "A Picture of Freedom" and she really liked her. So, when Helaine saw that Alison was available for the role of the mother, Olive Love, and Makyla for the role of the daughter, she did everything she could to try and hire them both! Helaine says "I thought that it was just too good to pass up." Once filming began, Helaine knew she had made the right decision. "Makyla is such a natural talent - she is going to be a star. With Alison as her mother I figured that Makyla would inherit the talent, so I was expecting her to be good. But the way she handled her talent was really impressive. I thought we would get a lot of depth having a mother and daughter play a mother and daughter — and I think we got that and more, because Makyla was even better than I expected." In one scene, Nellie Lee gets caught skipping her church group to secretly visit her uncle's nightclub. She comes home excited to tell her sister Erma Jean about what she has seen but instead, her mother is there waiting for her and she is not happy! When her mother asks her for an explanation, Nellie Lee can't say anything because she doesn't want to get her uncle in trouble. By the looks of that encounter, we thought that Makyla and her mom may have been acting from a real life experience they've had as mother and daughter! Helaine confirms our theory and says that "very little had to be said between those two ladies because they've been there and done that! It was a lot of fun for Alison the mom to play that scene, because for once, her daughter couldn't say much in return!" Moving from the rural South to the urban North brings many changes to the lives of Nellie Lee and Erma Jean. In one scene, they make friends with their "sophisticated" neighbor, a girl their own age named Rosie. Clearly, she has something to teach them about how city people act! Helaine says the three actresses who played the girls got along well off-camera as well as on. "They were supportive of one another and had a real good time together." By moving north to Chicago in 1919, Nellie Lee's family became a part of "The Great Migration." In the period after WWI, life in the South became harder and harder. Black soldiers returned home to threats, lynching, and a suffering economy. To escape racism, many people moved north where they hoped to find better work and have the chance to better educate and care for their families. Helaine says, "I did some reading on "The Great Migration" to become more grounded in what was happening up North and what was happening in Tennessee. I wanted to see the differences in people's lives from one place to another. I needed to put those differences in perspective for the young actresses because things like indoor plumbing and lights that you could switch on and off were drastically different than what people during this time had known before. We take all of that for granted now, but it was a real wonderment and joy for them. To see a toilet flush indoors!? It was magical!" The story of "Color Me Dark" begins with Erma Jean losing her voice after she learns the truth from Uncle Pace about his beating. For her, what happened was really too terrible for words, so she can not speak at all. When Erma Jean finally gets her voice back, it's a new voice, and Nellie Lee thinks that perhaps her father brought them to Chicago so that they could all find their voices together. Helaine says that no matter what time in history, "at that particular age everyone is trying to figure out who they are and how we fit into the world in addition to our families. And to do that you need to come to some sort of a realization about what you want to do — what you want to say if you're an artist, what you want to do if you are going to go into business or science or law or whatever. I think that finding your voice is a metaphor for finding out what it is that you want to do in the world, what it is you want to say in the world."