It’s been more than 20 years since actress Karyn Parsons played Hilary Banks on the hit NBC show ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.’
Parsons has since moved to Brooklyn and is now working on several projects.
During her time on the show, Parsons said she got the idea for one of her ventures.
For the last few years she’s produced a series of short animated films about lesser known figures in black history.
"The impetus for the whole thing was the story of Henry Box Brown, he literally mailed himself to freedom in a box and when I heard the story I was so fascinated," said Parsons.
Brown's story is one of four that Parsons has produced so far through her nonprofit Sweet Blackberry.
Three of the films are showing at the Museum of the Moving Image in Long Island City at noon each day this week through Sunday.
"It made a lot of sense to bring these stories to kids. And as they come up in this world knowing these stories, we’ve planted the seeds anyway it change the way they look at themselves, what they are capable of," said Parsons.
Parsons had help bringing the stories to life.
She got big names like Queen Latifah to narrate each of her short films.
Henry Box Brown's heroic escape to freedom is told by Emmy Award Winner Alfrie Woodard.
Chris Rock lent his voice to the story of Janet Collins the first African American prima ballerina.
For her latest project on Bessie Coleman, the first African-American female aviator, Parsons tapped actor Laurence Fishburne for the job.
"To put a cold call into Queen Latifah I mean I have the advantage of having worked with her - she’s very good friends with Will and Jada so it was much easier for me to be able to bring people on board," said Parsons.
Museum staff has come up with some additional hands on activities that they are pairing with the films.
Some of them include having the children create their own instruments that can be used to mimic sounds from the films.
"We're going to be playing the Sweet Blackberry films in silence, or portions of it in silence and we're going to have kids score some moments,” said Bryan Rodriguez who works for the Museum of the Moving Image.
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