Friday, Feb. 16, the Gibble Auditorium welcomed cast members and the Executive producer Bryan Wade to show Wade’s newly released oral history documentary, entitled “KEYSTONES – A military documentary series honoring African-American Servicemen and women from Harrisburg’s Capitol Region who served from WWII to Vietnam.”

Wade was inspired to make this documentary after seeing the movie, “We are Soldiers,” particularly at the end when it listed the names of people who died in the war in Vietnam. One of the names he noticed was Samuel L. McDonald, who, after Wades researched, he found out that McDonald was African-American.

He wanted to bring more awareness and recognition to the African-American men and women who served.

Having prior knowledge and experience from creating other documentaries that he has put together helped him raise money, have a film crew and develop a cast. He released the new documentary at the Harrisburg Form Auditorium because he felt it was a suitable place to premiere the documentary.

After getting the footage, he said that the filming and editing was the hardest part because he had more than 20 hours of film and he had to compile it into a little over an hour-long documentary.

Wade found doing storyboarding and sound adjustments was helpful when it came to editing his documentary together.

In November 2016, filming and putting the documentary together took place and within the next year in November 2017, it was released.

In addition, the documentary, according to Wade, wants to “build a curriculum for schools such as having a coloring book series, giving an oral history documentary and doing college tours as part of a 15-part documentary, showing the lives of African-American servicemen and women who served from World War II to Vietnam.”

With a military background of his own, having served four years in the United States Navy and two in the Army National Guard, Wade wanted to help bring people’s stories alive through his documentary.

Narrating a different documentary and doing the casting at the National Civil War Museum gave Wade even more motivation to bring this documentary to life.

Director of the office of diversity and inclusion Dr. Monica Smith watched the documentary and had a lot to say about the impact it had on her.

Smith thought it was a moving experience to hear these military stories and the way they recognized the lives of the soldiers that lost their lives in the war by a beautiful candlelight ceremony.

“I was amazed at the heroism that they gave so much of themselves that people came back as different people to fight for the country,” Smith said.

She admired the way that Wade went to these different communities to do the interviews to best tell their stories.

She described it as showing people, “the gems that are in the community.”

“It was a great way to bring some light to the African-American heroes that don’t always get that much recognition,” Smith said.

Smith’s hope is to give the students of Elizabethtown College a co-curricular experience to expand their knowledge of African-Americans in the military.