When Forgetting Is Policy, Preservation Becomes Resistance

by Chana Ginelle Ewing, CEO of littlebigworld

More than 20,000 book bans have been recorded in U.S. public schools since 2021. Twelve states have passed laws forcing public universities to dismantle diversity programs, with federal executive orders now threatening any institution’s funding that doesn’t comply. Federal agencies have systematically erased LGBTQ+ terminology from official documents and websites, scrubbing acknowledgment of queer existence from public record. And after decades of partisan attacks, Congress has defunded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the system most responsible for ensuring nonfiction storytelling in this country reflects our diversity.

I keep returning to these stats because they are some of the most stark demonstrations of organized, state-sponsored erasure of Black and queer histories. Not neglect. Not underfunding. Intentional disappearance.

This is the context in which Color Congress and Third World Newsreel have completed preservation of A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde, the 1995 documentary by Ada Gay Griffin and Michelle Parkerson that stands as the most comprehensive and intimate portrait of Audre Lorde ever made. The film contains irreplaceable interviews and archival footage. And beyond Audre’s life, it is a precious record of Black feminist and lesbian organizing in the late twentieth century.

And, therefore, its survival under fascism is not guaranteed.

This Preservation is For Me

When Color Congress brought my agency, littlebigworld, on to lead the marketing for this preservation campaign, I understood the assignment differently than I might have five years ago.

We’re a newly formed Black queer-led marketing agency, and this entire year I’ve been devoted to one idea: queer thinking changes everything. Not queer people as a demographic to market to. Queer ways of seeing, particularly Black lesbian thought and leadership, as frameworks that shape how everyone lives. We’re not an appendage or afterthought in culture. We lead it.

Our work has shown us how our communities’ ways of organizing and caring for each other ripple outward into the mainstream. So when charged with developing a marketing pathway for A Litany for Survival to reach documentary canon, we’re turning to the best marketing channel our communities have always leveraged: each other.

Preservation has always been political for folks at the intersections. But the current moment has escalated the stakes. And so we must escalate our commitment to building with, and for, each other.

With, Not About

Griffin and Parkerson didn’t make a film about Audre Lorde — they made it with her. She participated in shaping how her story would be presented, a collaborative approach that was radical in 1995 but reflects practices now recognized as essential to ethical documentary filmmaking. In a recent conversation with our team, Denise Greene, Director of Programs at Black Public Media, described how Litany provides an opportunity to showcase “how Black storytelling has shaped the documentary space.…There’s real intentional decisions about how we handle our history.” The filmmakers weren’t outside observers capturing a subject. They recognized their membership within community, documenting their own, as a strength and responsibility.

So our campaign tagline, “preservation as resistance,” isn’t groundbreaking in so much as it is evidence of a longstanding history of Black and queer folks organizing to preserve themselves.

Our Invitation

As part of Color Congress’s Elev8Docs initiative, we’re strength testing community-centered partnership approaches. In practice: we’re inviting organizations fighting censorship to claim this preservation as their victory; creating resources for educators teaching despite book bans; and partnering with archives and cultural institutions who understand that protecting stories is political work.

Over the next few months we’ll partner to advance, “preservation as resistance” as a collaborative process for safeguarding our stories. Culminating with a celebration of A LITANY FOR SURVIVAL’s preservation over two days in Brooklyn. On January 28, we’ll gather at Gladys Books & Wine, the new Black lesbian bookstore and wine bar in Bed-Stuy for a reception. And on January 30, we’ll screen the newly preserved film at Brooklyn Academy of Music, with a Q&A featuring Griffin and Parkerson.

We invite you to collaborate and we will provide the tools to jump in. We’re not asking already-stretched communities to produce content for us. We’re providing resources you can use, adapt, and activate within your own networks. This is our advance toward canon building via sustained attention, genuine discourse, and community ownership.

Still Here

Audre Lorde would have turned 91 this coming February. She didn’t live to see the current wave of censorship, but she understood the forces behind it. She wrote about how power maintains itself through silence, through erasure, through making certain lives unspeakable.

She also wrote about survival. Not passive endurance — active, defiant continuation. The title of this film comes from her poem of the same name, which ends:

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.

We were never meant to survive. And yet here we are, preserving a film made thirty years ago by Black lesbian filmmakers about a Black lesbian poet whose words still circulate, still teach, still provoke.

Preservation is how we ensure future generations know who we have always been.

This Preservation is For You

If your organization is fighting censorship, teaching Black, queer and trans histories, or protecting stories that institutions ignore — this preservation belongs to you too.

We’re looking for partners to co-present January’s premiere events, co-collaborate on content initiatives, and generally help spread the word. As full collaborators in showing what preservation as resistance looks like when a community claims it together.

Reach out. Claim this work as yours. Because it is.

The newly preserved A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde premieres January 28–30, 2026 in Brooklyn, NY. For partnership inquiries and more information, email team@littlebigworld.co.

Chana Ginelle Ewing is founder and CEO of littlebigworld, a Black and queer-led marketing agency propelling queer imagination and care-centered politics. With over 15 years guiding Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated documentaries for clients including Netflix and PBS, she is currently leading the marketing campaign for the preservation of A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde.