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Two Top `Telly` Awards Go to `Why History Matters: The Choctaw Project`

From among 12,000 entries, the The Telly Awards committee has decided to award two top prizes to Carl Ray`s autobiographical play, `Why History Matters: The Choctaw Project` during the 27th annual Telly Awards. This Bay Area educator, activist and former stand-up comedian, learned that the KLCS-TV studio-taped adaptation of the play won a Silver Telly Statuette, the highest award for cultural programming, and the Bronze Telly for achievement in set design.

In 1962 in Choctaw County, Alabama, 18-year-old Carl Ray witnessed his father`s gruesome racially-motivated murder at the hands of a white man who was angered because he believed Ray had disrespected him in conversation. During the murder trial that followed, Ray was blamed for causing his own father`s death because he had failed to respect the white man. Since 1999, Carl Ray has relived the gripping story of witnessing his father`s murder in the form of an acclaimed one-man, single-act play titled `A Killing in Choctaw.`

`It took me by surprise,` Ray said of the request, `It`s great that my life story is going to be the focal point of a Civil Rights curriculum.` Ray continued, `My father will continue to live and be remembered in American history. I`m proud of that. But it`s not just my story, it`s an African American story. Incidents like this happened to countless African American families throughout this country`s history. Ours was a horrendous family tragedy, and an abject lesson on racism in America.`