I’m excited to share a promo trailer for a new documentary I’m currently working on with the Lombard Historical Society. We are well into production and hope to have it finished by Spring 2021. For more information go to frakesproductions.com or contact the Lombard Historical Society at lombardhistory.org

On a small network of curving, treelined streets in Suburban DuPage County, Illinois, rests a collection of homes known today as The York Center Homeowners Association.

From 1947 to 2007, these custom, single family homes built on 1 acre plots over ground once occupied by a dairy farm, came to be known as the York Center Co-op.

This pioneering, faith-based effort provided fair housing, community and opportunity in an era of white flight, redlining and restrictive covenants that effectively prevented non-white Americans from fully participating in the American dream.

It’s a dream that influenced the course of American history during the Civil Rights era when a young attorney for the NAACP who would later go on to become a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, wrote a legal brief to President Harry S. Truman, advocating on behalf of the Co-op, just as Truman and Congress were grappling with the crisis of an epic housing shortage after World War 2.

Despite acts of overt racism that included a cross burning, bullet holes through widows, internal conflict and systemic economic racism, the York Center Co-op and the white, black, asian and Jewish families who lived there, demonstrated to themselves, their neighbors and America, what results when determined people put aside racial, religious and class differences, and work together for the common good.

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Join us Sunday, June 7 at noon on Youtube for a special premier of our new documentary.

All Citizens
The Lombard women who voted 29 years before the
19th amendment and the story of those who made it possible.

On April 6, 1891 fifteen Lombard women, led by Chicago attorney 
Ellen A. Martin, marched into their local polling place and demanded to vote. It was 29 years before the 19th amendment to the United States Constitution secured women’s right to vote nation-wide.

Martin and her colleagues, all prominent Lombard women, were able to vote because 22 years earlier, Civil War General, Benjamin Sweet, author of the founding charter of Lombard, deliberately wrote “All Citizens… shall be entitled to vote at any election.”

Tim Frakes Productions and the Lombard Historical Society are proud to present this new documentary that tells the story of these suffrage pioneers in this, the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment.

All Citizens. A documentary by Tim Frakes with the Lombard Historical Society.

Watch the Promo Trailer

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WCFC-TV38 was in some ways, a typical television station. Cameras, studio, set’s, lights, video tape machines, a master control, offices. But in other ways it was different. The call letters, W-C-F-C stood for “Winning Chicagoland for Christ.” At the time, TV-38 was the largest, independent Christian television station in America and part of an emerging trend that saw the rise and public fall of famous televangelists like Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggert, the emergence of the religious right on the conservative political landscape, and a mainstreaming of the American Pentecostal movement.

TV-38 also nurtured a grass-roots ecumenical movement that crossed ecclesiastical, racial and economic barriers that had divided Christians in Chicago for decades.

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Sheldon Peck, Portrait of an Ordinary Man in Extraordinary Times from Tim Frakes on Vimeo.

Register Here

Please join Tim Frakes Productions Inc. and the Lombard Historical Society for an exclusive premier showing of the new documentary, Sheldon Peck: Portrait of an Ordinary Man in Extraordinary Times this Thursday night in Lombard, Illinois. Admission is free.

The Sheldon Peck Homestead will be open for tours from 6:00-6:45 p.m., followed by the film at 7:00 p.m. at the Lombard Community Building across the street.

Tim Frakes, of Tim Frakes Productions, Inc., a Lombard resident and business, produced the documentary and will introduce the film and entertain questions after the screening.

Board members and staff from the Lombard Historical Society will also be available for questions regarding Sheldon Peck, the documentary and the upcoming exhibit of original Sheldon Peck paintings, Sheldon Peck: Footsteps of His Life.

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What A Fellowship – Rev. Clay Evans & the AARC Mass Choir from Tim Frakes on Vimeo.

How about some Gospel music! The Rev. Dr. Clay Evans, Pastor of the Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church was a major Gosple recording artist in the 1970’s and 80’s. Evans bought airtime on TV-38 and made regular appearances during telethons. It’s all part of a new documentary I am producing on WCFC TV-38, once the largest independent Christian television station in America.

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The half hour broadcast version will air every Sunday at noon in December (beginning this Sunday) on ABC 7.2 Live Well Network Chicago.

A longer version will be offered on DVD this spring, available through the Lombard Historical Society.

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Sheldon Peck, Portrait of an Ordinary Man in Extraordinary Times is now complete! A 28 minute broadcast version of the documentary began airing on the Live Well Network in Chicago every Sunday in December, 2018 at noon. Check local listings for Sanctuary, Greater Chicago Broadcast Ministries.

Here is a link to the broadcast version:
http://www.frakesproductions.com/2018/sheldon-peck-an-ordinary-man-in-extraordinary-times/

The full, 37 minute documentary will be offered beginning in January, 2019 on DVD for a $20 donation to the Lombard Historical Society.

Here is the script for the documentary.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1R4SVOKIDCro9UOckPP0HYlifiMzZmHyytfqIEJKoPHs/edit?usp=sharing

Sheldon Peck, Portrait of an Ordinary Man in Extraordinary Times is the is a story infused with a humanity that resonates today. Largely forgotten in the decades after his death in 1868, Sheldon Peck and his legacy have seen a revival and renewed appreciation that recognizes his talent, passion, courage and vision. It’s a story of American Western expansion in the days of manifest destiny, and how one man embraced the important issues of his day and was not afraid to speak out or get personally involved where he saw injustice. “What Sheldon and his spouse Harriett Corey Peck did, the way they are sharing their values…. It spreads” says Sarah Richardt from the Lombard Historical Society.

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Dipping into the wayback machine, I dug up the last story I produced at WCFC TV38 in late 1989. TV-38 was in the process of purchasing land and building a new facility at 38 South Peoria on Chicago’s near West side.

At the same time, their rented facilities at 1 North Wacker Drive were slated for the recking ball to make way for a new skyscraper.

In the interim, TV-38 temporarily moved their studios into an old warehouse occupied by Teen Challenge, a Christian ministry that helped young men battle substance abuse. Over the years, a number of Teen Challenge clients had served successfully as interns and freelancers in TV-38’s production facilities.

A few weeks after this story aired, I accepted a new position with Don Hancock at Performance Communications in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, and my broadcast career came to an early close.

Many TV-38 staff appear in footage in this story including Lynn Weaver Anderson, David Oseland David Franklin,
John Haney, Debra Revitzer Jim Tillery and others.

It’s all part of a new documentary I’m working about the history of WCFC TV-38, once the largest, independent Christian television station in America.

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On August 9, 2018, I interviewed Kenneth B. Morris, the great-great-great grandson of Frederick Douglass and the great-great-grandson of Booker T. Washington. Morris is the President of the Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives(FDFI).

Morris explained to me how President Trump’s apparent gaff, actually did some good by generating publicity. The Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives is trying to print and distribute one million hardcover copies of a special Bicentennial Edition of Frederick Douglass’s Narrative. They are asking one million students across the country to read the book and, in 2018, the Bicentennial year, participate in meaningful service projects within their communities and internationally.

My interview with Kenneth B. Morris is part of a documentary I’m producing on the life of Sheldon Peck, an early settler of DuPage, County, Illinois, primitive American portrait artist, radical abolitionist and conductor on the underground railroad.

You may purchase a copy of the Special Bicentennial edition of Frederick Douglass’s Narrative from Syracuse Cultural Workers, for $19.95.

https://www.syracuseculturalworkers.com/products/book-narrative-of-the-life-of-frederick-douglass-an-american-slave-narrative-bicentennial-edition

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Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther kicked off the Protestant Reformation, which contributed to the birth of our modern age. In this one-hour special — filmed on location in Europe — Rick Steves tells the story of a humble monk who lived a dramatic life. Rick visits key sites relating to the Reformation (including Erfurt, Wittenberg, and Rome) and explores the complicated political world of 16th-century Europe — from indulgences to iconoclasts, and from the printing press to the Counter-Reformation. It’s a story of power, rebellion, and faith that you’ll never forget.

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