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Canton Ballet s Touchdown and Tutus fundraiser returns virtually
Repository staff report
CANTON Canton Ballet will host its fifth annual fundraiser, Touchdowns and Tutus, as an online event March 6 at 8 p.m., due to COVID-19 precautions.
Available for free viewing on the Canton Ballet and Touchdown and Tutus social-media outlets, the event will be co-hosted by Megan McCrea, Q92 morning-show co-host; Matt Wintz, WKYC-TV meteorologist); and Canton Ballet alumnus Tommie Jenkins, an actor, voice actor and stage performer.
In previous years, Touchdowns and Tutus shows featured high-school Canton Ballet dancers paired with high-school football players for a dance competition with celebrity judges.
A new television documentary notes that Marion Motley s legacy seems to be fading into obscurity, even in Canton.
Local filmmakers created the nearly 30-minute documentary Lines Broken: The Story of Marion Motley to prevent that from happening. It airs for the first time at 9:30 p.m. Friday on PBS Western Reserve.
James Waters II, a producer and director of the film, said the idea came from discussions in late 2017 and early 2018 about ways to recognize the McKinley High School graduate who became one of the first Black football players in the modern era. So, this has been a piece in the making, he said.
agray@tribtoday.com
Submitted photo
Marion Motley, shown here in a publicity photo from the early 1950s, was one of four black players who integrated professional football in 1946, a year before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball.
Jackie Robinson is famous and celebrated for integrating Major League Baseball in 1947.
Professional football integrated the year before, but the four players who accomplished that feat largely are forgotten.
A half-hour documentary premiering Friday hopes to bring attention to the greatest of those four athletes, Canton native Marion Motley. “Lines Broken: The Story of Marion Motley” will air nine times on PBS Western Reserve and its Fusion channel for Black History Month.