When a test car driver who moonlighted as a belly dancer died of lupus at just 44, her sister began to suspect something beyond mere medical bad luck was at work. That suspicion became "Love, Rita," the powerful new memoir by Bridgett M. Davis, who will appear at booked, 8511 Germantown Ave., on Sunday, March 30 at 3:30 p.m.
Davis, who began her career as a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter and has since conquered multiple creative fields as a novelist, memoirist, screenwriter and filmmaker, uses her latest book to tell the remarkable life story of her older sister Rita.
Rita was just 16 when she entered Fisk University, and later became a test car driver and an amateur belly dancer before earning an MBA and becoming a popular special education teacher. Hers was a spectacular life, cut short when she was just 44 after having contracted lupus, a chronic disease in which the body's immune system attacks its own tissues and organs.
Although a thorough search of medical literature is not likely to reveal the word "racism" in discussions about lupus, Davis makes a strong case in the book that because it is an auto-immune disease that is very much stress-related, the persistent effects of racism were likely a factor in the premature demise of her sister.
"I used to think that Rita's disease was just one of those things," Davis told us last week, "but the more I looked into it, the more I realized that the microaggressions and macroaggressions of systemic racism were a factor. They take a toll on the black body."
Davis introduces readers to the concept of "weathering," a term coined by a female doctor she references in the book. "This phenomenon exists even across socio-economic lines. My sister was upper middle class, well-educated, owned her own home, and had no vices. How else would you explain this?"
In one telling example, Davis describes her sister's experience at the Tennessee Valley Authority in Chattanooga. "In 1980 there was a Ku Klux Klan rally, and some of her co-workers actually were cheering on the KKK," Davis said. "Racism is a silent killer. These incidents take a toll; they are debilitating.”
Davis grew up in Detroit and graduated from Spelman College in Atlanta and Columbia University Journalism School with a master's degree. After her two years with the Inquirer covering Eastern Montgomery County (1986-1988), she moved to Brooklyn to do freelance writing for magazines and to teach instead of facing daily deadlines so she would have more time to write books.
Davis never went to film school, but she did take a screenwriting class. "What I realized," she said, "was that screenwriting is a perfect blend of journalism and creative writing. It just felt natural, like it was my metier."
Taking a creative leap, Davis wrote and directed "Naked Acts," a film she made over three months in 1994 while periodically pausing to secure additional funding. The film screened at 25 festivals across four continents and won several awards. Though it aired on Sundance Channel in 1998 and was released by Netflix, Hollywood Video and Amazon, theatrical distribution remained elusive.
"I was told they did not know what to make of it," she explained. "It was not a tragedy and not a straight-out comedy."
In 2013, 19 years after she had made "Naked Acts," Bridgett placed the film in the Black Film Center & Archive at Indiana University to preserve it and to give scholars and film students a chance to discover it. Nine years later, "Naked Acts" was discovered in that archive by Maya S. Cade, creator of her own Black Film Archive, who reached out to Bridgett to assist her in acquiring long-awaited distribution. Soon afterward, Milestone Films and Kino Lorber collaborated on its restoration and 2024 theatrical release — 30 years after production.
The quirky independent art-house film was shown in movie theaters in two dozen U.S. cities and 10 international venues last year. It had its U.S. premiere in Philadelphia in February of 2024 at Lightbox Film Center in Center City. This generated a full-page article in New Yorker magazine, a story in Variety and a screening on Turner Classic Movies. It is also available on Apple and Prime streaming services.
And most reviews have been raves. Variety wrote, "Fresh, funny and original… 'Naked Acts' is one pic people will be falling over one another to claim they have discovered." The New York Times wrote, "An off-beat, razor-sharp comedy," and New York Magazine opined, "Smartly written and charmingly neurotic."
Davis' first memoir, "The World According To Fannie Davis: My Mother's Life In The Detroit Numbers," was a New York Times Editors' Choice, a "Best Book of 2019" by Kirkus Reviews, BuzzFeed, NBC News and Parade Magazine, and was featured as a clue on the quiz show Jeopardy! An upcoming film adaptation, now in the works, will be released by Searchlight Pictures.
In addition, Davis is the author of two novels, "Into the Go-Slow," named a "Best Book of 2014" by The San Francisco Chronicle, and "Shifting Through Neutral," shortlisted for the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Award.
Davis lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two 20-something children.
For more information, visit bridgettdavis.com. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com
