Legacy

Filmmaker: Tod Lending

Chicago is one of the world’s great cities known for its bustling commerce, outstanding universities and dynamic history full of myth and personality.  

But for much of the past three decades it has also been a city marked by crime-ridden and dangerous public housing.

Built to serve those caught in the city’s economic riptides, these public homes quickly metamorphosed into ghettos controlled by violence street gangs, leaving the idea of a safe and stable home as just a dream for many of the families trapped by their circumstances and the meager government welfare they receive.

Director Tod Lending followed one such family, several generations of single mothers as they made their way through painful loss and diminished expectations.

For four generations, the Collins family was trapped in urban poverty, depending on welfare and living in Chicago’s Henry Horner Homes, one of the oldest and most dangerous public housing projects in the US.

After a tragedy, they found the community support structures and internal spirit to strengthen their family and transcend the economic and social conditions of their lives.

Legacy tells the inspiring story of how members of one African-American family try to recover from the murder of a son, manage to break free of social welfare, and escape the increasing violence in their community.

Legacy can be seen from Sunday, March 14, 2010 at the following times GMT: Sunday: 1400; Monday: 0600, 1900; Tuesday: 0300.