Production Team
Hassanah Thomas, Creator & Producer
Hassanah Thomas is an independent television producer with over 25 years experience. Hassanah developed the award winning television series “Living Islam in America," and produced the the short documentary “Bean Pie My Brother?” Hassanah created and is producing “Designing History” under her latest banner, Aswad House Productions.
Loretta Edwards Wilson, Producer
With 20 years of television and film experience, Loretta has acquired and developed content at ViacomCBS representing the BET and Centric brands. She also acquired content for TV One and Cleo TV. Loretta worked in various film producing roles such as "Belle" for Showtime and BET’s Emmy award-winning Rap it Up campaign.
Joycelyn Williams Conover, Consulting Producer
Joycelyn Williams Conover has 15 years of experience working in television production. She has worked on numerous hit shows including “Turn up the heat with G. Garvin”, “Lauren Lake’s Paternity Court” and “House Hunters International”. Joycelyn loves to spotlight great stories and brings passion, commitment, & creativity every show she produces.
Suzanne Spellen, Historian
Suzanne Spellen is very experienced and knowledgeable in researching and writing home histories. She is conversant in the language of architecture, in building materials and practices, and in historic restoration topics in general. She has over twelve years of experience writing about architecture and history for Brownstoner.com.
Crystal Whaley, Director
Crystal Whaley is a multiple EMMY Award winning creative producer with over 20 years of experience. She’s developed, produced, directed & supervised award winning series TV, commercials, music videos and nationally syndicated and Peabody nominated documentaries for PBS and TLC. Owner and Creative Director of Plan C Media Group, she’s also former VP of Development and Production of Pixel Media LLC / Lionsgate as well as a former Senior Producer for Sesame Workshop, former Director of Video Production for Arista Records and former Executive Producer of Free Spirit Films Inc. A lover of the arts, Crystal is a published photographer and an accomplished curator of the annual “For Us, By Us” at The Long Gallery Harlem. She’s the producer & deputy editor of critically acclaimed photo books; MFON: Woman Photographers of the African Diaspora in 2017 and Black Joynand Resistance in 2018 as well as the founder of the forthcoming curatorial project, ‘The M’Dear Project’ debuting at the Museum of Contemporary African Art (MoCADA), winter2021.
Garland McLaurin, Director of Photography
Garland has over twelve years as a professionally acclaimed cinematographer. Currently and for the past 12 years he has worked as a freelance videographer for PBS’s “News Hour” as well as for Time’s video division. In 2013, Garland won a Peabody Award for his work on the PBS documentary “180 Days A Year Inside An American Highschool.” He served as Cinematographer or Co-Cinematographer for a number of PBS documentaries/projects such as, “The New Black”, “American Creed,” “Pops,” “180 Days Hartsville,” and “Coming Back: Wes Moore”.
His PBS series Pops, about African-American men and fatherhood, was the first web-based episodic documentary to be supported collaboratively by Black Public Media, CPB, and ITVS. Garland also co-directed the PBS mini-series Family Pictures USA, combining family photos shared through storytelling and innovative audience engagement. Most recently, he co-directed The Black American Fight for Freedom (2021) for the BBC.
Donald Thoms - Executive Producer
Donald Thoms has been developing and shepherding national series and specials for public television, as well as commercial cable television for over 30 years. He has been an executive member of several national broadcasting networks, and a staunch supporter for independent and BIPOC producers and filmmakers. Thoms has extensive experience with Television Production and development, staff and budget management, journalism, marketing and communications, as well as strategic planning.
In his most recent position at PBS, Donald was the Executive in charge of Arts and Performance programs, as well as Drama, Cultural and lifestyle programming, which included Development, production, acquisition, scheduling and budgeting.
Thoms also oversaw three long running national series based on the works of independent and filmmakers of color-POV, Independent Lens and VOCES. This was Donald’s second stint at PBS.
Other notable and distinguished projects of which he was Executive Producer are: "Havana Time Machine" for PBS’ Great Performances; John Leguizamo’s "Latin History for Morons" -Great Performances, PBS; the EMMY nominated "Raul Julia: The Worlds’ a Stage" for American Masters, PBS; and served as Consulting Producer for the EMMY Nominated The Sultan and the Saint for PBS (Unity Production Foundations).