Our America
2002 television film directed by Ernest Dickerson

Our America is a film based on the book by LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman, Our America: Life And Death on the South Side of Chicago that tells the story of the first 4 years of Ghetto Life 101, an Award Winning NPR Documentary Series of real life stories in South Side, Chicago, they created.
It premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, and aired on American television later that year.
This was the last performance of Brandon Hammond before his retirement from acting.
The film is Dedicated to Eric Morse, a 5 Year-Old Boy who was murdered in the Ida B. Wells Homes eight years earlier in 1994.
Cast
Josh Charles as Dave Isay
Brandon Hammond as Lloyd "Boo" Newman
Serena Lee as Janelle Jones
Roderick Pannell as LeAlan Jones
Irma P. Hall as June Jones
Peter Paige as Gary Covino
Vanessa Williams as Sandra Williams
Mykelti Williamson as Graham Ellis
Rukiya Bernard as Sophie Newman
Mark Taylor as Duane
K. C. Collins as James
Neil Crone as Paxton Wade
Jordan Duncan as Eric Morse
Jordan Francis as Derrick Morse
Maxine Guess as Mrs.
The public source identifies “Our America” as 2002 television film directed by Ernest Dickerson. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around America, television and film.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7110551. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2002 and 1994.
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This entry incorporates text from “Our America” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.