Clennon L. King is a critically acclaimed, award-winning documentary filmmaker, whose work focuses on the Black experience through the lens of history, race and struggle.
His work is driven and guided by an African Proverb: ‘Until the lions have their own historians, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.’
His films have been reviewed and referenced by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Atlanta Journal Constitution and Tampa Bay Times. They have been screened at multiple institutions, including Harvard University, Dartmouth College, U of Texas Austin, Ga. Tech, and at National Park Service monuments in both New York City and Atlanta.
In 2015, he produced the hourlong documentary, "Passage at St. Augustine: The 1964 Black Lives Matter Movement That Transform America", which won the Henry Hampton Award of Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking at the Roxbury International Film Festival.
In 2017, he produced the 9-minute film short "MLK's Boston Years", that was the subject of an interview on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered".
In 2018, King produced his second feature-length documentary, "Fair Game: Surviving A 1960 Georgia Lynching", which prompted the State of Georgia to reopen a 60-year-old Jim Crow era child rape and murder case. It was also a Roxbury Int’l Film Festival selection.
Since then, King has produced multiple short films that have covered topics ranging from COVID's impact on Southwest Georgia, the Black Lives Matter Movement and little-known history of Black folk in Albany, Georgia.
A native of the city, King hails from a prominent civil rights family. His grandfather, C.W. King, for whom he is named, paid his way through the Tuskegee Institute serving as the buggy driver for Booker T. Washington. His father, the legendary lawyer C.B. King, represented scores of civil rights demonstrators during the Albany Movement, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
King attended The Putney School in Vermont, earned his B.A. in English at Tulane University and studied law briefly at the University of London's University College, before dropping out.
While he studied for a year at NYU’s Graduate School of Film, he earned his storytelling chops as a TV journalist. He reported in Atlanta (WSB), Boston (WGBH), Dallas (KXAS), Jacksonville (WTLV/WJXX), Miami (WSVN), and Mobile (WALA). His print work has been published by The Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, NBC.com, Florida Times-Union, Florida Trend, The Albany Herald and Albany Independent. His on-air radio experience includes WYLD AM & FM New Orleans, WCLK FM Atlanta and WALG AM Albany. He currently hosts ‘Souls of Black Folk with Clennon L. King’, a community affairs radio show on WUTU 88.3 FM in Albany.
His awards include an Emmy® nomination, a national Edward R. Murrow® and an award from the National Association of Black Journalists. His reporting has been recognized by both Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and the Society of Professional Journalists.
King is currently in post-production on his third feature-length documentary about pre-abolition slavery in New England and is the founder of AugustineMonica Films. He resides in Albany, Georgia, and is the father of two adult sons.