National Fair Housing Alliance
Nationwide contracted Winthrop as part of this tribute
As a tribute to the National Fair Housing Alliance, and to celebrate the 45th anniversary in 2013 of the National Fair Housing Act, Nationwide engaged Winthrop to take on the research, storyboarding, and script-writing for a video that would become “Seven Days.” With less than three weeks after contract-signing in which to complete it, Winthrop turned its New York offices into ‘research and production central.’ Our researcher, historian, and archivist team collaborated with an animator, three staffers from Nationwide and Animal Productions, posted hallways with storyboards, and filled one conference room with studio computer equipment.
The outcome of this energetic group’s work is the dramatic presentation of events that, in the post-Martin Luther King assassination period, remained largely unrecounted for the general public. One of the leaders of the Alliance reported after their annual meeting that there were ‘many tear-stained faces among those in the audience’ as “Seven Days” told the story of how President Johnson, civil rights activists, and a few key members of Congress managed to win passage of the National Fair Housing Act in the seven days immediately following King’s death 45 years before.