Mabel Haddock, founder of Black Public Media, dies at 74

Mabel Haddock, founding chairman and first CEO of Black Community Media, a leading film and television non-profit organization, has died. He was 74 years old.

Haddock died on July 23 in New York after a brief hospitalization for kidney disease, Black Public Media (BPM) announced Wednesday.

In the 1970s, Haddock saw the need to diversify the stories told on television and started to support black filmmakers and producers and their films, television shows and series. In 1979, he founded the BPM, then known as the National Consortium for Black Programming, which under his leadership supported hundreds of black directors and producers by funding and promoting their work on public television.

Today, BPM, based in Harlem, is a national non-profit media arts organization focused on creating and producing media content about the black experience. “Mabel exemplifies what it means to be authentically black and feminine in the professional space. He wasn’t afraid to speak truth to power, both verbally and in writing,” BPM Executive Director Leslie Fields-Cruz said in a statement.

While running BPM, Haddock distributed more than $6 million in funds to black-owned film and television producers. Documentaries and other programs that used BPM funding for public television included programs such as Racial Issues, Unnatural Causes, Mandela, the Fannie Lou Hammer Story s The State of Black America (I and II).

BPM has collaborated with other organizations such as the National Minority Consortium, now the National Multicultural Alliance. Haddock was also a television programmer, film curator, producer and founding director of the Firelight Media Documentary Lab, which supported emerging filmmakers of color.

A GoFundMe page has been created for Haddock and a private funeral will be held in Clover, Virginia, on August 4, followed by public memorials in New York and Columbus, Ohio.