Uncover THE story

My name is Tony Dior Gaenslen. I was at the March on Washington and heard MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech. I was a Freedom Rider in Mississippi in the summer of 1964, fought for migrant workers with Caser Chavez, and for women’s rights at Cornell University. I marched. I resisted. I bled. I practiced law where justice had no home. And I spent time on death row  — not for a crime I committed, but because I refused to be silent.

We’re now working to bring it to the screen. Not to entertain, but to shake something loose. The civil rights era reshaped this country—but you wouldn’t know it from what’s on TV. We’ve had shows about every era: medieval kings, Victorian queens, hedge funds, dystopias, zombies. But the movement that gave America its moral backbone? Largely ignored. It’s time to change that.

This isn’t just my story. It’s a reckoning. It’s about a generation that stood in the fire—and the price they paid to move this country forward. It’s about where we failed, where we triumphed, and where we’re still stuck. And it’s about what courage looks like when the cameras are off and the stakes are real.

We need allies. Partners. People who believe that storytelling isn’t just culture—it’s power. If you work in media, education, activism, philanthropy—or if you just believe deeply in truth and justice—we want to talk.

If this letter stirs something in you, don’t sit it out. Reach out. This story needs telling. And the time is now.

 Experience the Power of a movement

MEET the team

Tony Dior Gaenslen was born in Texas to parents who held the traditional Southern values of their time. My mother was French, from the Dior family, and my father was a German American.

As a teenager, my hero was Robert E. Lee. On a bicycle trip to visit the sites of Lee’s great victories, something happened that changed my life forever. I watched two Black sharecroppers being cruelly demeaned at a hot dog shack—and in that instant, I knew something was terribly wrong with the world I had grown up in. I couldn’t look away, and I couldn’t stay silent. I had to act.

After graduating from Yale University, I threw myself into the civil rights movement. I took part in sit-ins, marched on Washington, and joined Mississippi Freedom Summer. For trying to register Black voters, I was jailed for 11 days in an execution cell.

Afterward, I spent seven years working alongside Cesar Chavez, organizing and advocating for farm workers and migrant laborers. Later, as lead counsel in a landmark case known as The Cornell 11, I defended the tenure rights of academic women—helping to set a national precedent in the fight for gender equity in higher education.

Award winning filmmaker, Michael Sinicropi, is known for creating artistic and story based cinematic experiences through film.

He has worked in the medium of video for over half a decade and has amassed a body of work that includes commercials, social media advertising, music videos, short documentaries and concert videos. His celebrated form of expression through film has been viewed all over the world with over five hundred thousand views on Youtube.  His artistic style of blending cinema and classical music has led him to emerge as a leading voice in the genre of cinematic classical music.

Other videography Michael has been a collaborator, include live-streaming The Albany Symphony, Concert Artists Guild, Young Concert Artists, Bulgarian Concert Evenings in New York, The Omega Ensemble, Salon De Virtuosi and the Kallos Chamber Music Series.

His collaboration with prolific composer Stanley Grill and avant-garde dancer Mariko Endo yielded the film “American Landscapes”, premiered on October 2021 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Balcony Bar from Home series. That collaboration yielded there Telly Award wins for Videography/ Cinematography, Music Videos and Use of Music.

Michael has degrees in music performance from Oberlin College and Boston University.  He has taken acting classes at The Barrow Group.  Michael draws his artistic influences from his love of cinema and his background as a professional trumpet player.

Michael Wexler is the author of eight books, five records and has executive produced projects for HBO, Microsoft, ABC, NPR, XM/Sirius radio and more. He is the former Executive Producer of The Jim Irsay Collection, produced and directed spots for MTV and was a producer of Winterlude, winner of The Hamptons Film Festival and Unknown Soldier: Searching for a Father, winner of best documentary at The Rhode Island Film Festival.

Wexler holds a BA in English from Princeton University and an MFA from The University of Missouri where he also taught writing.

He currently lives on Martha's Vineyard with his girlfriend Carrie.