The Tulsa Area Fair Housing Partnership (TAFHP) proudly presents The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, a documentary which chronicles one of the most infamous public housing projects is American History.

This screening will take place at Tulsa Community College Metro Campus (Phillips Auditorium Room MP-110)), 909 S. Boston Avenue, Tulsa, OK.  The film trailer is available here.

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth tells the story of the wholesale changes that took place in the American city in the decades after World War II, through the lens of the infamous Pruitt-Igoe housing development in St. Louis.

At the film’s historical center is an analysis of the massive impact of the 1949 Housing Act, which built Pruitt-Igoe and other high-rise public housing of the Fifties and Sixties.  This critical piece of legislation also initiated the so-called urban renewal program and prompted the process of mass suburbanization, which emptied American cities of their residents, business and industry. 

Those that were left behind faced a destitute, rapidly de-industrializing St. Louis, parceled out to downtown interests and increasingly segregated by class and race.  

The residents of Pruitt-Igoe were among the hardest-hit.  Their gripping stories of survival, adaptation and success are at the emotional heart of the film.  The domestic turmoil wrought by punitive public welfare policies, the frustrating interactions with a paternalistic and cash-strapped Housing Authority, and the downward spiral of vacancy, vandalism and crime, led to resident protest and action during the 1969 Rent Strike, the first in the history of public housing.

And yet, despite this complex history, Pruitt-Igoe has often been stereotyped, with help from a world-famous image of its implosion, and used as an argument against Modernist architecture or public assistance programs.  

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth seeks to set the historical record straight, to examine the interests in Pruitt-Igoe’s creation, to re-evaluate the rumors and the stigma, to implode the myth.

Following the screening of the film, a discussion will be held.

We would like to thank the Tulsa County HOME Consortium for their generous support in securing this film as well as Tulsa Community College for the use of Phillips Auditorium.

For more information on the Pruitt-Igoe Myth, please visit http://firstrunfeatures.com/pruittigoemyth/.