In addition to their entrepreneurship and efforts with voting rights, Hartford residents Kennard Ray and James Jeter are working to draw attention to drug use and violence in Connecticut’s capital city.
In May 2021, Ray and his team began a documentary series about drugs and violence called “The Frontlines.” Ray said the final series will be between 10-13 episodes and spans several different storylines, including: a friend’s return home after incarceration; the efforts of local organizations and nonprofits; and the everyday struggle of those battling addiction and violence in Hartford.
“I started this because I think these people are heroes,” Ray said. “This small city is kind of a microcosm of what’s going on in America.”
Ray said he had the idea for the docuseries after conversations with his friend Mark Jenkins, founder and executive director of the Connecticut Harm Reduction Alliance, an organization focusing on helping those struggling with addiction, before the COVID-19 pandemic started. After more than a year of putting the project on hold navigating the novel coronavirus, Ray and Jenkins reconnected in 2021 and thought about ways to revive the idea.
“The pandemic shifted everything,” Ray said. “Fentanyl and overdoses had already been super-high prior to the pandemic, but then it tripled and went crazy — some of the people who Mark and I had already taken photos and videos of had died.”
Ray met with Andrew Woods, founder and executive director of Hartford Communities That Care, which works to address and reduce gun violence in the city, and decided to expand on the scope of the docuseries. COVID-19 provided a backdrop for everything, he explained.
“Mark and Andrew are my peers but they’re also my mentors,” Ray said. “I’m sitting down in what I call a ‘post lockdown assessment’ with the two of them, and Andrew was talking about how violence has gotten out of control.”
Drugs and violence in Hartford became the focus for The Frontlines, and Ray and his team have been shooting video and conducting interviews since. They officially started shooting video in May 2021 the day Jeter’s friend was released 27 years into a 50-year prison sentence.
“This is the stuff you can’t make up: somebody coming out of prison on his 50th birthday after 27 years, crossing the state at Wesleyan,” Ray said. “And the person giving the commencement speech was Reginald Dwayne Betts, an ex-felon who is an attorney now.”
Ray said he’s used his own money to fund the project in addition to Full Citizens Coalition grants specifically earmarked for audio and video documentation. He said the goal is to complete final edits for the series this month before marketing and promoting it to those interested in screening it or putting it on their digital platform. He thinks screenings at local universities and schools is a good way to engage young people in learning about the issues in their communities.
“This is going out, one way or another,” Ray said.
