“It was the day stuttering and violence and the criminal justice system became inextricably linked in my mind.”

A story of hurt and healing in a Black American family, set in the Deep South, through the voice of a person who stutters.

I first met Issac when he joined me as a guest on Proud Stutter. From the start, I was struck by his story, a Black professor, journalist, and father navigating a lifelong stutter with courage and determination.

What began as a single conversation became something more. Issac shared his longing to explore his family’s story through film – not only his own journey with stuttering, but the generational silence and trauma that shaped his South Carolina hometown.

During Issac’s family reunion in Saint Stephen, South Carolina, a broader story took shape. Over long discussions on porches and sunrooms, park benches and time-worn couches, what emerged was the story of silence, the weight of it, compounded over years, and the courage it takes to break it.

This film is an intimate portrait of a Southern Black family confronting their legacy of trauma, incarceration, and resilience. Through Issac’s stutter, at once a source of pain, history, and power, we listen differently: to the words spoken, the silences kept, and the truths still searching for voice.

This film insists that stuttering is not something to “fix” or “overcome,” but something to hear, to hold, and to understand.