In the 1970’s when William Patterson was a boy, he spent many hours at Douglass Park and the Douglass Community Center in Champaign, Illinois, playing ball, watching movies, attending festivals and absorbing the beats and rhythms of the once award-winning Douglass Center Drums Corps.  The park was the social hub of the African-American community and William felt safe, cared for and loved in the space.  The Douglass Center Drum Corps was a vital component of William’s childhood, particularly, when he became a “stick boy” along with Hymie Hogue.

Thirty years later, Dr. William Patterson, a.k.a. Dr. P, founder and co-director of the Youth Media Workshop, would connect a new generation of youth to the park by guiding them through the process of making a mini-documentary on the Douglass Center Drums Corps during its heyday in the mid-1960s when it won a national drum corps competition in New York city.

With the help of Urbana High School guidance counselor, Grace Mitchell, Dr. P recruited a group of male high school students in 2006 to research the Drum Corps.  He and YMW co-director, Kimberlie Kranich, along with WILL-TV producer, Alison Davis, and WILL-TV director, Henry Radcliffe III, worked with the students for nine months until the students had completed their 25-minute mini-documentary, And the Beat Goes On:  The Spirit in the Legacy of the Douglass Center Drum Corps.

The students interviewed former drum corps participants Jesse Ratliffe, Bud Johnson and Terry Townsend; former drill team member, Linda Turnbull and aspiring drum corps leader, Lee Duncan.

The students’ mini-documentary begins to tell the story of the Douglass Center Drum Corps and Drill Team in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, during its heyday and asks the question, “Who will carry on the tradition and provide this important social outlet for young black men and women today?