Tulia, Texas: Scenes from the Drug War

A 27-minute documentary film. Color. 2004.

In 2002, Off Center Media produced Tulia, Texas: Scenes from the Drug War, a short documentary about a racist drug bust that imprisoned over 10% of the black population of a small town in the Texas Panhandle.

Tulia, Texas is the site of what’s been called one of the worst miscarriages of justice in recent memory. It’s where an undercover narcotics officer named Tom Coleman arrested 46 people – nearly all of them black – on charges of being cocaine dealers, sending many of them to prison for a total of 750 years. See the documentary that brought national media attention to the story and led to the exoneration of these wrongfully convicted men and women. Produced in association with the William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice. Winner, Best Documentary Short, Woodstock Film Festival 2003.