Ava DuVernay and Autumn Riley

Ava DuVernay, born August 24, 1972, in Long Beach California. DuVernay discovered her love for art from the aunt Denise. The aunt who was a night shift nurse, allowed her to study literature for art as well as theater during daylight hours. DuVernay was a fan of the movie West Side Story, which she brought to her. DuVernay realized after watching her mother's examples of that art can be an instrument for activism. Her mother was also a social consciousness and taught DuVernay how to communicate through the medium of art. Although DuVernay was raised in Compton with her family, she spent every summer living in Lowndes County Alabama where her parents lived for many generations. The father of DuVernay's reminiscences recalled the historical Civil Rights march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in the adjacent town Selma Alabama. DuVernay was strongly influenced by the summers she spent in Selma and decided to make an documentary on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. DuVernay was a graduate from Saint Joseph High School Lakewood California in the year 1990. DuVernay enrolled at the University of California Los Angeles after graduating, where she was awarded diplomas in English and African American Studies. DuVernay was a college student when she started to get interested in production for television journalism. She began her career as an intern for CBS News, during the O.J. Simpson trial. DuVernay remembers being given the task of watching the house and examining the waste from one of the jury. The work she was assigned to did not leave her satisfied by journalism and she made the decision to go into the field of publicity. DuVernay was hired right out of college as an assistant publicist in an unassuming studio. The year 1999 was the time she founded her own firm of public relations called The DuVernay Agency. Her agency launched numerous promotions and lifestyle channels, including Urban Beauty Collective and Urban Eye. Autumn Riley.............................Autumn Riley was born in Los Angeles United States. The birthstone for Autumn Riley is . She is an actress, most well-known for American Experience (1987) and A More Perfect Union (2009). Autumn was Rose in A More Perfect Union, as well as Anna Payne in American Experience.