Coming soon to WNIT television in South Bend will be a new series all about the House of David in Benton Harbor.
House of David Museum Director Chris Siriano tells us the new show has just received its final approvals and will go into production next month. It’ll be an 8-part, weekly series.
“It’ll be a bit of a talk show,” Siriano said. “It will bring in lots of different scholars and people affecting this story. And then on PBS during these series, we’ll also show little segments of some of the movies that we’ve made.
Siriano says he and Rob Byrd of Moondog Productions developed the program to showcase some of the House of David’s history in Benton Harbor.
“The House of David is a fascinating piece of Michigan and American history, but just the fact that it was so unique. It was based out of Benton Harbor, Michigan, where this religious colony, a millennial-type faith, was founded in 1903…They were a communal colony. They were vegetarian. They were celibate. But they had a fascinating twist to their story, had like a pre-Disneyland type amusement park that had millions, tens of millions of visitors from basically from 1905 until they closed in early ‘74.”
And Siriano says the House of David will always be well known for its long-haired, bearded baseball players.”
“White guys that played in the Negro Leagues back when the Black guys couldn’t play in the Majors because they were Black. House of David couldn’t play in the Majors because they wouldn’t shave or cut their hair. So it’s a really, really cool part of early baseball history, and it’s fascinating for everybody around the world.”
Siriano says there’s a lot of ground the series could cover, and he’s now organizing scholars from all over the country to be a part of the new series.
“We’re just trying to get all our ducks in order and probably start working a lot on it come February.”
Siriano doesn’t yet have a title for the program, but thinks it could simply be called “The House of David.” The series is slated to debut on WNIT in April.
