Indiana Town’s Moroccan Roots Explored in New PBS Documentary

28 April 2022 – bySylvanus@Bladi · 2 min read

In the United States, a short documentary tracing the Moroccan origins of Morocco, a small town in the state of Indiana, will be broadcast in the first half of May on an American channel.

Morocco, Morocco. This is the name of the film directed by Chicago journalist Jackie Spinner and which is scheduled to be broadcast on May 5 on the Chicago PBS station (WTTW), reports Le Desk. This short documentary traces the history of the red leather boots of a traveler from 1851. He is a man whose origin goes back to Morocco and who appears on the welcome sign of the city. The film also highlights the 171-year-old relationship between an agricultural community in Indiana and the kingdom.

The making of the film required a visit to the small town of Morocco in the state of Indiana. This visit took place over two years. Jackie Spinner went there to "discover how the city of a thousand souls derives its name and this distant influence on the lives of its inhabitants". The next step? A trip to Morocco. The former Washington Post correspondent and his film crew flew to the kingdom to search "for a bootmaker whose traditional leather-making practices would have been similar to those of the mid-1850s."

At that time, the name Morocco designated a type of leather manufactured in American factories. Composed mainly of goatskin, Moroccan leather was exported to Europe and the United States.

A report made by a Moroccan on the town of Morocco. This is not the one mentioned in the article, but it gives an idea.