Crystal Emery is an award-winning filmmaker, an author, an actress and a playwright. She also lives with an incurable illness that has left her paralyzed and in a wheelchair for the last 14 years.
These challenges have not kept her from pursuing her purpose, and her latest documentary, Black Women in Medicine is evidence of that. Black Women in Medicine was released to critical acclaim. The inspiring documentary
traces the history of Black women in the medical field and all of the obstacles they overcome in pursuit of offering health solutions to the masses.
“I wake up every day and I love what I do,” Emery says of why she, like her documentary subjects, keeps going, despite challenges. “And I also love life. When you think of love as being unlimited bliss, then nothing is impossible.”
Her limitless positivity is how she devised a plan to pursue filmmaking, even as she could no longer use her hands. “It takes a lot of people to move this show,” she shares. “For example, we filmed [Black Women in Medicine] in Washington, D.C. I had to rent a hospital bed, and a Hoyer lift, and had to bring three people because it takes three people to get you out of the wheelchair safely and onto the Hoyer lift to the hospital bed. It takes a lot of effort. I’m not
functioning on my own. I can’t use a fork; I can’t wash my face, or wipe my tears, or blow my nose. I have a serious support team.”
Even as a young child with an undiagnosed and debilitating genetic disorder, Emery still chose joy...READ MORE
