Alumna Dacia Bridges' Kalamazoo Boxing Academy Film Plays Sept. 10 at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum

The long-awaited documentary about the famed Kalamazoo Boxing Academy is finished and will be shown at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum this fall. It was a passion project of Kalamazoo Valley Community College alumna Dacia Bridges, who died before it was done.

Lawrence Productions Inc., a Kalamazoo-based video production company, had been working with Bridges on the documentary and recently completed the editing of her raw footage.

"We were great friends with Dacia," explained Jerry Brown, whose company would travel with Bridges to tape interviews as she conducted them. "We felt we not only needed to finish it, but to finish it in her honor." Staff worked on it as time permitted, spending hundreds of hours in bringing Bridges' vision to life.

The community can view "The Forgotten Fighters of the Kalamazoo Boxing Academy" documentary at 1:30 p.m. Sept. 10 at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum, where there has been an exhibit about the academy on display for several months. The exhibit ends Sept. 18.

Dacia Bridges, a singer, actress and dancer, died from a brain aneurysm within months of graduating with an associate degree in multimedia video in 2019 from Kalamazoo Valley. She was 45. Her grandfather, the late Eddy Bridges, co-founded the Kalamazoo Boxing Academy in the 1970s, which developed a reputation as a safe haven for youth. It closed in the 1980s.

Before her death, she had interviewed close to 30 former boxers and trainers of the Kalamazoo Boxing Academy, including Floyd Mayweather Sr. While the boxing academy once drew big names, the documentary shows its true impact to be its commitment to young, local sparrers.

"He loved his fighters," said Dacia's father, Danny Bridges, about his father, who helped start the KBA. Eddy Bridges often invited fighters over for dinner. "He cared about them, and showed them how to be a better person through boxing. It would teach them discipline and respect."

Danny Bridges and Lionell Ford, an uncle of Dacia Bridges, are featured in "The Forgotten Fighters" film and in the exhibit. The ex-boxers praised Lawrence Productions after seeing the exhibit, part of which shows clips from the documentary.

"I think they have done a marvelous job," Ford said. "Lawrence Productions worked closely with Dacia. They traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada, with her to interview Floyd Mayweather Sr. and to Detroit to interview great world-ranked fighters. They went to active Golden Gloves fights in Grand Rapids to interview fighters there."

"She would be very happy," said Danny Bridges, when asked what his daughter would think about how everything turned out. "If I had a million dollars, I would give it to (Jerry Brown) because he's done so much, him and his crew."

Watch for the documentary to air soon on WGVU, the PBS station in Grand Rapids, Brown said. Eventually, the hope is to enter film festivals. Dacia Bridges dreamed of the Traverse City Film Festival screening her documentary.

"That was important to Dacia," Brown said. "I have to keep trying."

The Kalamazoo Valley Museum is operated by Kalamazoo Valley Community College and is governed by its Board of Trustees.

For more information, visit kalamazoomuseum.org.