BMUFSD: Briarcliff High School Students View Documentary At Jacob Burns Film Center

Press release from the Briarcliff Manor Union Free School District:

Most people associate the lynching of Blacks as something from the dark past in the history of America, but did you know that it did not become a Federal crime until 2018?

This was one of the facts Briarcliff High School students learned when watching the documentary “True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight for Equality.”

The students, who are in Jamie Mandel’s Introduction to Film and Kristin Becerra’s Classism, Racism and Sexism classes, visited Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville recently to watch the film.

“The film was about the justice system and how African Americans are being wrongfully committed for crimes they did not do,” said Scott, a student in Ms. Mandel’s class. “A lot of the people depicted in the movie were children who committed crime when they were in gangs, some as young as eight years old.”

The movie features Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer who works with people on death row. Mr. Stevenson founded the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a not-for-profit organization, in 1989. The EJI provides multiple services, among them providing legal services to people incarcerated and on death row, and providing advice to policy makers.

The movie depicts a man who was incarcerated for 30 years, whom Mr. Stevenson helped get released from prison, as well as children with life sentences who are being tried as adults.

After watching the film, students participated in a Q & A with the filmmakers and also discussed some of the topics back in the classroom.

“We were very surprised to learn that lynching did not become a federal crime until 2018,” Ms. Mandel said.

Another surprise was a display of a collection of jars depicted in the movie.

“The jars contained soil that was dug out from areas that had famous lynchings,” said John, another student in Ms. Mandel’s class. “The soil was from all across the country and symbolizes all of the many occurrences of lynching. It made me sad to see that.”

“It was shocking,” Scott said.

“The jars looked like urns, it was horrible,” Ms. Mandel said.

“We also discussed how, after the war, many Blacks migrated to the north, in what Mr. Stevenson called “The Great Migration,” Ms. Mandel said. “We discussed the idea that the North won the Civil War, but the South won the narrative, and this has affected our country.”

Students in the film class will be working on their own documentaries this year, so they also viewed the documentary from a filmmaker’s perspective.

“We discussed things such as editing, pacing, conducting research and structuring the narrative,” Ms. Mandel said.

During the Q & A, the filmmakers spoke about issues such as securing funding and gaining Mr. Stevenson’s trust.

“It took the filmmakers two years to get him to agree to do the film,” Ms. Mandel said.

“True Justice” can be viewed for free on YouTube, as Mr. Stevenson insisted that it would be free and available to the public.

“He said that if it was not accessible to all, he did not want to do it,” Ms. Mandel said.

This press release was produced by the Briarcliff Manor Union Free School District. The views expressed here are the author’s own.