WHAT WE’RE ASKING FOR

The film is in the can, but now we’re looking for $94.500 in Final Phase funds. If you're interested in civil rights, activism and letting the past inform the future, won't you join our mission? 

Final Phase Budget

• Archival footage @ $80-$160 per second  $40,000
• Post-Production (Color Correction, Deliverables, Audio-Mixing, etc.) $25,000
• Festival Fees $6500
• Festival Travel $10,000
• Promotion (Press Kits, etc) $4000
• Insurance $10,000

You may choose one of the amounts listed to donate (50, 100, 500 or 1000) or simply donate any amount you wish!

Everyone who donates will be listed on our web site as an important contributor to the film!

HOW DID THE PROJECT START?

“In 2016, my mother was telling stories about my upbringing in New Rochelle. She handed me a Girl Scout Brownie book of pictures of a fully integrated troop and explained we were the 'left overs' because she took all the girls from all colors and faiths who did not get into the other, all-white troop at Roosevelt School.  Many of those girls were bused up from the projects in the old Lincoln corridor, but I never knew it was due to a precedent setting court case. Making a film about the case became imperative.” ~ AT Lewis, Director

WHAT IS THE FILM ABOUT?

Leveling Lincoln looks at the landmark 1961 desegregation case Taylor vs. Board of Education of New Rochelle, NY. The case, the first of its kind in the North, was praised on the floor of the United States Senate as an example of successful integration by peaceful protest, discourse, and jurisprudence. It's a story of historical importance that was featured on the cover of Life and attracted the attention of figures like Thurgood Marshall and CBS's Mike Wallace. In its wake New Rochelle emerged as a flourishing multi-cultural community and serves as a model for how to achieve educational parity for all our children.

WHY IS THIS STORY IMPORTANT?

Desegregation didn’t end in the 1960s.  The NY Times recently reported that "a plan to desegregate schools in a liberal Maryland suburb founded on values of tolerance has met with stiff resistance." And a recent study by Stanford University's Center for Education Policy Analysis found that "the desegregation efforts of the late 1960s and early 1970s did not last; public schools today remain highly segregated both by race and class". So what worked in the past? And how can we apply it to today? That’s what Leveling Lincoln explores.

THE COURT CASE

Taylor Vs The Board of Education (1961)

In contrast to the Ruby Bridges or the Linda Brown stories in the South, the New Rochelle case had hundreds of children bused to schools without calling out the National Guard. All because of a group of dedicated parents who took action. 

Most elementary schools in the city were (seemingly) integrated but not Lincoln, which was 94% African American and had been since 1930. The school had been badly neglected; over-crowded with old materials. The school board, made of esteemed community leaders, had voted to rebuild the school, but it never happened.

In frustration the parents pulled their kids out of Lincoln and began boycotts and protests. After many home meetings, the parents hired NAACP lawyer Paul B. Zuber. In the Fall of 1960, he advised the parents to try and enroll their kids in the predominantly white Roosevelt Elementary in the north end of town. When they were denied admission there they moved on to Ward school and set up chairs outside that school and sat there with their kids. The press took notice. So did the Freedom Volunteers, who provided tutors for the kids, and the NAACP who supported the group’s actions.

A lawsuit brought the case to court. The parents argued that, as opposed to schools in the South that suffered under de jure segregation, or segregation by law, in the North their school district’s segregation was de facto, created by neighborhood school districting, redlining, and covert real estate and banking practices. The court agreed. The school board appealed to the Supreme Court.  But were turned down.

The parents won! African-American kids could now be bussed to the better schools in town. The suit made national headlines and was featured on CBS News hosted by Mike Wallace. As for Lincoln Elementary it had become a symbol of racial division and de facto segregation and the the city eventually leveled it to the ground.

WHAT YOU WILL SEE IN THE FILM

Along with period photos and national newsreel footage, the film features powerful interviews of the students (now adults) who lived the history; we hear their stories about this controversial 1960s racial social experiment that began with the destruction of a segregated black school. They speak on camera about how this affected them as children, where they are now, and discuss what lessons can applied to today. We flash back through photos and documents as they speak about their parents, teachers and classmates, and reflect on being part of a social experiment that began on their first days of kindergarten, after the implementation of state sponsored busing. They reflect upon their own children and grandchildren as they worry for their future. 

Leveling Lincoln is also a story of how a community came together at the grassroots level to reject the accepted de facto segregation of their city and recognize how its history of privilege made them blind to systemic inequality. Ultimately, we analyze the problems and solutions that the New Rochelle School District dealt with and glean what lessons can be learned and applied to today's equally challenging educational issues.

Parents from Lincoln Elementary walking out of the all-white  Roosevelt school after trying to enroll their children (1960)
 

WHAT IS THE GOAL FOR THE FILM?

Like the documentary, Waiting for Superman, we imagine teacher professional developments and question-and-answer workshops built around screenings of Leveling Lincoln as well as commercial, wide release distribution on PBS and Film Festivals.  We would like to have Leveling Lincoln available for streaming licenses on sites like Good Docs, New Day, Bullfrogor PBS Learning Media so that high schools, colleges, and University instructors would have access to the film. To have this topic air on a major Public Broadcasting Service would ensure its availability to all educational programs and schools.  It would ensure that public schools and colleges would have free, or nearly free, access to the story. 

We hope to inspire today’s activists by sharing this story of a successful grassroots organization, a movement that began, like Black Lives Matter, by parents who understood that institutional racism would affect their children for the rest of their lives.