The Memphis 13 New Documentary Film
Memphis, 1961. A city that for previous decades was firmly set on the path of separate, but equal in the education of white and black children. But, on October 3rd the burden of historic change would ride on the shoulders of 13 black children specifically chosen to integrate four all-white schools.
"It's a moment in Memphis history where there was really deliberate planning by all parties involved in order to avoid the chaotic result like we would have seen in Montgomery or Little Rock," explained University of Memphis Law Professor Daniel Kiel, the filmmaker behind a new movie called "The Memphis 13."
Next week the release of "The Memphis 13" chronicles a slice of history which many Memphians might not remember, but they can look back on with some degree of pride.
The previous year, all of the more than 40,000 black students in the Bluff City went to segregated schools. However, six weeks after the 1961 school year began, the Memphis Board of Education, headed by its Chairman, William Galbreath, embarked upon what was labeled a "good faith integration plan" to eventually desegregate all Memphis City Schools within 10 years.
As Kiel says, the selection of first-grade children, who would become the "torch-bearers" of integration at Gordon, Rozelle, Bruce and Springfield elementary schools, was at the core of the non-court ordered action.
"It was a deliberate choice made in Memphis to start with the younger students as opposed to the high schoolers. Because we had seen in Little Rock…it goes so wrong."
Published accounts do belie that despite the planning there was great trepidation among city leaders, the school board members and parents that violence could be avoided. 200 police officers were assigned to patrol areas around the schools as the black children arrived nearly a half hour after classes began and left 30 minutes before school was adjourned. However, while physical retribution never came, Kiel's 40-minute film delves into the psychological toll the youngsters suffered from the realization of their immediate sense of isolation.
"They didn't really understand why they were going into a situation where they were one of 2 or 3 students in the entire school that looked like them."
"It was not very difficult to realize I was in a situation. Where I was like, okay, where the other kids that look just like me?" asked Memphis 13 student Dwania Kyles.
In the two years it took to develop the film, which is narrated by Memphis Mayor A C Wharton, Kiel interviewed and has reflections from 9 of the original Memphis 13, as the 50th anniversary of integration in Memphis City Schools is marked on October 3rd. A quiet commemoration of a time when Memphis worked together to get it right!
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