LITTLE ROCK — More than 200 people viewed an HBO documentary on Little Rock Central High School on Wednesday and discussed how to address problems identified in the film, from blighted neighborhoods to high school students who read on a third-grade level.
The viewing and panel discussion took place at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service a day after the 50th anniversary commemoration of Central's desegregation. Of the nine black students who went to Central in 1957, Minnijean Brown Trickey participated on Wednesday's panel and Terrence Roberts attended.
The documentary, Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later, aired Tuesday night on HBO. It was directed and produced by Little Rock natives and brothers - Brent Renaud and Central graduate Craig Renaud.
The film included a few minutes of newsreel footage from the events of 1957 but largely focused on the school during the 2006-07 school year by telling the stories of five students, teachers, Principal Nancy Rousseau and parents. Brown Trickey was in the film.
The documentary presented evidence of a racially divided school where even in a racially mixed classroom the students sat voluntarily in two distinct groups according to race.
The filmmakers followedsome students to their neighborhoods, including one girl in her sport utility vehicle who went to her house in the Heights and another girl who rode a bus to an area marked by boarded-up houses.
Skip Rutherford, dean of the Clinton School, said one of the most disturbing parts of the documentary to him was some of the Little Rock neighborhoods depicted in it and an apparent lack of zoning or housing code enforcement.
Ken Richardson, a Little Rock city director who represents Ward 2, said resources and public-private partnerships must be identified to spur development in the inner city.
Brown Trickey, who lives in Little Rock, said it takes three to five years to get a burned house torn down in her neighborhood.
"What am I supposed to do, get a bulldozer and take it down myself?" she said.
Brown Trickey later said, "If a house is burned and derelict and dangerous, it shouldn't be there."
Angelica Luster, the student the filmmakers followed home to a blighted area of the city, said during the panel discussion that not all students get encouragement to pursue Advanced Placement classes from their parents as shedoes from her mom.
She said that community members should encourage students to challenge themselves academically and perhaps try an Advanced Placement course.
Luster added in response to a question that perhaps more black Advanced Placement teachers could help motivate more black students to try the courses. Luster could not recall any black teachers she has had for Advanced Placement courses; Brandon Love, a 2007 Central graduate, said he had one black Advanced Placement teacher.
Charlie West, an Advanced Placement history teacher at Central, said students could be motivated to work harder at school if they thought that they might fail a grade. Students should not be passed to the next grade if they are not reading, for instance, at their grade-level standard, he said.
A "tremendous amount of resources" should be used to address the issue of "social promotion," he said.
Brown Trickey also called for more funding for early childhood education as well as for such neighborhood community programs that target youth in low-income or high-crime areas as one that Luster participated in when she was younger.
Luster said the program she participated in helped her realize from a young age that she should aim for college.
Cyrus Bahrassa, the current Central student body president, said Wednesday night that students need to see the link between hard work and success. He said after the event that perhaps giving students the opportunities to meet successful people who came from difficult childhoods could help illustrate the result of hard work.
Rousseau, who could not take part in Wednesday's event because of a previous obligation, sent a statement regarding the film.
"It is unfortunate that the makers of the HBO documentary ... chose to focus on problems that all of us working in urban schools in this country are facing. The filmmakers' approach overlooked the unique character of today's Central High that was shaped by the people and events of a half-century ago," she said in the statement read by Rutherford. "Had the filmmakers only looked deeper, they would have produced a far more compelling story."
Craig and Brent Renaud said they tried to tell the story by including as many voices as possible and did not know of any specific complaints about the film from Rousseau.
"This is the first [time] I've heard the statement. I haven't been provided any details of what it is particularly, so I don't even know exactly what the things are that she doesn't approve of," said Craig Renaud.
Arkansas, Pages 11, 14 on 09/27/2007