‘Jane Elliott Against The World’ Is A Lesson In Unlearning Prejudice / DOC NYC
The 17th edition of DOC NYC includes in its line-up an extraordinary cinematic account that defies racism. Jane Elliott Against The World, directed by Judd Ehrlich, retraces how in the morning following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968, Jane Elliott, then a third-grade teacher in the small town of Riceville, Iowa, devised an exercise that would change the course of her life. Facing an all-white classroom, she divided her pupils according to eye colour, treating one group as superior and the other as inferior. By creating a miniature version of a discriminatory society within the classroom, she wanted her students to experience first-hand the mechanisms and emotional consequences of racism. What began as an unconventional teaching exercise soon became one of the most influential and controversial educational experiments in modern American history, turning an unknown schoolteacher into a national figure and a lifelong activist. Nearly sixty years later, at the age of 92, Jane Elliott remains as outspoken, uncompromising and combative as ever.
