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SHAKER HEIGHTS: THE STRUGGLE FOR INTEGRATION

Year: 1998
Country: United States
Run Time: 55 minutes

Filmmaker Stuart Math submits a report card on a brave social experiment begun right here in Cleveland more than 35 years ago, when liberal activists used the city of Shaker Heights to reverse a pernicious naitonal trend of white flight whenever black families moved in. Special housing programs and a much-admired school system deliberately bred a cooperative, affluent suburb that looked like America - 65% white, 30% black. Then came the bombshell. In 1997 the Shaker Heights High student newspaper ran a front page bluntly detailing another statistic: 80% of black students were receiving below-average or failing grades. After the uproar and accusations had died down, Math, himself a former Clevelander, recorded the discourse on all sides of a racial divide few had acknowledged until then. Black-white separatism still existed, in school lunchrooms, athletics and, most ominous of all, academic excellence. Why? Were the hard-won prizes of the civil rights movement lost by its children? There are no easy solutions or facile fingers of blame in SHAKER HEIGHTS, but the thought-provoking documentary will stir audiences (everywhere) to ask the right questions.

Screenplay
Joshua Waletsky

Director
Stuart Math

Producer
Stuart Math

Cinematography
Stuart Math

Editing
Joshua Waletsky

Film Contact

The Struggle for Integration Film Project
32 Cooper Square
New York, NY 10003
tel: (212) 358 1020
fax: (212) 358 0662

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SHAKER HEIGHTS: THE STRUGGLE FOR INTEGRATION