Sixty-five people were shot in Chicago over the Labor Day holiday weekend. Thirteen died, including a retired pastor. It was one of the deadliest holiday weekends in the city, with the top cop pointing to a sense of hopelessness among Chicago’s poorest residents.
That’s a feeling Krishaun Branch understands, and one education ultimately helped him overcome. “I know I have to get out of here,” says Branch, one of the young African American teens featured in thenew documentary All the Difference, by the Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Tod Lending.
While All the Difference showcases the success that boys of color from marginalized and neglected communities are capable of achieving when they have access to the right support, the film also serves as a powerful reminder that school resources remain unequal, that bias continues to affect the opportunities black boys have access to, and that simply enrolling first-generation college students in universities is not enough; schools must develop support systems to help them graduate.
The film follows two African American boys in Chicago—Branch and Robert Henderson—who look to escape the violence and poverty that surround them by leaving the city for college. Their challenges are immense.
The executive producers are Wes Moore, known for his New York Times best-seller The Other Wes Moore, and his mother, Joy Thomas Moore. Wes ultimately left his rough Baltimore neighborhood and went on to graduate Phi Beta Kappa from Johns Hopkins University, become a Rhodes Scholar, Army veteran, White House fellow, and investment banker. But his story is far from typical, in part, Moore and his mother think, because of the way young men of color are often perceived.
[For more of this story written by Lottie Joiner, go to http://www.theatlantic.com/edu...o-to-college/499463/]
Comments (2)