Los Angeles Daily News: ‘Teach Us All,’ the first film by Santa Clarita’s Sonia Lowman, comes to Netflix with Ava DuVernay’s help
A filmmaker is naturally excited to have her first movie released. For Sonia Lowman, though, there are more important considerations.
“Teach Us All” hits Netflix worldwide Monday, accompanied by community-based screenings across the country (in L.A., there’s a free public showing at the California African Museum, 600 State Drive in Exposition Park at 7 p.m.). Presented by Ava DuVernay’s San Fernando Valley-based Array Releasing collective, the documentary takes a deep dive into both the history and sorry current state of school desegregation in America.
The story commences with the landmark moment in 1957 – marking its 60th anniversary this week – when President Eisenhower ordered the military to escort the first nine African American students into Little Rock, AK’s Central High School amid a mob of angry racists. Lowman’s movie then details how not just subsequent decades of white flight, but unintended consequences of well-meant efforts to improve schooling for minority youth, has led to separate and unequal education in many, many parts of the country.