Attucks: The School that Opened a City

Hoosier Spotlight Nights is presented by Heartland Film and Indiana Historical Society and seeks to shed light on Hoosier stories through powerful films. Join us at the Frank and Katrina Basile Theater for a two-night event highlighting documentaries on Indiana History.

Attucks: The School that Opened a City

Built while the Ku Klux Klan ran the state and Hoosiers’ everyday racist roots pushed deeper still, Indianapolis’ all-black Crispus Attucks High School was designed to isolate, to denigrate, ultimately to fail. Instead, it produced generals and scholars, surgeons and scientists, world-class musicians and athletes. Most important, over time these successes, and the grace that accompanied them, became a grass-roots agent for integration, winning over the younger generation of Indy’s whites, changing the way many thought about race. Directed by award-winning documentarian Ted Green, this film is at times an outrageous story, at times beautiful and uplifting, but ultimately nationally important as a microcosm of the injustices faced and overcome by African-Americans in the 20th century.

Stay for a Q&A following the film with Director Ted Green.

$15 Public / $10 IHS Member