The Pass it On Project - A Documentary Film
A road trip to the sites of the Civil Rights Movement offers a group of Brooklyn teenagers a path to re-imagining their future.
46min, USA


In President Obama's 2009 Inaugural address he refers to himself as, "a man who's father, less than 60 years ago, would not have been served at a local restaurant…" as a testament to a society's ability to progress within a single generation. However, for many young people today, the Civil Rights Movement is a chapter in a textbook- a series of black and white photos from another lifetime, of a handful of famous characters celebrated each February.

Sensing this in their students, two teachers at a Brooklyn middle school design the Pass It On Project- an after-school course on the Civil Rights Movement culminating in the summer road trip to the South to learn about the struggle from some of the Movement's surviving leaders. The program's goals: contextualize the significance of Obama's election victory, broach candidly the history and legacy of racism in America, empower students ownership over their education, and inspire student activism.

The Pass It On Project documents the group's semester-long preparations and follows the students as they leave the familiar environments of school and home to embark on this transformative journey.

Told through the eyes of the students and teachers, interwoven with first-person accounts from surviving Civil Rights heroes, this coming of age story explores issues of education, race, and social justice through characters that span three generations. They remind us of that if we have the courage to discuss it, our nation's past can inspire us to stand up for a more just future.