Over the past few years, Chicago has seen a variety of cameras that are not as focused on Black homicide rates. The most notable efforts include “16 Shots”(2019), About the police killing of LaQuan McDonald, and the NatGeo documentary series “City So Real”(2020), which revealed the wide opposition to Mayor Rahm Elmanuel, which contrasted with his highly regarded national image. These, however, are far from the only attempts to put a present-day spotlight on the race and class issues still at play in the inner workings of one of the nation’s most iconic and notorious cities.
As much as “Unapologetic” (2020) put a lens on the rarely covered Movement for Black Lives in Chicago, protesting institutional complicity in racialized state violence with a focus on two female queer activists at the forefront, Chicago native Kevin Shaw’s “Let the Little Light Shine”Another footnoted protest is amplified in the city.
Shaw begins his doc with a sentence “In 2013, 49 elementary schools were closed in Chicago — the largest mass school closing in America,”With cries “Keep Our Schools Open”In the background, Shaw shows a glimpse at regular Chicagoans marching in the streets. Shaw then returns to an allblack screen with white letters that reads, “The majority of those closings occurred in Black and Latinx neighborhoods,”Before showing the same crowd protesting in front a well-appointed home, which was vigorously guarded by Chicago police. We later discover that this home is that of Mayor Emanuel who is responsible for all of it.
Instead of focusing on the macro, “Let the Little Light Shine”Zones in on the fight for what the film calls the community to save “the high-performing, predominantly Black school National Teachers Academy (NTA)” in Chicago’s South Loop, caught in the city’s underreported attack on Black student achievement during Emanuel’s reign. What emerges are images of a Black Chicago rarely seen: Men, women, and children of various socioeconomic backgrounds, from middle-class college professor and NTA parent-turned-activist Elisabeth Greer to “Mayor of NTA” and security guard J.P. as well as NTA’s many students, rallying around Black children’s futures and not just attending their funerals or trials.
This fight has many allies. Among them are NTA’s idealistic white principal Isaac Castelaz, who puts his livelihood at risk; community activist Niketa Brar; and former NTA principal Amy Rome. John Jacoby, Tina Feldstein (white area resident) and John Jacoby (president of Prairie District Neighborhood Alliance) are not pleased with these allies. They both support the proposed conversion of NTA into a K-12 school serving 1000 students — selected by tightening the boundaries governing who could attend — as opposed to the 840 predominantly Black elementary students already being served.
Neither Feldstein nor Jacoby present as vocally anti-Black, but it’s an unspoken sentiment that emerges through dog whistles. Jacoby uses the following phrases when he speaks about South Loop Elementary’s state after his daughter joined it, along with the children of other wealthy white parents. “once we were able to institute proper decorum,”Before you beam that “the children took to it.” Even more disturbing is Principal Rome recalling how these new parents insisted on separate facilities and activities to keep their children away from NTA’s core student body.
NTA students such as Taylor Wallace, eighth grader, see through this effort even before Barr explains. “It’s the fact that they are turning a minority Black level one-plus school into a high school. That’s basically saying ‘I have this power. I can take what I want without anybody doing something,’ which really makes me mad,”According to Laidler: She engages in conversation and has a good time with her fellow students and allies while the group discusses. “going to a meeting that you’re not invited to,” a euphemism for “protesting.”
One of Shaw’s most heart-warming techniques is shining a “little light”NTA is unique because of the large community it serves. Ms. Audrey Johnson grew up in the Harold Ickes Homes, a casualty of gentrification that also resulted in NTA’s founding. Johnson, who was a close friend of Amy Rome, played an important role in the integration of the community into the school and helped to raise it. Johnson serves as an important reminder that the residents of these projects are people, and just as importantly, Chicagoans.
Shaw doesn’t hold back on the Chicago Public Schools’ vicious efforts to crush NTA and its momentum. Chance The Rapper, a CPS alum who has raised millions for the schools in need, is still stunned as he recounts his experience with being barred from NTA. The school board even threatens Principal Castelaz’s job for supporting efforts to save NTA. Shaw and his team show us a school that is not the same as what white residents have described in open forums.
There is an intimacy in the doc — as NTA’s drama continues to unfold, there is no indication that the activists will be triumphant, only that they will fight until the very end. Shaw and his team have never turned off the cameras to show their commitment towards the people, not the end result. These are not images of super predators, thugs, welfare queens or other societal leeches so often glorified by the media. Instead, these children are intelligent, outspoken and caring. That so many people from different socioeconomic backgrounds, races, ages, occupations, and more come together to do what’s right is just as inspiring as any victory they might accomplish.
“Let the Little Light Shine”Opens August 12th, Chicago, August 26th, NYC, September 9th Los Angeles.
