A film about tough conversations and also a call to action.
Does the arc of history truly bend towards justice? And what does justice mean, when the unimaginable atrocities of our past are only a grandparent away? How can we heal as a nation without honestly confronting our history?
The Road to Justice follows two groups on a civil rights tour through the American South as they reckon with our painful legacy of racial injustice. The first is a group of predominantly Black middle school students from Chicago, and the second a group of older mostly white Americans who lived through the 1960s Civil Rights era. Both groups come face to face with the leaders and everyday heroes whose courage and perseverance paved the way for future generations.
Both young and old are changed by meeting numerous figures such as: Sylvester Hoover, a former sharecropper who operates a museum in the Mississippi Delta; Elizabeth Eckford, whose bravery and fortitude were captured in iconic images as Little Rock was forced to integrate their schools; Hezekiah Watkins, a Freedom Rider, who spent time on death row at age 13 and was arrested 109 times during his lifetime of activism; and Carolyn McKinstry, a survivor of the Birmingham church bombing that killed her four young friends.
Through frank conversations with these leaders, tour-guide and activist André Robert Lee, and each other, those taking this journey come to a new understanding about their collective past and the way forward. The film is a testament to the power of place-based learning and direct experience in creating transformational change, both within one’s self and in the world at large.
