An award-winning film about desegregation across the D.C. area brought a glimpse of a Brandywine school’s evolving history to audience members at the Martin Luther King Jr. Public Library in Northwest Saturday afternoon.
Michael Streissguth’s “The Tower Road Bus” examined the struggles of integrating public schools in Prince George’s County, Maryland. In particular, the film focused on one school, Crestview Elementary, and its first Black principal, Dotson Burns Jr.
“I was curious about how they experienced integration, and I wanted to tell their story,” Streissguth said, adding that one of the film’s goals is highlighting the African American front-line experience.
In 1972, nearly 20 years after Brown v. Board of Education, 30,000 Black students had their lives uprooted overnight. At the time, a court order told Prince George’s County to stop dragging its feet, get students onto buses and integrate.
“Many communities reacted in different ways to this. Some quite vocally. Some quite angrily,” Streissguth said. “Many made sacrifices.”
Streissguth, who now lives in New York, grew up in the predominantly white Crestview neighborhood of Prince George’s County, Maryland. He also attended Crestview himself before it closed in 1982.
After the film screening, Streissguth participated in a panel discussion featuring an appearance from former Crestview principal Burns himself.
“You never reach totally what you were trying to accomplish, but you are always constantly working to that end,” Burns said, reflecting on his experience at the helm of Crestview.
Streissguth said the message he wanted people to take away from his film is one of thoughtfulness as society continues to work toward equality and break down barriers, even in 2023.
