"Between the Color Lines - The Children of Desegregation" began with the following post
on Class of 1981 alum Cameron Turner's FaceBook page:
"With all the mess going on in the news today around race
relations, I am more grateful than ever that I grew up in Pasadena in the
1970s. We had a unique opportunity to LIVE the beautiful truth of integration
and our generation knows first hand that understanding, harmony, friendship and
love can blossom among people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds if we
just all take the opportunity..."
In 1970 Pasadena Unified became the first school district outside of the South to have court ordered busing. The John Muir High
classes of 1981 and 1982 were part of only a few student bodies ('80 to '83) that went almost their
entire K-12 experience during this full mandatory desegregation. No other generation
before or since would be part of as racially diverse public education
system. In 2007 the US Supreme
Court ruled that school districts could never again assign children to schools
based on their race and public education student bodies have returned to almost pre civil rights era
racial segregation.
For many, desegregation was a "failed social experiment", through this feature documentary we hope to challenge those assumptions.
In the film, members of the JMHS class of 1981 and 1982 will be asked to remember their early elementary, junior and high school memories and whether they now value their “desegregated” education.
Other interviews will include the families of the almuni; parents, spouses and children. In addition academics, policy makers and media experts will give a full historical and cultural context to the situation surrounding the years of desegregation and it's impact on today's public education system.
"Between the Color Lines - The Children of Desegregation" captures the promise of desegregation in the voices of those that lived it, the children.
While examining the subject, producer/director/editor Pablo Miralles presented a short 9 min. film to the John Muir High Class of 1981's 30th reunion on July 30th, 2011. Please click the link below to view the film.
