The Tower Road Bus

The plot

Fifty years after the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of busing children to achieve racial integration in schools, The Tower Road Bus revisits the unresolved stories of African-American students and educators thrust into all-white schools during the 1970s.

Against the backdrop of violent anti-busing protests across the nation, Dotson Burns, Jr, a child of Jim Crow-ridden Fort Worth, Texas, lands on the frontlines of school integration, first as a teacher and then as the first Black principal of a majority-white school in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Mindful of the eyes of white parents and the suspicions of Black students and families, he must oversee the busing of frustrated Black students from the historically-Black community of Tower Road to the mostly white Crestview Elementary School.

While debates over racial justice and equity reach a boil in 2021, The Tower Road Bus brings Burns, his teachers and students, and the audience face to face with the ambitious yet controversial integration measures that seized the national agenda 50 years ago and continue to mold our conversation around equity.

• Age Rating General (12 and under)
• Running time 01:07:28 mins



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