We’re filmmakers whose home city of Newark, New Jersey has great potential but suffers from the devastating effects of intergenerational poverty. With a poverty rate near 30 percent, this means that over 80,000 Newarkers are suffering. Therefore, inner city schools, unlike their higher socioeconomic counterparts, are faced with difficult challenges that necessitate providing young people with the tools to counteract the environment of poverty in order for kids to attain maturity and educational success.
During a tour of our REVOLUTION '67 documentary film on the riots/rebellion in Newark in 1967 (PBS POV 2007), we were introduced to St. Benedict's Prep (SBP). In Newark, while the average high school graduation rate is low and the college graduation rate is abysmal at only 15%, SBP is the exception. At the time of our visit in 2010, SBP was a school for predominantly African American and Latino young men with a near 100 percent college acceptance rate and an 85% college graduation rate. SBP now has a Girls Prep Division, graduating young women.
We captured SBP in the second film in our 3Rs Trilogy on Newark. THE RULE documentary film (PBS 2014) profiled the school and the Benedictine monks of Newark Abbey to see how and why they achieve this success.
Making this film we learned that, for inner city youth, cognitive skills can be impeded by the dysfunctional environment caused by poverty. Inner city schools must then be committed to helping students overcome this potential dysfunction so that the process of education can begin. At SBP, this commitment includes protracted counseling as well as a year-round residence for the most vulnerable students.
While REVOLUTION '67 explored the root causes of civil uprising, THE RULE presented solutions for urban school reform, and the third in our 3Rs Trilogy of films on Urban America titled RUST (PBS 2021) focused on the history of Rust Belt cities like Newark and provided solutions to reduce poverty and racism.
Both REVOLUTION ’67 and THE RULE have free, companion, hands-on Curriculum Guides for High Schools, available at the links below. RUST’s CG is in progress.
In commemoration of Juneteenth, THE RULE and RUST are streaming on PBS for the entire month of June 2022 at the following links:
For more information or to provide feedback on our films, please email us, filmmakers Marylou & Jerome Bongiorno at: bongiornoproductions@gmail.com
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