Enlarge Stacey Richards and Holly Welch Stubbing speak to a class at Philip O. Berry Academy.

Posted: February 19th, 2010 Greg Lacour

A new audience got to view the Crossroads Charlotte movie on Feb. 18, thanks to Teach For America.

The Charlotte branch of the national organization, which recruits college graduates to teach in schools with high numbers of at-risk students, held Teach For America Week in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. That meant 25 leaders from politics, business and education got to teach a class; Mayor Anthony Foxx, former Mayor Pat McCrory, U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan and the presidents or chancellors of area universities all took places in front of classrooms.   

On Feb. 18, Holly Welch Stubbing, a senior vice president at Foundation For The Carolinas, showed up at Phillip O. Berry Academy of Technology to teach 25 ninth-graders in Coury Shadyac’s English I class. Her springboard was “The Beat Goes On” and “Eye To Eye,” two of the four segments from the Crossroads Charlotte movie illustrating how Charlotte might look in 2015. 

"I thought it was a great illustration of the kind of community-building work the Foundation does,” Stubbing said. “These students are in the Class of 2013, and they’ll be right on the cusp of what we’re talking about.” 

The movie was designed to spur discussion among students who already had been talking about the Civil Rights Movement and the corrosive effects of discrimination on their lives.

Several said they could identify with the depictions of class barriers in the encounter between a white executive and an African-American cleaning lady, or in a Latino man’s efforts to start a recreation center for underprivileged young people.  

The students were shy at first but warmed up to the discussion. “I just think people should stop looking at each other according to what race they are,” said 15-year-old Ky’esha Newell. “Because it doesn’t really matter what you are. Everybody’s a person.”    

Nathaniel Deloatch, 14, said he’s friends with boys of different races, and he makes it a point to try to get to know kids who aren’t like him. Nathaniel also mentioned the film’s point about Charlotte being a relatively good place for African-Americans; he grew up in a public housing project in Roxbury, a mainly minority section of Boston where he said it’d be impossible for a poor black family to own a home.   

The ultimate point, though, related to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous directive about judging people not by the color of their skin but the content of their character. Prejudice keeps people from seeing each other as they truly are, said 14-year-old Shantrece Fludd. “You should get to know somebody first,” she said, “and then judge them.”   

The classroom was silent for a moment. Then students began laughing. “I mean,” Shantrece said, “not judge them, but... ."

Everyone knew what she meant. 

*****

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