A Place Out of Time – The Bordentown School
Region 1 (US & Canada only) DVD
The little-known story of the last all-Black, publicly funded, co-educational boarding school North of the Mason-Dixon Line. In segregated America, The Bordentown School was an educational utopia and cultural oasis for black citizens in the Northeast and beyond for more than 70 years. Founded in 1886, and forced to close in 1955 after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, the story of Bordentown is also the story of Black education in America across three centuries. Broadcast nationally on PBS in 2010, the film received the prestigious Christopher Award for television programs that affirm the highest values of the human spirit.
“You could listen to a lot of dry lectures by a lot of windy history professors and not learn as much about race issues a century after the Civil War as you do in A Place out of Time.”
“Builds a fine historical documentary into a larger issue – the price we paid for eliminating Black institutions when racial integration arrived in the mid-20th Century.”
Narrated by Ruby Dee
Directed by Dave Davidson
Produced by Dave Davidson and Amber Edwards
Run Time: 57 minutes
SCREENINGS: PBS National Broadcast, Newark Film Festival, and New Jersey Film Festival
Funded by The Prudential Foundation, The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, The NJ Historical Commission and The NJ Council for the Humanities