Calhoun School, The Way to a Better Future

CALHOUN SCHOOL, THE WAY TO A BETTER FUTURE. (1940, silent, 1reel, b&w, 16mm) Sponsor/production Co.: Harmon Foundation. Camera: Kenneth F. Space. resources: Copyright not registered; EFC (1939), 81–82; Negro Year, 455. Holdings: nArA. Portrait of Calhoun School, founded in 1892, and its vocational work among rural African Americans of Lowndes County, Alabama. The film shows the living conditions of the poor and illustrates how the school makes a difference in health education, agriculture, and road construction. Mary McLeod Bethune, then-director of the Negro Affairs Division of the National Youth Administration, addresses graduates. Educational Film Catalog singled out Calhoun School’s “creative camera technique” and pronounced it a “deep and moving pano- rama of Negro life.” note: The film was part of the foundation’s Negro Education for American Living series.