Waverly Fami­lies,

We are excited to announce our part­ner­ship with Walden School to screen the docu­men­tary Fergu­son Rises. The film covers the events surround­ing the death of Michael Brown, Jr. and the national move­ment to address police brutal­ity that emerged as a result. In partic­u­lar, the film engages the work on Fergu­son resi­dents to trans­form their rela­tion­ship to law enforce­ment and addresses the start of Black Lives Matter. The event will feature a Q&A with the film­maker, Mobo­laji Olam­bi­wonnu, and Michael Brown, Sr.

This screen­ing will be Tuesday, March 14, at 7:00 p.m. at Walden School (74 S. San Gabriel Blvd., Pasadena) in the Toby Hayward Commu­nity Room. We will have 75 tickets avail­able, and the event is open to all fami­lies, but seating is limited! Each family can only receive a maximum of 3 tickets in order to allow for the broad­est possi­ble atten­dance. If you plan to attend, please click the RSVP link in the March 3, 2023, Waverly Weekly News.

Looking forward to seeing some of you there. Feel free to reach out to me or Marsille Reed with ques­tions or concerns. 

In Commu­nity,

Clarke Weath­er­spoon
Head of School

About Fergu­son Rises:

Before the explo­sive global upris­ing condemn­ing the murder of George Floyd, there was a small town in Missouri that erupted in protest after the August 9, 2014, killing of unarmed Black teen Michael Brown, Jr. by a white police officer. It was this small town and its people that propelled Black Lives Matter to inter­na­tional promi­nence and inspired a new global civil rights movement.

Fergu­son Rises looks deeply into the after­math and protests. It also high­lights the diverse voices of commu­nity members: from resi­dents to police offi­cers, to busi­ness owners and those who chose to say ​“enough is enough” by taking to the streets for a record 400 days straight. These varied perspec­tives are inter­wo­ven with a rarely seen portrayal of a Black father’s grief, to help us under­stand the human side of this tragedy and to give us an inti­mate view of what it means to be a Black man in America. Direc­tor Mobo­laji Olam­bi­wonnu shows us the indomitable nature of the human spirit and how people can take some­thing so tragic and build some­thing beau­ti­ful around it.