The Intolerable Burden (documentary; 1 VHS tape).

Directed by Chea Prince. Produced by Constance Curry. A co-production of Public Domain, Inc., and the Center for the Study of Southern Culture. (Distributed by First Run/Icarus Films, Brooklyn, N.Y., 2002.56 minutes. $390.00.) In 1965 black Mississippi sharecroppers Mae Bertha and Matthew Carter enrolled eight of their thirteen children in white schools in the small town of Drew, Mississippi, in response to the freedom-of-choice plan created by the school board. The Carters were the first and remained the only black children in the white Drew system for the next five years. In three parts, titled "Segregation," "Desegregation," and "Resegregation," The Intolerable Burden traces the story of the Carters from their background in rural Mississippi, through the enrollment and experiences of the Carter children in the white school system, and into the resegregation that occurred after Drew schools were officially integrated. An epilogue, "Education or Incarceration," discusses life in Drew today, where predominately black-attended public schools struggle and an alarming number of black male dropouts are incarcerated in the nearby state penitentiary. The tale is told exclusively through interviews and primarily in the voices of the black and white residents of Drew, then and now. Interviewees include Mae Bertha Carter and a number of the Carter children, as well as several white students who attended public schools both before and after desegregation occurred. The Intolerable Burden is based in part on producer Constance Curry's book Silver Rights (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1995), and viewers are encouraged to consult that volume for further contextual information. The video is excellent for classroom use and effectively puts a human face on the sharecropping system and the complex experiences of segregation, desegregation, and white flight in the rural South.