The day after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, assassination in 1968, Iowa schoolteacher Jane Elliott conducted a classroom exercise on discrimination called “Blue Eyes / Brown Eyes,” in which she separated the group by eye color, giving one group special privileges one day and the other the next. That lesson catapulted her into the national spotlight as a voice against racism. Nearly 60 years later, filmmaker Judd Ehrlich reintroduces us to Elliott and her continued relevancy in his documentary Jane Elliott Against the World.
The film will be screened at The Lexington Venue on Monday, September 14. Katie O’Hare Gibson will moderate a Lyceum Conversation following the film.
Janel Showalter of the Lexington Lyceum spoke with director Judd Ehrlich about why he chose to feature Jane Elliott.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Showalter: I’ve read that you first reached out to Jane Elliott after George Floyd’s murder in 2020. What was it that called Jane to mind in that moment?
Ehrlich: In summer 2020, white people in this country were really thinking hard about what they knew and didn’t know about race and racism and what they took for granted. Jane’s videos started resurfacing in my feed. I can’t think of that many white people who have been talking about these issues so consistently for so long to other white people.
[Jane] was not only dealing with core issues, but she’s also a unique figure because of who she is, where she’s from, what she believes, and how she’s been committed to that vision for so long. She is funny, she’s engaging, she says what she thinks, and she says what she means.
Showalter: As you gathered material about Jane, how did you identify the themes that you wanted to highlight? Did those change as you worked on the film?
Ehrlich: With documentaries you go in with certain ideas, and you need to make a good plan. Then you need to be flexible because all of those plans are going to change. I knew how active Jane was at that point in her late 80s. I felt the film shouldn’t be a biopic that just looks at Jane in the past because Jane is so of the moment.
I didn’t know that Jane helping fight Christian nationalists on the Temecula, CA, school board would be our current-day story, but I knew I wanted a current story.
I also thought, “Wow, I wonder what it would be like to have Jane Elliott as a mom.” I wanted to understand the impact on her family. It took a lot of convincing and trust-building to get her daughters to agree to be in the film. I am very grateful that they did have trust in the process.
Showalter: The personal cost that Jane and her family paid for her work and its impact on her children is a very strong thread throughout the film. Do you think, looking back, she thinks the cost was worth it?
Ehrlich: We explore that very question in the film, and I don’t want to give the answer away. Ultimately, I wanted to be honest about these issues because I think it’s part of why people don’t do more—because there is a cost.
There is a risk to your job, to your family, to your comfort. Jane has never valued that comfort in the same way that a lot of people do. She can say, “If I see something that’s not right, that’s not just in the world, no matter what the cost, no matter what the consequence to my personal life, I’m going to do what’s right.”
Showalter: How would you define the impact her Blue Eyes / Brown Eyes exercise had on American culture?
Ehrlich: The power of the exercise and the meaning behind it continue to ripple out. She has ardent supporters and detractors as well. But I think that may be part of the success.
If something doesn’t hit a nerve, you might not really be attacking the problem. Her approach to the exercise can be quite confrontational, quite in-your-face. I think Jane understands that people often need [that approach] to break out of patterns and systems that we’re born into and take for granted.
Showalter: In the film, rapper and activist Michael Santiago Render (aka Killer Mike) describes Jane as a mentor and one of the most optimistic people that he knows. Do you think she is optimistic?
Ehrlich: I absolutely do because I think to get up every day and do the work that Jane does, at the core of that is a belief that people can change.
She knows that hate and discrimination are learned and can be unlearned. You have to have optimism and faith in humanity to believe in that. Optimism may not be the first thing that you think of with Jane, but at her core—and I think this is true of a lot of activists and a lot of people who dedicate their life to causes—there is a fundamental optimism.
Showalter: Near the end of the film, Jane asks the crew, “What did you learn?” So, what did you learn from Jane Elliott?
Ehrlich: It was this overarching feeling of being in the presence of somebody who lives life with purpose, and courage, and determination. She’s identified issues that, if we can begin to address them, will better this country and better humanity and better the world. It is so much bigger than the Blue Eyes / Brown Eyes exercise. It is a way of being and a way of living and never giving up—always, always, always continuing to move forward.
This screening and discussion of Jane Elliott Against the World is cosponsored by the Lexington Lyceum, Lexington Observer, Lexington Human Rights Committee, Dismantling Racism in Our Town, MLK Day of Service, Association of Black Citizens of Lexington, First Parish Racial Justice Team, Follen Church Racial & Economic Justice Group, and Hancock United Church of Christ.
Jane Elliott Against the World, September 14, 7-9:15 p.m. at The Venue. Reserve your tickets.