Southeast 67

A DC business man offers scholarship money to kids who finish high school in the midst of the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980's.

Devastated by the arrival of crack cocaine in the 1980s, Washington DC became known as the 'Murder Capital' of the country. Growing up at the epicenter of this violence - in southeast DC - 67 rising seventh graders were promised college scholarships by a wealthy area businessman. Southeast 67 focuses on the students' struggles to reconcile the dream of college with daily survival in a community rife with violence, poverty and addiction. Blowing up the simplistic bootstrap narrative of success, this feature-length documentary combines raw never-before-seen archival film footage and photographs, with present day footage and intimate interviews with the students, twenty years later, as they reflect on the hope and anguish of trying to seize an improbable dream.

Director

Betsy Cox

Writers

Betsy Cox