The Greenbelt Cinema will host a screening and discussion of a documentary about school desegregation in Prince George’s County.

In honor of Black History Month, the movie theater formerly known as Old Greenbelt Theatre will show “The Tower Road Bus” on Thursday, February 29.

The documentary focuses on the school busing efforts that brought 20 Black students from Brandywine to integrate Crestview Elementary miles away in Clinton in the 1970s.

The court-ordered integrations led to violent anti-busing protests in the county and around the country. At Crestview, the effort was overseen by Dotson Burns, Jr., the first Black principal of the majority-White school.

“They definitely didn’t want us there, and we didn’t really want to be there,” one of the 20 students, Karmalita Contee, said in an interview last year.

The 2021 documentary, which won awards at several regional film festivals, was written and directed by Michael Streissguth, who was in the third grade at Crestview when the busing began.

Sponsored by Melanie Cantwell of Long & Foster Real Estate with support from the Greenbelt Elementary PTA, the screening will start at 7 p.m. on Feb. 29, followed by a discussion featuring a panel of guests who had experience with busing in Prince George’s County.

You can see a trailer for the documentary here.

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