MACON, Ga. — “Anytime anybody sees a child that looks forlorn, lost, scoop ‘em up. Ask questions later but love them first,” says north Minneapolis principal Mauri Melander Friestleben in the documentary “Love Them First.”
The film follows a school named for Macon native, Lucy Craft Laney.
Laney was an educator who in 1883 founded the first school for African American kids in Augusta, Georgia.
The “Love Them First” documentary will be shown locally at 6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 27, in the Professional Resource Center at SOAR Academy, 2011 Riverside Drive. The screening is open to the public.
Laney was the first black woman to be honored with her portrait in the Georgia state capitol in 1974 by then Gov. Jimmy Carter. She was selected alongside two black men — the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Rev. Henry McNeal Turner.
In the documentary, Friestleben gives a speech to her students about the importance of Laney’s legacy.
“She was amazingly persistent, she did not give up,” Friestleben. said “She refused to give up and that’s what we do here.”
The students at Lucy Laney at Cleveland Park Community School are in the lowest 5% of underperforming schools in the Minneapolis school system. The documentary shows the efforts Friestleben, the staff, students and parents put into turning things around. Friestleben said the love between her and the students is a two-way street.
“I’m not just filling their love bucket — they are filling mine,” she said.
The documentary is screening in Macon as a part of a collaborative reporting project on youth violence. 13WMAZ along with the Center for Collaborative Journalism, GPB Macon and Telegraph have been reporting for the past year on why youth violence happens, how it affects people, what interventions are proven to break the cycle, and what more can be done.
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