College Park, MD.—National History Day® (NHD), the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), and the Smithsonian Learning Lab are pleased to announce the world premiere of 34 documentary films, to be featured in an online showcase. The films were produced by middle and high school students competing in the 2022 NHD National Contest and were screened and selected by NMAAHC staff. This year’s showcase is available for view from Monday, June 13 until Monday, June 27, 2022.
NHD students whose films were selected for the showcase grappled with topics consistent with the mission of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Their documentaries address topics of African or African American history, civil and human rights, and the experiences of historically underrepresented, marginalized, or subjugated peoples. These ten-minute films also reflect the 2022 NHD theme, Debate & Diplomacy in History: Successes, Failures, Consequences.
This year’s showcase will be exclusively available online through the Smithsonian Learning Lab allowing for a national audience to experience these student documentaries.
“During the last two years, we have all seen the dedication and perseverance of students who have adapted to extreme circumstances,” shares Executive Director Cathy Gorn. “Yet, we are heartened to see that they continue to excel and innovate, learning about the past through deep research and expressing their arguments in such meaningful ways. We are also very grateful that the National Museum of African American History and Culture has shared their time and resources to showcase the stellar work of these history students.”
The 34 student films will be available to stream online for one week via the Smithsonian Learning Lab from Monday, June 13 through next Monday, June 20.
The following films and students have been selected for this showcase:
Title: A. Philip Randolph and the March on Washington Movement
Student(s): Chase Baugh
Teacher(s): Katherine Reddy
School (City, State): Westwood High School (Mesa, Arizona)
Title: Acceptance Before Equality: Integration Through Service
Student(s): Owen Chen, Yuki Hashimoto, Midas Huang, Jimmy Song
Teacher(s): Nicole Last
School (City, State): Shanghai SMIC Private School (Shanghai, China)
Title: Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher: Taking Legal Action against Segregation
Student(s): Neha Kale
Teacher(s): Amanda Freeman
School (City, State): Classen Middle School of Advanced Studies (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma)
Title: Bebop Over Bullets: Musical Relief in the Cold War Debate
Student(s): Kate Fu, Dora Hu, Pipere Lim
Teacher(s): Matthew Elms
School (City, State): Singapore American School (Singapore)
Title: Changing the United States through Debate: The Story of Yick Wo v. Hopkins
Student(s): Ryan Tehrani, Ryan Zhou
Teacher(s): Danelle Brennan
School (City, State): Howard High School (Ellicott City, Maryland)
Title: The Children’s March: How the Children of Birmingham Paved the Way for Debate and Diplomacy
Student(s): Nicholas Bryner
Teacher(s): Christopher Sweeney
School (City, State): Carbon High School (Price, Utah)
Title: Chiune Sugihara, a Diplomat of Conscience: Debating and Defining True Diplomatic Success
Student(s): Ethan Kwak
Teacher(s): Matthew Elms
School (City, State): Singapore American School (Singapore)
Title: Clay v. United States, A Debate over Conscientious Objection and its Effects on Vietnam-era and Post-Cold War American Force Diplomacy
Student(s): Gabriel Brock
Teacher(s): Diztorsha Lavan
School (City, State): Goose Creek Memorial High School (Baytown, Texas)
Title: D18: The Community Under the Highway
Student(s): Victoria Carter, Elijah Wright
Teacher(s): Andrew Tucker
School (City, State): Northside Middle School (Columbus, Indiana)
Title: The Debate Behind Japanese Internment
Student(s): Elizabeth Blackburn
Teacher(s): Christopher Sweeney
School (City, State): Carbon High School (Price, Utah)
Title: Deliberation and Negotiation: La Lucha Para Independencia de Puerto Rico
Student(s): Caleb Ferguson
Teacher(s): Mary Joslin
School (City, State): Alma High School (Alma, Arkansas)
Title: A Diplomat for a New Generation: Madeleine Albright
Student(s): Keira Krishnaiah, Emma Taylor
Teacher(s): Anna Royal
School (City, State): Summit Middle Charter School (Boulder, Colorado)
Title: The Diplomatic Style of Andrew Young
Student(s): Temple Lester
Teacher(s): Sally Stanhope
School (City, State): Chamblee Charter High School (Chamblee, Georgia)
Title: Dissenting Opinion: The Question of Race in the Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Absence of African-American Voices in the Debate
Student(s): Grant Burthey, Dermott Foley
Teacher(s): Ryan Flynn
School (City, State): Eastern Middle School (Silver Spring, Maryland)
Title: Equal Justice Under Law
Student(s): Chloe Cho
Teacher(s): Nick Kaschub
School (City, State): Daegu International School (Daegu, South Korea)
Title: Jazz Diplomacy: America’s Musical Stand Against Communism
Student(s): Nitin Balajikannan, Sushanth Balaraman, Rohit Karthickeyan, Pranav Kurra
Teacher(s): Wendy Hurwitz-Kushner
School (City, State): John P. Stevens High School (Edison, New Jersey)
Title: Jazz Dissonance: Examining the Irony of the State Department’s Cold War Diplomacy During the Civil Rights Era
Student(s): Louis Auxenfans, William Tan, Serena Cherian Thomas
Teacher(s): Cynthia Jurisson
School (City, State): University of Chicago Laboratory Schools High School (Chicago, Illinois)
Title: John Brown’s Death and How It Caused the End of Slavery
Student(s): Nathan Arens
Teacher(s): Marta Benson
School (City, State): Roosevelt High School (Sioux Falls, South Dakota)
Title: Larry Kimura: The Pioneer That Revived ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi Through Radio
Student(s): Kailani McLain, Mālie Nee
Teacher(s): Sarah Razee
School (City, State): Kamehameha Schools – Kapālama Campus (Honolulu, Hawaiʻi)
Title: Little Rock Nine
Student(s): Anna Moeller
Teacher(s): Melissa Shrago
School (City, State): Lewis and Clark Middle School (Omaha, Nebraska)
Title: Loving v. Virginia: The Debate Over the Definition of Love
Student(s): Aryana Adur
Teacher(s): Michelle Vevante
School (City, State): Jericho Middle School (Jericho, New York)
Title: Moon Dust and Black Disgust: The Forgotten Opposition to the Apollo Space Program
Student(s): Shaurya Gumma, Devanshu Shah, Mukund Sidharth Shiva
Teacher(s): Patti Cwodzinski
School (City, State): Central Middle School (Eden Prairie, Minnesota)
Title: Negotiating the Ballot
Student(s): Aysha Still
Teacher(s): David Wheeler
School (City, State): North Central High School (Indianapolis, Indiana)
Title: Nelson Mandela: The Diplomat Who Put an End to Apartheid
Student(s): Molly Budhiraja
Teacher(s): Andrew Estes
School (City, State): BASIS Peoria (Peoria, Arizona)
Title: The Pacific Northwest Fish Wars: Resolving Debates, Reestablishing Treaty Rights
Student(s): Daniel Park
Teacher(s): Lauren Miley
School (City, State): Cypress Creek Middle School (Wesley Chapel, Florida)
Title: Protecting Its Sovereignty: The Legacy of Ethiopia
Student(s): Sunmit Hallur, Michael Makhoul
Teacher(s): Andrew Estes
School (City, State): BASIS Peoria (Peoria, Arizona)
Title: Raising Voices of Diplomacy: The First Tour of the Fisk Jubilee Singers
Student(s): Eden Jones, Hazel Wheeler
Teacher(s): James Romrell
School (City, State): Lakeridge Junior High School (Orem, Utah)
Title: Redlining, Restrictive Covenants, Fair Housing in Milwaukee: Progression or Regression?
Student(s): Veer Gokhale, Carson Tauscher
Teacher(s): Chuck Taft
School (City, State): University School of Milwaukee (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
Title: Restoration of a Place of Worship: The Return of Taos Blue Lake
Student(s): Mikaela Johnson
Teacher(s): Claudie Thompson, Lee Wilson
School (City, State): Silver High School (Silver City, New Mexico)
Title: The Spirit of Civil Rights, Fannie Lou Hamer’s Quest for Voting Rights
Student(s): Emma Hernandez, Mirayah White
Teacher(s): Ed Glassman, Leni Arnett
School (City, State): Denver School of The Arts (Denver, Colorado)
Title: The Story of Acceptance Without Exception: The Stonewall Riots’ Effect on the Gay Rights Movement
Student(s): Iniya Kumar
Teacher(s): Erika Berger
School (City, State): Boulan Park Middle School (Troy, Michigan)
Title: Successes and Failures of La Raza Unida Party in the United States
Student(s): Daniella Lopez
Teacher(s): Colton Fairchild
School (City, State): Thomas Edison Charter School North (North Logan, Utah)
Title: “Tell me and I may forget; show me and I may not remember; involve me and I will understand.” The Story of the Osage: a Documentary
Student(s): Melissa Fairbanks, Reegan Mckee, Nathan Schoenfelder, Peyton Small
Teacher(s): Val Philips, Joni Noble
School (City, State): Akron Westfield Middle School (Akron, Iowa)
Title: The Tuskegee Airmen: Debates Surrounding the Integration of the US Military
Student(s): Cecilia Ford
Teacher(s): Christopher Weaver
School (City, State): Porter Gaud School (Charleston, South Carolina)
About National History Day® (NHD)
NHD is a non-profit organization based in College Park, Maryland, which seeks to improve the teaching and learning of history. The National History Day Contest was established in 1974 and currently engages more than half a million students every year in conducting original research on historical topics of interest. Students present their research as a documentary, exhibit, paper, performance, or website. Projects compete first at the local and affiliate levels, where the top entries are invited to the National Contest at the University of Maryland at College Park. NHD is sponsored in part by HISTORY®, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Park Service, Southwest Airlines, The Better Angels Society, Jacqueline B. Mars, and BBVA. For more information, visit nhd.org.
About the National Museum of African American History and Culture
Since opening Sept. 24, 2016, the National Museum of African American History and Culture has welcomed more than 7.5 million in-person visitors and millions more through its digital presence. Occupying a prominent location next to the Washington Monument on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the nearly 400,000-square-foot museum is the nation’s largest and most comprehensive cultural destination devoted exclusively to exploring, documenting and showcasing the African American story and its impact on American and world history. For more information about the museum, visit nmaahc.si.edu follow @NMAAHC on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram or call Smithsonian information at (202) 633-1000.
About Smithsonian Learning Lab
The Smithsonian Learning Lab is a free, interactive platform for discovering millions of authentic digital resources from across the Smithsonian’s museums, research centers, libraries, archives and more. The site allows teachers and students to create and adapt personalized interactive instructional materials with online tools and share in the Smithsonian’s expansive community of knowledge and learning. Prepackaged collections contain lessons, activities and recommended resources made by Smithsonian museum educators and thousands of classroom teachers across the country. For more information about the Smithsonian Learning Lab, visit learninglab.si.edu, follow @SmithsonianLab on Twitter, or email learninglab@si.edu.
