KAUKAUNA — The Kaukauna Area School District will host a viewing of the documentary “The Exchange in White America: Kaukauna and King 50 Years Later” as a part of the 2023 Northeast Wisconsin Screening Tour.
This viewing is free and will take place at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 6, 2023, in the Kaukauna High School auditorium.
The documentary is the story of an exchange of Black and White high school students in Wisconsin.
Kaukauna & King Trailer from Don Hertz on Vimeo.
In 1966, during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, Thomas Schaffer an English teacher at Kaukauna High School, looking to perform the play “In White America” with KHS drama students, arranged a 13-student exchange between Kaukauna High School and Rufus King High School in Milwaukee.
The students lived in each other’s homes and presented a controversial play in each community.
In conjunction with the 50th anniversary of those historic performances, Joanne Williams, a television journalist from Milwaukee, began producing a documentary on the exchange.
Williams, then the host of “Black Nouveau” on Milwaukee Public Television, set out to find all the students and the people who helped in the exchange, to see what impact it had on them as high school students and who they have become 50 years later and look at their perspectives on race relations in America.
“I have covered news in Southeast Wisconsin for more than 40 years on WTMJ-TV and WITI-FOX6. During those years, this story has always been in the back of my mind and in the back of my files,” Williams said. Something told me, 50 years ago when I was a student at Rufus King High School, to hang onto an edition of the “King’s Page”, the student newspaper. Maybe I was a journalist even then, but I was definitely interested in history so the paper stayed tucked away in my box marked ‘high school stuff.”
The documentary also features the story of the revival of the play 50 years later by a new generation of high school students in the same schools and communities.
Those who attend will meet some of those students and learn what the exchange meant to their lives when they were teenagers, and what it means to them now.
For more information or to find other screenings happening in Northeast Wisconsin please check out the website: https://www.theexchange50.com/events
KAUKAUNA HIGH SCHOOL, AUDITORIUM
Monday, Feb. 6th | 6:30PM – 8PM
Screening followed by Q&A with Filmmaker Joanne Williams
LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY, WARCH CAMPUS CENTER CINEMA
Tuesday, Feb. 7th | 5PM – 8PM
Screening followed by Q&A with Filmmaker Joanne Williams
FOX CITIES PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, KIMBERLY-CLARK THEATER
Wednesday, Feb. 8th | 6:30PM – 8:30PM
Screening followed by Panel Discussion with Filmmaker Joanne Williams, Paula Vandhehey of Ayres, and Amy Xiong of Kaukauna High School.
AFRICAN HERITAGE INC. HOSTS THE 24TH ANNUAL FOX CITIES BLACK HISTORY PROGRAM, FOX VALLEY TECHNICAL COLLEGE
Saturday, Feb. 11th | 11AM – 2PM
Screening and Discussion with Filmmaker Joanne Williams + Free Soul Food Lunch.
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