On April 5, 1968, the day after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, Riceville, Iowa schoolteacher Jane Elliott ran an amazing social experiment in her 3rd grade classroom. Her “Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes” exercise identified the kids “as inferior or superior based entirely upon the color of their eyes and exposes them to the experience of being a minority.” The exercise had a tremendous, and lasting, effect on those children and many others, and triggered Elliott’s long-lasting role as a an anti-racism activist and educator.

Above is a 1985 episode of Frontline about Elliott. Below is her look last week on The Tonight Show:.

Read More

Leave a Reply